Quote

Many Theresas have been born who found for themselves no epic life wherein there was a constant unfolding of far-resonant action; perhaps only a life of mistakes, the offspring of a certain spiritual grandeur ill-matched with the meanness of opportunity; perhaps a tragic failure which found no sacred poet and sank unwept into oblivion.  With dim lights and tangled circumstance they tried to shape their thought and deed into noble agreement; but after all, to common eyes their struggles seemed mere inconsistency and formlessness; for these later-born Theresas were helped by no coherent social faith and order which could perform the function of knowledge for the ardently willing soul.  Their ardour alternated between a vague ideal and the common yearning of womanhood; so that the one was disapproved as extravagance, and the other condemned as a lapse.

George Eliot, Middlemarch, Prelude

Music; or, A Soundtrack of Thoughts

Music.

 I am not a die hard fan.  I used to be. I used to know all [ahem, okay, a lot of anyway] the ‘up and coming’ artists.  I used to be one of those people with an IPOD forever sticking out of their pocket and a white cord attached to an ear.  If you wanted to talk to me, you had to do so loud enough to make yourself heard over the background soundtrack that I refused to turn off. 

IPODS break.  Things get busy.  Charging units hide themselves around the house and in the bottom of a car’s center console.

 I haven’t had music keeping me company for quite some time.  In the car, yes, but with a sound system that is forever on the fritz – that’s iffy.

So I go about listening to the only thing I have left.  My thoughts.  They have stepped up to the plate, magnificently, to fill the void left by music.  They question, confuse, muddle, ponder.  They SEEM to have their own agency but the ultimate goal of such a plan (scheem..) is something I am utterly in the dark about.  I listen.  People still have to talk loud enough to get through the background soundtrack – there is just a lack of melody these days.

 Today I woke up feeling a bit ‘off’.  In the head that is.  Probably due to a series of consecutive late nights studying and writing for exams/papers etc.

Sitting at my computer, working from home mind you, I had the bright idea to minimise my tasks for the day and go in search of a long lost ITUNES application.  Found it. Picked a song at random. [Put it on repeat because this is just something I DO - always have, and yes it annoys everyone but me].

Now I am sitting here with a long forgotten friend.  It’s this somewhat glazed, far away look in my eyes.  It’s not sadness – far from it – just this distancing from myself.  Not really escaping my head – but looking at it without the ‘ZOOM’ turned all the way up.

So now I wonder if I will make the effort to find that pesky little device…

Something Out of Nothing

I am sitting here staring at this blank page, WANTING to write something.  Nothing. I look over at the “Categories” column and the the word ‘inspiration’ that I put there at some time or another.  That’s it.  That’s what I feel like I don’t have.  Not that I am really complaining, it’s just that I only truly feel inspired to write when I am distraught over something – anything really.  Why is this?  Why can’t I WANT to write about the good times, the light-hearted, happy-go-lucky times?  Their banality is overwhelming.  Who the hell cares?

It’s this ironic?  I’m willing to bet that a large majority of us are tired of reading the same old complaining, irritable blogs – yet the only thing we write on is that which attempts to incite some pathos or another.

When my day goes without a major hitch I avoid my blog.  I don’t want to face it because in someway I have not experienced some blog worthy, traumatic, or contemplative event.  If I’m not distraught about something, how the hell can I write anything meaningful? <–How can I think this?  Whats wrong with the pleasant, day to day experiences?  If you think it’s their frequent appearance that makes me shy away from them, think again.  More often then not I can – FIND – something to complain about. [This search is not a conscious, purposeful endeavor yet I inevitably find something nonetheless.]

It is as if my nature is a brooder – a melancholy dweller on the trivial - and I can not accept the persona of someone who can just BE.  It’s the ’Oh wait, I happen to be in a good mood? Give me a second and I will come up with something that is bugging me’ idea.  How pathetic.

An Endless Production

So I sit here mindlessly waisting time as I push the ’scroll-to-the-next-random-blog-button’ over and over again. Why? Probably because I have a ton to read by tomorrow and an essay I really should be working on.  What’s driving me nuts right now is not the reading or the essay.  Well, I guess it is the reading – the blog reading – that’s getting to me.  As I click from one site to the next I am searching for something – anything really.  I just want to read something that is a part of the person who wrote it.  I want to read some insightful observation or a blatant honesty that will remind me of the vulnerability of the AA meetings I used to attend.  I want to read something that will make the day feel real.  Apparently, this will not be happening.  It feels like I am reading the same nonsense – or sense rather – over and over again.  Give me pain and struggle – but not of the everyday variety.  Give me something that hurts and feels real. 

 Have you ever had that moment when you are in a phone conversation, telling the other person something, and you realize that the responses you are getting are fake?  Filler or auto responses.  You hear the ‘un-huh’, ‘oh yeah…’, ’sure’s’.  Suddenly you realize that it all is a sort of production.  Your telling them something – their listening.  Why?  As I read through random blogs it is gradually dawning on me that they are all essentially the same.  Filler or auto blogs.  People writing because they haven’t said anything for a few days and they feel obligated to do so.  I guess this is okay, who am I to judge?  It just doesn’t make anything feel real…

A Quoter at Heart

I am a quoter.  Have always been and will, in all probability, always be.

 It doesn’t seem to matter what I happen to be reading, I will find passages that stick out so strongly I feel compelled to copy them down. Why do I do this? I’m not exactly sure – I don’t want to forget them but that’s not the whole of it.  It is as if they hold some key. Some deep meaning that I will need to be reminded of at a later point.  – - – Well, that sounds a bit confusing.  I suppose I have no precise idea why I am driven to copy them down.  Mind you this is always in my own scribbled hand – never typed. 

The result? My life has become inundated by tiny scraps of paper bearing interesting insights, philosophies, perspectives, and revelations of others. [No, no, a list would be too simple...] My life is so infiltrated in fact, by these jotted down glints on life itself, that they are rarely, if ever, revisited.  I have no distinguished place for them so they tend to travel with me – tucked into the bottom of my jean’s pocket, disintegrating in the depths of my purse, populating the pages of my organizer as I try to mark some relevant date or another.

All in all, they tend to stick around with me until their ink fades and becomes illegible, or they become indistinguishable from the various scraps of trash that also surround me - receipts and the like – that I eventually throw them out.