There were quite a few reasons why I stopped, all of them irrelevant now. And what can I say - I miss it.
I'm still writing all the time, mostly in letters to myself, and in unsent letters to friends, and sometimes correspondence with strangers.
I always looked at corresponding with strangers as a waste of time, until I realized that it's exactly when writing to the people who know me least that I'm able to express myself best. I can't rely on my addressee having any information about me already, and I have to try harder to explain myself. And more often than not, in these attempts to explain certain ideas or thoughts or concepts or emotions or experiences, I find myself coming to better levels of understanding. In these instances, language is both clarifying and obscuring.
I'm resuming this blog because I want to experience that more often. I'm also interested in giving back to the big anonymous internet a bit - to pay it forward for all the times I've googled something I think I'm alone in the world with, and ended up finding some stranger writing about the same phenomena in his or her blog, and I've felt a little more okay with the world, a bit less alone.
To start with, I'm posting my most recent letter to a stranger, who wrote asking why I'd chosen a quote posted in one of my online presences. The quote is from the last chapter of Shabtai's second novel, Sof Davar (Past Perfect). Here it is, first in translation, then in the original:
...and he moved the newspaper slightly away from his eyes and looked at the edges of the sky, which were visible under the branches of the tree, and tried to imagine the world as the members of this society described it, and he saw a hollow globe with himself and the tree he was lying under stuck to the inside of its crust, and an infinite sea of blue air outside of it ... and on the same impulse of thought he saw the hollow globe inside another hollow globe, and this other hollow globe inside another one, like a Russian babushka doll, and still looking at the edges of the sky, which were undisturbed by any movement of air or cloud or bird, he tried to imagine himself lying on the inner circumference of the hollow globe with the sky underneath him, and although all his senses revolted against the idea, he refused to give up, and in the twilight of his waking thoughts he went on stubbornly trying to controvert the evidence of his senses with the power of his imagination, until in the end he felt that he was indeed lying on top of the world as in an upside-down hammock with the sky underneath him, and he delighted in his triumph and in the sense of floating and space, but these feelings gave way immediately to uneasiness followed by an anxiety that was not only the fear of heights and falling but the fear of upsetting the entire natural order of things, until all he wanted was to revert to his former feeling that he was below and the sky was above, but the opposite feeling persisted stubbornly until in the end he covered his face with the newspaper and surrendered to the sleepiness that had already invaded all his limbs, and he fell asleep and slept as blissfully as if he were in a cradle.
והוא הסיט מעט את העיתון מלפני עיניו והסתכל בשיפולי השמיים, שנראו מתחת לשולי צמרת העץ, וניסה לדמות לעצמו את העולם כפי שציירו אותו אנשי אותה אגודה, וראה כדור חלול ואת עצמו עם העץ שתחתיו שכב דבוקים לפנים קליפתו, ומבחוץ נד אינסופי של אוויר כחול ... ובאותו תנועה של מחשבות ראה את הכדור החלול הזה נותן בתוך כדור חלול אחר, ואת הכדור החלול האחר בתוך כדור חלול נוסף, כאותן בובות עץ חלולות מרוסיה, ובעודו מסתכל בשיפולי השמיים, ששום תנועה של אוויר או של ענן או ציפור לא ניכרה בהם, ניסה לחוש את עצמו שוכב למעלה על דופן קליפות הכדור, ואת השמיים הללו פרושים מתחתיו, ולשווא, שכן, תחושתו הטבעית התקוממה, אבל הוא לא הירפה, ובדמדומי העירות האחרונים, בעקשנות רפויה, הוסיף לנסות לערער בכוח הדמיון את תוקף תחושתו, ולבסוף הרגיש שאומנם הוא שוכב למעלה כבערסל פוך והשמיים פרושים מתחתיו, מה נעמה לו תחושת הניצחון ותחושת הריחוך והמרחבים, אבל מייד תקפה אותו אי-נוחות, ואחר-כך חרדה, ולא רק פחד הגבהים והנפילה, אלא פחד ההתערערות של כל ההוויה כולה, על סדריה וקשריה והכוחות השולטים בה, עד כי ביקש לחזור מייד ולחוש שהוא שוכב למטה והשמיים פרושים מעליו, כפי שחש לפני כן, אבל התחושה ההפוכה החזיקה בו בעקשנות, עד שהניח את העיתון על פניו ונכנע לרצון השינה, שכבר מילאה את איבריו הרפויים ונרדם וישן שנת-עריסה עריבה
(I wrote my thesis on Shabtai and I'm kinda crazy about him)
Here is what I ended up writing in response:
In my life, I'm torn between the joy of having my head in the clouds and the security of having my feet on the ground. I am not quite tall enough to do both at once.
Meir gets an idea, lets himself get carried away, and stubbornly perseveres until his mind overcomes his reality ... until he can no longer see what is 'real'. And once he actually succeeds in this, it makes him terribly anxious. Because if one can perceive 'reality' in a totally opposite way - in this case, a hollow globe with the sky and ground inverted - it follows that one will start to doubt his or her own perception.
I think that reality exists for each one of us only in the way that we perceive it and experience it. I think a table is only a table because we call it a table and use it as a table. I think the boundaries oflanguage put false limits on the full range of human emotion (The word מתסכל was not coined until the 1970s. You think no Israelis were frustrated before that?) I'm never interested in debating the existence of God because that is also totally subjective - if you believe in God, God exists, for you. And if you don't, then he doesn't exist. Also, I am only beautiful if I think I am.
