[ this is what i have ]
Well, I've been absorbed in mediocrity
Been hollowed by uncertainty
I've taken all of my beliefs
And given them up
Cause there's no guarantee
Of a god of longevity
Admit you don't know anything
And give it up
Singing, I don't know if I've been reborn,
Lived a past life, suffered in another time,
I don't know
Give it up, give it up, give it up
Well I don't know what to believe anymore
But every now and then I feel a moment of awakening
But then it's gone, then it's gone, then it's gone
I'm blanketed by the warmth of ignorance
Singing, I don't know if I've been reborn,
Lived a past life, suffered in another time,
I don't know
If I'll go somewhere special when I die
If I'll go somewhere special when I die
So I'll just go on living my way
There's a strength in duality
Penetrate mentality
Give it up, give it up
Learn from casualty
Don't have faith in anything
Give it up, give it up
Singing, I don't know if I've been reborn,
Lived a past life, suffered in another time,
I don't know
If I'll go somewhere special when I die
If I'll go somewhere special when I die
where have you gone?
And if I didn't have You as my guide, I'd still wander lost in Sinai
It’s 1:59am. I should be dreaming.
I hate to so frequently resort to posting the thoughts of others; but as long as I’m recognizing the beauty transcends my own potential, I'll go ahead.
Tossing around the idea of starting a new blog, I’ve been looking over the history of this one, two years and going. Many of the posts are so full of pain; some lighthearted and sentimental. But one common trend that sticks out to me is my own demon of frustration in witnessing the hurt in myself and in those around me-and being utterly defenseless. It’s a sting that still aches somewhat foreign-witnessing the wounds of your loved ones.
I’ve been doing a bit of reading on love lately-Spiritual vs. Emotional, Agape vs. Eros, that is-and until I’m ready to expound on that beast, I’ll continue sleeping with ghosts, and will share what's been racing through my head. I can’t quite explain what I mean when I say I suffer for the pain of the ones near me; so I’ll let her do that.
"Last night, again,
you were in my dreams
several expendable limbs were at stake
you were a prince, spinning rims
all sentiments indian-given
and half-baked
I was brought
in on a palanquin
made of the many bodies
of beautiful women
brought to this place to be examined,
swaying on an elephant:
a princess of india
We both want the very same thing.
We are praying
I am the one to save you
But you don't even own,
your own violence
Run away from home-
your beard is still blue
with the loneliness of you mighty men,
with your jaws, and fists, and guitars
and pens, and your sugarlip,
but I've never been to the firepits with you mighty men
Who made you this way?
Who made you this way?
Who is going to bear your beautiful children?
Do you think you can just stop,
when you're ready for a change?
Who will take care of you
when you're old and dying?
You burn in the Mekong,
to prove your worth,
Go Long! Go Long!
Right over the edge of the earth!
You have been wronged,
tore up since birth.
You have done harm.
Others have done worse.
Will you tuck your shirt?
Will you leave it loose?
You are badly hurt.
You're a silly goose.
You are caked in mud,
and in blood, and worse.
Chew your bitter cud,
Grope your little nurse.
Do you know why
my ankles are bound in gauze
(sickly dressage:
a princess of kentucky)?
In the middle of the woods
(which were the probable cause),
we danced in the lodge
like two panting monkeys.
I will give you a call, for one last hurrah.
If this tale is tall, forgive my scrambling.
But you keep palming along the wall,
moving at a blind crawl,
but always rambling.
Wolf-spider, crouch in your funnel nest,
If I knew you, once,
now I know you less,
In the sinking sand,
where we've come to rest,
have I had a hand in your loneliness?
When you leave me alone
in this old palace of yours,
it starts to get to me. I take to walking,
What a woman does is open doors.
And it is not a question of locking
or unlocking.
Well, I have never seen
such a terrible room-
gilded with the gold teeth
of the women who loved you!
Now, though I die,
Magpie, this I bequeath:
by any other name
a jay is still blue
with the loneliness
of you mighty men,
with your mighty kiss
that might never end,
while, so far away,
in the seat of the west,
burns the fount
of the heat
of that loneliness.
There's a man
who only will speak in code,
backing slowly, slowly down the road.
May he master everything
that such men may know
about loving, and then letting go."
-Joanna Newsom, Go Long
Defect of Religion
"Religion has a major defect.
It is an inhibiting force to the cultivation of self-awareness.
