The Four Loves

I'm reading C.S. Lewis again. You all know what's coming.
I can't sleep tonight because I had a lot of coffee around suppertime, so I'm filling up some time till I get sleepy.
I'm only on the first chapter of this Four Loves book, and already I feel this peculiar rush as I read each sentence. It's like every sentence satisfies some violent thirst I didn't know I had, or that had arisen at the previous punctuation.
I'm going to put in a piece I found particularly refreshing. (Edited to preserve coherence.)

For some people, perhaps especially for Englishmen and Russians, what we call "love of nature" is a permanent and serious sentiment. I mean here that love of nature which cannot be adequately classified simply as an instance of our love for beauty. Of course many natural objects - trees, flowers and animals - are beautiful. But the nature-lovers whom I have in mind are not very much concerned with individual beautiful objects of that sort. Nor are they looking for "views" or landscapes. While you are busying yourself with that critical and discriminating activity you lose out on what really matters - the "moods of time and season", the "spirit" of the place.

It is the "moods" or the "spirit" that matter. Nature-lovers want to receive as fully as possible whatever nature, at each particular time and place, is saying. The obvious richness, grace and harmony of some scenes are no more precious than the grimness, bleakness, terror, monotony, or "visionary dreariness" of others. The featureless itself gets from them a willing response. It is one more word uttered by nature.They lay themselves bare to the sheer quality of every countryside every hour of the day. They want to absorb it into themselves, to be coloured through and through by it.

If you take nature as a teacher she will teach you exactly the lessons you had already decided to learn; this is only another way of saying that nature does not teach. The tendency to take her as a teacher is obviously very easily grafted on to the experience we call "love of nature". But it is only a graft. While we are actually subjected to them, the "moods" and "spirits" of nature point no morals. Overwhelming gaiety, insupportable grandeur, sombre desolation are flung at you. Make what you can of them, if you must make at all. The only imperative that nature utters is "Look. Listen. Attend."

I won't go on and on about this writer any more. These sensations do not have suitable adjectives.

Some Songs

They make me feel happy when I'm not happy! Maybe they will help some other people, too.

Cravings

There's a lot of things I want to do in life. I know that I have to pick one and stick with it, and I am happy with my decision to this point, but conversations today made me wish that I could choose other things, too.

Talking to the Faheys today about their organic farming aspirations made me wish I could move with them and just live on a farm forever and be happy with "the simple life".

Talking to Peter made me wish I wasn't designed for a life of single-ness. It also made me wish that I really was a purely logical being.

Talking to Heather made me wish I could get along with Christian people better. I am just altogether too much of a jerk to be let loose in a Bible study for people my own age. That being said, it looks like next Sunday I will be let loose in a Bible study of people my own age. Stay tuned for gory details, heh.

It's not that I'm very unhappy with myself, it's just that the alternative seems like a lot of fun sometimes. Living on a farm with a husband and a few friends in range feels attractive right now. I know that it's not who I am though. That is not what I'm made for. I'm made for Africa, in a tree, by myself.

I've been thinking about Cyrano de Bergerac a lot in this context. I love how strong he is, how independent, how complete. I know he is fictional, and that there is no one quite as ideal as he was, but it's something which I aspire to; "to walk in my own way and be alone. Free, with an eye to see things as they are". I don't want to be dependent on any person for my happiness, comfort, or productivity. I'm not saying that I want to always be alone and I hate people. There are a lot of people whose company I truly enjoy and their existence is a great pleasure to me. I should be able to be happy and functional without their assistance, though. That is what I mean.

Funny thing: Have not had a smoke for a week and a bit and do not miss it at all. Maybe I was less addicted than I thought.

A few days ago, my roomie got Ivory soap for our bathroom to replace the liquid soap that ran out a long time ago (using dish soap in the interim). This evening while I was washing my hands I happened to smell it and it gave me this huge flashback. When my mother was still home schooling the pack of us, we did a project on Inuit art and each of us were supposed to make a "soapstone" carving with Ivory soap. I made a teddy bear (with considerable input from the mother, who is artistically inclined). Ben broke one of the legs off of it and I was so upset about it. Ivory soap. Hmm.

I'm having a hard time adjusting to the new way of things. Past few months have been thoroughly unpleasant. A bunch of things that I have been entertained by in the past I just can't enjoy any more. Things like Firefly, Questionable Content, smoking, scotch, Colin Firth, driving, weekends, Matt Damon, The Other Guys... etc. They just keep reminding me of how much I screwed up.

Furthermore, silly printer won't print my black and white document because it is out of magenta ink. Grr.

