So I was updating my Facebook page...

"There is no such thing as an ignorant writer."

I posted my infantile thought on the website and moved back to my developing interest of Jungian Philosophy when one of my classmates had posted that he had never heard me say something so stupid before. Upon inquiring what he meant, he stated:

"Its ignorace in itself to state there is no such thing as an ignorant writer."

It then occurred to me that he had used the finality in my statement to suggest an ignorance in my own statement. A barrage of similarly stated quotes from my freshmen year in high school came back, and i found myself chuckling at my obvious oversight-- we had two completely different definitions of the obligations of the writers and the frivolity of all others.

But, this understanding came to me after I sought to explain myself. It was actually quite simple: it occurred that not everyone who writes a book is a writer, neither did one need to write a book in order to be considered a writer. I didn't have to think long, but it was obvious that writers--good, impacting ones, anyway, had to take their characters, their towns, their customs, and their sciences and learn them better than anyone else. They had to be able to explain the mechanics of magics, relay the history of a city, tell the customs of their world, and conjure an imaginary being to the readers all in a way that the reader can understand and accept.  Some do this through fantasy; others, through science fiction. Still, all writers must synthesize all this with the public. They must craft a tale, as intimate, or as expansive as it may be, to the human mind or soul.

This task cannot be accomplished with the chains of ignorance. With ignorance, I do not mean the lack of omnipotence in this world, but the impudence of assuming that there is a universality to their understandings or their beliefs of the subject which they choose to write about. They cannot be so blind, or they will fail their characters, their world, and themselves. Writers who pay no attention to these laws cannot call themselves writers; they are technicians of fictional uniform, with no true merit to their name. Those types of individuals--the novelists, the screenwriter, the playwright,-- will never be writers until they graduate from their infantile devotion to "structure" in art. Writers, by nature, are also philosophers-- that's what sets them apart. If you philosophize about nothing, then you have nothing, for your art will say nothing.

Stay Extraordinary

When I go to see movies, I want to leave with a new perspective. I often do not spend eleven dollars to go see something that looks like your run-of-the-mill, cookie-cutter production of a comedy, action flick, or drama. When I saw the social network, I was expecting to see something that would fulfill the outlandish claims of being a "cultural touchstone", or a "once-in-a-generation" type of film.

When I watched the film, the writing was the first thing that blew me away. The first five minutes, and I knew it was going to be something extraordinary. From then on in, it continued to pull me through this engaging, twisted world of the brilliant minds, however, underlying some of the same issues that had plagued my mind and character. It occurred to me, however, that there was this driving force behind it all-- and that motivation was a motivation that was specific to the character-- a passion, although selfish, germinated a potential that later moved past that and into this cultural phenomenon.

I found all of this to be a very helpful reminder because I have been looking to understand what is it that drove me so hard in my later years of high school, and yet has left me here in Community College. I don't think that it was simply the desire to be successful, for that has never truly motivated me in any sense. "For the good of the world" and any other ideals along those lines that I try to think up to motivate me sound less sincere than the desire to be successful. I believe that the only thing that could really motivate me is competition and audition: can I really prove that I'm better than my competitor? Can I really prove that you have no business telling me I'm not good enough for you? Do I have any business thinking that I'm able to prove you wrong?

That's something that definitely gets my blood pumping, and it's a great place to start. I need something that will keep up my drive, because I'm good and capable, and I'm not going to let any piece of paper, condescending stare, or patronizing tone tell me otherwise. I'm more than good enough-- I'm extraordinary. And it's time for all of us to find out what extraordinary looks like.

I....

I want to be the smartest. I want to be the best. I want to be the most fluid. I want to be the exception.

The exception...but, in what way? What is it that i desire? I want my life to turn tides of history, my accomplishments flabbergasting. I want people to look at my name in reverence. I wan to be seen as invaluable. I want, not simply to create, but to recreate, to redefine, to change what was thought before. I want to be like the writers of old... my works revolutionary and worth studying.

I want to be the best. I want to be happy.

I want... to be everything. I still want that. I want to bring about a glorious revolution... but I only want to play my role to the best of my ability. To please God, and to be loved by him...always.

And his love won't run out... He's mine forever. I am my beloved, and my beloved is mine.

Not So Bitter After All

As I think of what to say after eleven days, an image fills my head. One that first struck me as pleasing, then slightly embarrassing. I am in God's arms. Not like an embrace, but like the hero after the battle takes his wounded friend into his arms and carries him home. It isn't very vivid. Few of them are anymore, save nightmares... but it's there, and I felt a sliver of restful peace. 

Maybe it is too soon for me to say anything like this... but there might be hope for me still. Please don't give up on me, God. Don't ever let me go.

Dinah Washington Must've Known...

Please click on this sentence before reading.