Religion is traditionally used as an escape route from understanding the problems of sorrow and sexuality. What enhances the inhibitory effects is the prevailing attitude of denigrating the influence of the analytical intellect. Where religion is vigorously healthy then self-awareness is minimal or even absent. Self-awareness only begins to develop as religion goes into decline.
Dynamic psychology, because of its unusual ideas about consciousness, morality and sexuality, can only arise in a society where the influence of religion is weak.When a religion is healthy, then ethical debate is lively, but the ethical codes propounded are often just imaginative, or confused and self-contradictory. (Imagination might centre on a theme such as whether or not man is a Noble Savage. Contradictions can only be identified once the subconscious mind is explored).
Interestingly, periods when religion goes into decline are usually labelled ‘decadent’ eras. Up till now the value put on such periods has been confined to the artistic styles that the periods give birth to. However, such periods (and modern times can be viewed as such a period) offer the opportunities for psychological progress in ways not otherwise possible.
Once religion goes into decline and self-awareness arises, then ethical debate can become based on the realities of consciousness. In my view, the purpose of religion is to be an intermediary in the transition of the person from amoral barbarian to New Age psychological person.
The contents of the subconscious mind radically affect ethical thinking. The repression of sexuality leads to a puritan ethics. When sexuality is rampant and used as a vehicle (or even as a substitute) for personality then ethical thinking becomes confused and retreats from centre-stage. Once self-awareness develops then ethics can finally centre on forgiveness, compassion and acceptance. In short:
Puritan ethics arise when sexuality is repressed.
Holistic ethics arise when sexuality is sublimated."
-Ian Heath, London, UK
Thoughts?
"The inmost kernel of Christianity is the truth that suffering — the Cross — is the real end and object of life. Hence Christianity condemns suicide as thwarting this end; whilst the ancient world, taking a lower point of view, held it in approval, nay, in honor. But if that is to be accounted a valid reason against suicide, it involves the recognition of asceticism; that is to say, it is valid only from a much higher ethical standpoint than has ever been adopted by moral philosophers in Europe. If we abandon that high standpoint, there is no tenable reason left, on the score of morality, for condemning suicide. The extraordinary energy and zeal with which the clergy of monotheistic religions attack suicide is not supported either by any passages in the Bible or by any considerations of weight; so that it looks as though they must have some secret reason for their contention. May it not be this — that the voluntary surrender of life is a bad compliment for him who said that all things were very good? If this is so, it offers another instance of the crass optimism of these religions,— denouncing suicide to escape being denounced by it.
It will generally be found that, as soon as the terrors of life reach the point at which they outweigh the terrors of death, a man will put an end to his life. But the terrors of death offer considerable resistance; they stand like a sentinel at the gate leading out of this world. Perhaps there is no man alive who would not have already put an end to his life, if this end had been of a purely negative character, a sudden stoppage of existence. There is something positive about it; it is the destruction of the body; and a man shrinks from that, because his body is the manifestation of the will to live.
However, the struggle with that sentinel is, as a rule, not so hard as it may seem from a long way off, mainly in consequence of the antagonism between the ills of the body and the ills of the mind. If we are in great bodily pain, or the pain lasts a long time, we become indifferent to other troubles; all we think about is to get well. In the same way great mental suffering makes us insensible to bodily pain; we despise it; nay, if it should outweigh the other, it distracts our thoughts, and we welcome it as a pause in mental suffering. It is this feeling that makes suicide easy; for the bodily pain that accompanies it loses all significance in the eyes of one who is tortured by an excess of mental suffering. This is especially evident in the case of those who are driven to suicide by some purely morbid and exaggerated ill-humor. No special effort to overcome their feelings is necessary, nor do such people require to be worked up in order to take the step; but as soon as the keeper into whose charge they are given leaves them for a couple of minutes, they quickly bring their life to an end.
When, in some dreadful and ghastly dream, we reach the moment of greatest horror, it awakes us; thereby banishing all the hideous shapes that were born of the night. And life is a dream: when the moment of greatest horror compels us to break it off, the same thing happens.
Suicide may also be regarded as an experiment — a question which man puts to Nature, trying to force her to an answer. The question is this: What change will death produce in a man’s existence and in his insight into the nature of things? It is a clumsy experiment to make; for it involves the destruction of the very consciousness which puts the question and awaits the answer."
On Suicide, Arthur Schopenhaur
