Reflections from 80 years back

I recently discovered Anais Nin.  It’s beyond cool and totally reassuring to hear my own thoughts reflected by someone who was born in the early 1900’s.  Too bad she isn’t here to have a cup of coffee with today.

“You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book… or you take a trip… and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating. The symptoms of hibernating are easily detectable: first, restlessness. The second symptom (when hibernating becomes dangerous and might degenerate into death): absence of pleasure. That is all. It appears

 like an innocuous illness. Monotony, boredom, death. Millions live like this (or die like this) without knowing it. They work in offices. They drive a car. They picnic with their families. They raise children. And then some shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them and saves them from death. Some never awaken.”  Anais Nin (The Diary of Anais Nin, Volume I)

against the current

archaic

Get it?!

 

 

 

“Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all” Alfred Lord Tennyson

Looking glass

 

 

“It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive in the adult world day in and day out.” This is Water, David Foster Wallace

 

I post many-a-quotes on Facebook (and now on WordPress).  Often, it is easier to ride the coattail of an already established voice (in my case, it is usually an author or philosopher) who has eloquently articulated something that indirectly expresses the current cluster of emotions/thoughts/words orbiting my own [state of] mind.  Obviously, vicariously voicing what’s on my mind, through these quotes, protects me from the vulnerability too – it is much safer to avoid reader judgment this way.  And since these quotes are by well-known authors, philosophers, and the like, there is a stoic credibility of which automatically summonses the reader to “Hear this!”  And, yes, I do understand that quotes can be interpreted as the reader sees fit.  However, since often it seems that the majority of my readers do not understand the depth and meaning of what it is I am trying to say – I have a new reason for posting these riddles:  I am straining out the like-minded.  As of recently, this new game has churned to be an excellent way to find those individuals that I can relate to on a deeper level.  I don’t mean to imply that I have depth and intelligence greater than the majority (although on my more egotistical days, I could probably defend that argument – and, mind you, being deeper isn’t necessarily a good thing!).  Recently, I accept that I would rather have a few real relationships, with an understanding that is deep and intimate instead of multiple acquaintances that survive on the surface of reality.  I am happy that many people can enjoy the quotes that I post; however, the feedback I am seeking is from the few who not only hear my voice through the quotes, but also, quite frankly, get it (i.e. understand the quote from an intelligent place).

 

Happy Birthday, Albert Camus (November 7, 1913 – January 4, 1960)

 

(Thanks to Narrative Magazine for posting this picture on Facebook!)

Passion at its finest

Something in nothing

I don’t have much to say.  I am somewhat speechless.  In fact, I think I have said less than 100 words today (electronically transmitted words do not count).

 

Earlier this week I posted yet another quote on Facebook.  This particular quote was by one of my favorite authors, David Foster Wallace.  There is something deep within the pages of DFW’s books, something in-between his chosen (and sometimes made up) words, that I relate to on the most severe and vulnerable level.

 

When I read this particular quote, a feeling of acceptance came over me.  This quote might be the closest thing to my heart, something that poetically sums me up.  This brief linguistic dance of articulately placed words gives me a feeling of belonging.

 

“The persons we young fiction writers and assorted shut-ins study, feel for, feel through most intently are, by virtue of a genius for feigned unself-consciousness, fit to stand people’s gazes. And we, trying desperately to be nonchalant, perspire creepily on the subway.” David Foster Wallace (from E Unibus Pluram)

 

I do not expect or need anyone to submerge themselves to my level of understanding that of DFW; however, it would be nice if I could find someone who is at least willing to not only read this quote, but actually attempt to hear it.