As I drove down the highway leading to the train tracks, I took note of the familiar depression upon my chest, hanging heavy like a lock and chain around the neck and heart. I rode on automatic, my mind lost in self-examination, mere centimeters away from the distorted mirror of self-reflection. Every breath, every blink, every thought was leaden with a debilitating hopelessness. "What am I doing? What have I done? What can I do? How can I decide?" The words slump about me in a heap, lying like masonry for a brick cell, and I have all but ignored its presence, when it may be too late for me to climb out.

Today I spent an extended amount of time with other Christians. I do not mean to say like people who are related to pastor or individuals who take them to church each Sunday, but people who believed that their way was the only way, who referred to the Bible constantly and put it above all other text. There is no room for common ground with others who didn't share their views, as per the bible. I spent time with them today. 

The loneliness was so isolating. At points in their conversations with one another, I simply plugged in my headphones and tried drown out the dealings with the ejection of church members.

Perhaps I am like Damocles--This may be the price that I pay for such pursuits of knowledge. My desired peers seem so far from me, and I can no longer speak their language or sing with such conviction. Yet, it is, in essence, the very seat I sought to have the privilege to sit in. Maybe it would be better not to seek knowledge. Maybe it would be better to simply blindly obey, to forget, to regress to a state of infantile belief. However, that which is known, cannot be unknown. The pursuit of knowledge cannot be so easily abandoned, for it may be even harder to kill than hope itself: the desire for truth may be the force that has driven humanity for all the accomplishments and progress it has been accredited.

In truth, even if I could simply wipe the desire for proof, for knowledge, for logical understandings, I would still be left with the bereft discontent with the remainder. How could I ever believe in you, God? How could I bring myself to believe that I could survive the peelings of something that was fused to me like gauze being peeled back after surviving being burned alive? The pain feels almost the same...

Maybe I've been a fool to believe in anything like morality. Maybe, I should just let go of any and all notions of love, kindness, joyfulness, goodness, peace, and happiness. Perhaps these were nothing more than fairy tales, and I am outgrowing them. Perhaps I am on the right path in deadening myself to any emotional contact to family and friends, and would instead turn into a stone-heart being, knowing not mercy or compassion from any, only manipulation.

On the way home, riding down the highway to the train tracks, my gaze turn towards the open window, and I spied the sentinel mountains watching from a distance. The radio played a song I knew well. I would've felt the lyrics months ago... but now, all I can tell myself is. 

"It's only rhetoric. There is no spiritual power in it. There's now spiritual power in anything."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueP05bkWVvQ 

Glee and Religion

I don't have a lot of time to post. I have to study for my midterm tomorrow, so this will be very brief.

I was moderately anticipating this week's episode of the television show of Glee because I was quite interested in there take on religion. The previous two weeks have been a little less than satisfactory in my opinion, and I was very much looking forward to some serious character development and drama, along with the wit that I so missed the year before. I decided that it would be this episode that would either continue or discontinue my viewership with the program.

My verdict: Worth watching.

I was concerned that the editing of the show had become lazy over the year, and that there were more than a couple of spots where they just threw songs into to fill for time, but the issue that provided the crux of the episode had gripped me again, and I've been waiting for that feeling again.

While I can't say that the episode was spectacular, I do believe that there is, in fact, a return of story for us gleeks to watch with anticipation. Looking forward to next week's episode!

Love and Hope....and the Disciplining of Thoughts.

Hello, all!

I realize it has been a bit of a while, not writing here with you, but I have been wrestling with a matter of the soul and God. (When am I not, right?)

My manners have somewhat regressed of late. I have come across behaviors and opinions of others and myself that I have not seen since middle school. In middle school. I didn't know God. Not as I know him now, or even four years ago. To see myself to regard others even remotely as i did before then, makes me worry. I suppose it is because of the way I've been looking at God a lot. I have resurrected some of my old resentment for Christians. I'm just taking it out on them.That is very childish of me.

But all is not lost. With every ebb, there is a flow. I have felt a pressing around me--that's the odd thing about it. When a constant ebbs away, it starts internally, then makes its way into the outside world, and it from the outside world that I noticed it flows back from the outside to, affecting, persistent, making its way back into my good graces, arousing feelings an sentiments that I thought time had laid to rest.

Feelings of genuine concern have crossed my path once more. I comforted a friend who was so frustrated with Christianity, and was able to quiet her cries, and even prayed for her, when I was reluctant to pray for myself. It was therapeutic for myself, as well.

It's odd... some of my most helpful moments were when I believed in one thing: the person in front of me needs to know that life gets better. The person in front of me needs to know that my hands are open, but so are my shoulders and my ears and eyes and heart and mind. I had a clear head because I had a clear objective. That doesn't happen naturally. My thoughts did, and do, need a form of discipline. Now with that word, I must clarify that I'm not talking about the cutting of imagination, or the flights of fancy, but, when dealing with people, and myself, I must have a hope in my actions. I must have a joy in my thoughts. I must believe in the possibilities of Love.