I need to get myself back into some sort of container. Without any restricting influences I find myself a shapeless, useless, mindless creature indeed. I used to enjoy being left to my own devices, because I had some idea about who or what I was. It turns out I've lost all that cytoskeleton, and I've been depending on some sort of external framework for a really long time. Gotta build something up that's not dependent on where I am or who I'm with. I know what I have to do. It's gonna be like a cicada moulting - getting rid of an exoskeleton.

For all you lovely people who have put up with this crazy season, I do thank you.

I watched American History X again this evening for the fifth time in the past 2 months. If anyone is ever in need of a solid cry, that is the film to watch. The King's Speech was also magnificent in that respect.

Now I'm gonna hug The Robot Cat and get to bed. Class, meetings, and shower tomorrow, in that approximate order.

A little smile before you go.

Politicians Who Are Truly Awesome

I want to say before I begin that any politician should be proud to have their name on this list. I realize that my opinion is not as highly valued as all the political analysts out there, but each of these people stand out as examples of effective, beneficial leaders. I have linked each name to its wikipedia page so that if you don't know who they are you can check them out. (Sorry the links are hard to read! Hover over them and you should be ok!)

Paul Kagame - has turned Rwanda into one of the safest, most advanced countries in Africa in the 17 years since the genocide

Vladimir Putin - Has he killed a lot of people? Probably. Has he done more for the recovery of Russia from its years of economic and political backsliding than anyone else? Also probably.


Nelson Mandela - There's still a lot to be done in South Africa, and he really is more of a figurehead, but he has remained so dedicated in his work for the people he loves.

Barack Obama - You all knew this was coming. He is saving the USA internationally and internally, but the country is too self-absorbed to recognize how great he is.

Abraham Lincoln - Pulling a country together after a civil war is no easy thing. Doing it with as much class and beard as he did? Nigh impossible.

Queen Victoria - Have you seen this lady's empire? Madness.

Queen Elizabeth I - Shows how much a lady can accomplish if she doesn't have a silly man to take care of. I really admire her for pulling together a country that was at war with itself and Spain, and for not getting killed. Also, she was a wonderfully eloquent and educated person.

(Do queens count as politicians since they weren't elected? Neither of these ladies were ousted either, so that is to their credit.)

Hugo Chavez - He is outspoken, Socialist, effective, and good to his people. That is really all I ask.

Aung San Suu Kyi - She's been in jail most of her life. She was given 3 years of hard labour when some American dick-wad decided to swim to her house while she was under arrest. There's something to be said about perseverance, eh?

William Lyon Mackenzie King - Crazy smart and crazy crazy. I think he was sickeningly effective, but on the downside he is the main culprit for the navigational mess that is Ottawa.

That's all I can currently think of. I can see that there are a lot of holes in my knowledge of political history, specifically in the Middle East and Indo-China.

Sweet Things

Counting out quarters at the record shop
London Calling and the Pressure Drop
Skipping double dutch with your sister's friends
The landlord's calling for the rent again
If all I have is all I need
And all I need is all I have
Then why is all I ever want is more
Why can't I see the sweet things until they're all gone

Sitting on the grass at your mother's grave
Staring at the letters that spell my name
Stars still shine in a sky blue sky
You just gotta look with better eyes
I lay face down in the summer dirt
My ear pressed into the conducting earth
I hear radio waves and ghosts that fizzle and fade

It's ten years later now
You said I wondered about your age
I said I got ID'd today
You said "ya, I get that too
It's like we'll never die
Just grow younger every day"

Shoebox photos and birthday cards
I've got an old tube amp and no guitar
Living in a Salvation Army shoe
All we had was me and you

-Danny Michel

Better or Worse

I think it's better to not have any moments of awesomeness at all than to have a small fleeting one in your youth.

Some people seem to be able to live in a state of continual 1-upping of their past actions. Every day they get up and do their thing just slightly better than they did the day before. These are the kind of people that get famous in politics or musics or sports or whatevers.

Some people, on the other hand, don't do much of anything very well, and they get over it by the time they're 25 or so and they live out their lives in a complacent mediocrity.

The problem arises when someone attains something good early in their life, and can't outdo themselves after it. I'm thinking of two books right now. One was a short story, actually, about a man who wrote a book on the day he got married, and it ruined his life because he couldn't write anything better than that. The other is Madame Bovary, who was popular and beautiful and gifted in her youth, but eventually became aware of her own drifting to obscurity and it made her do all sorts of distasteful things. What about artists or athletes who have to continue living off of the contributions they made in their 20's until they die in their 80's? Paul McCartney is kinda stuck like that, along with most of the greatest classic rockers.

It's almost better for a person to die when they are famous, like Elvis or Lennon, than for them to endure the withering effects of age, obscurity, and Family Guy.

So I guess my advice to all of you is either to never achieve anything of lasting importance or to kill yourself if you ever achieve accidentally.

No matter how you slice it, it's gonna end in tears :)