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Editor of Logos, an online journal of society and culture.
Lives in New Jersey.
Won't eat frozen vegetables.
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Thursday, October 9
My own personal belief is that perception is constantly distorted by our subjectivity. What I mean is that whatever it is that we may be seeing--about ourselves, our feelings, others' feelings toward us, etc.--is generally nothing more than appearances, the signification of which cannot be determined with any kind of objective criteria.
I say this because I am seeing more and more how incorrect I have been about the way I have felt about myself and perceived myself. I am saying this because, quite franky, the subjective in us is very powerful; its graviational pull on our ability to construct self-knowledge is immense and its capacity to inflict harm equally so. But this also means that we are the only ones responsible for pulling ourselves out of a situation of pain and self-inflicted guilt. I cannot say that I am an optimist in this regard, but to recognize the very structure of self-consciousness is a step in the right direction.
I am tired and weary. I have become overextended and taxed beyond the bounds that sanity would permit. But I still seem to persevere. I think that the search for basic things is so futile now. I do not mean this in a negative, pessemistic way. I mean it in the sense that what we shoud be searching for are more fundamental values and ways of life that can facilitate the accumulation of "basic things" by which I mean a job, dwelling, a mate, etc. So this means that we need philosophy; we need to see things that other cannot. I do not mean this in an elitist way, I mean this in the sense that we need to probe the foundations of our being and to reinvent ourselves. In Nietzschean fashion, we need to philosophize with a hammer so that we can shatter the forms of life and thought that restrain us. They restrain us because we learn them early in life--from our parents, schools, our church/synagogue/mosque, our culture in general. No, we need to break free from the shackles of artificial self-control and artificial self-regulation and attain an autonomy that is premised on our creative abilities.
When will it happen that we can breath without the fatigue of conformism and transcend the bounds of the predicament that we have been hurled into without choice?
Michael was existentially meandering at 10:26 AM \\
Sunday, October 5
I have not written in this blog for some time because I have had neither time nor any real itnerest in externalizing whatever mass of feelings that have been pulsing through my psyche. But I have to say that even though many things have been happening these past few weeks, I essentially feel the same--and this is not as bad as I would have thought.
Whatever the case may be, I know that I am reaching a point in life when things need to radically transform. I am approaching a point where a fundamental paradigm shift will be the only remedy for the convulsions of emotion and intellectual frustration that have both, in turn, bound me to a life of existential angst and the very erosion of my Dasein. Yes, a bit dramatic, but the truth of the matter is, those that do not experience a certain degree of personal crisis on one's life course probably are not very interesting let alone worth one's time.
I do not know where things will lead, but I know more now than ever that my context is more important than I had previously thought. I do not think that the way I have been living these past several years was emotionally nor psychologically healthy, but I do know that the extreme self-examination that I performed in that time was extremely beneficial even if it did result in a perverse sense of self in the end.
The woman that I have been "seeing" these past few months has become--upon further examination and scrutinization--both more fascinating and more problematic. Although not for me. I think this is the one great improvement of my personal and emotional life: I have been able to see through emotionally unfocused bullshit in women and see that it is nothing I admire nor have time for. The again, I need to be careful of my feelings and to make sure that I keep reserved and calm--love, as the poets of old always tell us, is a dangerous thing.
So be it, but this brings to mind a thought: a wonderful verse from one of Handel's beautiful Italian song cycles:
No, do voi non vo'fidarmi,
cieco Amor, crudel belta!
Troppo siete menzogenere,
lusinghiere Deita.
Altra volta incatenarmi
gia poteste il fido cor
So per prova i vostri inganni,
due tiranni siete ogn'or.
[No, I will not trust you,
blind love and cruel beauty!
You tell too many lies,
alluring Deities.
Once before your fetters
bound my trusting heart.
Your wiles I have experienced,
know what tyrants you both are.]
Michael was existentially meandering at 11:00 PM \\
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