It starts from here and from other small places, the very different ways each of us see color, hear sounds, the way our noses and tongues have different preferences, the way we are all attracted to different things, the way we all perceive situations/people/words/actions/etc differently. I have found that concerning myself too much with other people's opinions is a waste of time. Not because I'm self-centered but because it's irrelevant.
What IS relevant is the way that I think that they are thinking, because really that is all I know and can know. I can and do try super hard to see the world from everyone else's eyes but I can only truly rely on and see through mine, which no one else has yet to see through. It's not that each of our own personal thoughts/opinions/perceptions aren't valuable, just that nothing is exactly concrete.
This is the same thing, I think, that induces Meir's existential fear in that quote. It's a combination of feeling powerful, and maybe relieved, but at the same time confused and terrified because if you go all the way with it, you can no longer even believe in what you once saw as a most basic/real/physical/concrete truth (sky up, ground down).
I have narcolepsy which is a sleeping disorder where my brain's "stay awake" button is broken, and I'm spending a lot of time in strange states of consciousness between waking and sleeping.. Sometimes things happen to me when I am awake that only happen to other people in dreams. And sometimes while I'm sleeping, things happen that only happen to other people when they are awake. I lived that way until I was 18 not knowing what it was.
I start every day aware of my (paralyzed) body and that I'm lying in my bed, while at the same time experiencing a very vivid dream and accepting its reality totally, as we do when we're dreaming and our logic is turned off - much like the "temporary suspension of disbelief". Every day begins with a few moments of perceiving the world and myself with no logic, no rationality, and only faint memories/recognition of reality. Other times, during the day, when I'm awake, sleep clouds my brain and traits of dream sleep jump into my waking state, and I think things are happening that simply aren't.
But I have figured out that this is the only world that exists for me. The stuff that happens in these dreams/hallucination states affects my emotions and how I feel about myself and see the world just as strongly, if not more so, as anything that happens 'in the real world' or while I'm 'fully awake' (and it's arguable if that ever happens).
After a while I realized that basically the same thing applies to everyone, but expresses itself less obviously, so that some people might never question the gap between their perceptions and reality.
So the joy of head in the clouds is the joy of revelry, inbetween states, semi-conscious dreaming, following my very hedonistic self everywhere it goes, letting the dreams take over, following my impulses, existing in a floaty exciting world …the feet on the ground is remembering that the sky is up and the earth is down, making sure O have a roof over my head, that I'm taking care of myself and that I'm present with the people I love, that I do something conventionally productive once in a while…
Here is what I ended up writing in response:
In my life, I'm torn between the joy of having my head in the clouds and the security of having my feet on the ground. I am not quite tall enough to do both at once.
Meir gets an idea, lets himself get carried away, and stubbornly perseveres until his mind overcomes his reality ... until he can no longer see what is 'real'. And once he actually succeeds in this, it makes him terribly anxious. Because if one can perceive 'reality' in a totally opposite way - in this case, a hollow globe with the sky and ground inverted - it follows that one will start to doubt his or her own perception.
I think that reality exists for each one of us only in the way that we perceive it and experience it. I think a table is only a table because we call it a table and use it as a table. I think the boundaries oflanguage put false limits on the full range of human emotion (The word מתסכל was not coined until the 1970s. You think no Israelis were frustrated before that?) I'm never interested in debating the existence of God because that is also totally subjective - if you believe in God, God exists, for you. And if you don't, then he doesn't exist. Also, I am only beautiful if I think I am.
It starts from here and from other small places, the very different ways each of us see color, hear sounds, the way our noses and tongues have different preferences, the way we are all attracted to different things, the way we all perceive situations/people/words/actions/etc differently. I have found that concerning myself too much with other people's opinions is a waste of time. Not because I'm self-centered but because it's irrelevant.
What IS relevant is the way that I think that they are thinking, because really that is all I know and can know. I can and do try super hard to see the world from everyone else's eyes but I can only truly rely on and see through mine, which no one else has yet to see through. It's not that each of our own personal thoughts/opinions/perceptions aren't valuable, just that nothing is exactly concrete.
This is the same thing, I think, that induces Meir's existential fear in that quote. It's a combination of feeling powerful, and maybe relieved, but at the same time confused and terrified because if you go all the way with it, you can no longer even believe in what you once saw as a most basic/real/physical/concrete truth (sky up, ground down).
I have narcolepsy which is a sleeping disorder where my brain's "stay awake" button is broken, and I'm spending a lot of time in strange states of consciousness between waking and sleeping.. Sometimes things happen to me when I am awake that only happen to other people in dreams. And sometimes while I'm sleeping, things happen that only happen to other people when they are awake. I lived that way until I was 18 not knowing what it was.
I start every day aware of my (paralyzed) body and that I'm lying in my bed, while at the same time experiencing a very vivid dream and accepting its reality totally, as we do when we're dreaming and our logic is turned off - much like the "temporary suspension of disbelief". Every day begins with a few moments of perceiving the world and myself with no logic, no rationality, and only faint memories/recognition of reality. Other times, during the day, when I'm awake, sleep clouds my brain and traits of dream sleep jump into my waking state, and I think things are happening that simply aren't.
But I have figured out that this is the only world that exists for me. The stuff that happens in these dreams/hallucination states affects my emotions and how I feel about myself and see the world just as strongly, if not more so, as anything that happens 'in the real world' or while I'm 'fully awake' (and it's arguable if that ever happens).
After a while I realized that basically the same thing applies to everyone, but expresses itself less obviously, so that some people might never question the gap between their perceptions and reality.
So the joy of head in the clouds is the joy of revelry, inbetween states, semi-conscious dreaming, following my very hedonistic self everywhere it goes, letting the dreams take over, following my impulses, existing in a floaty exciting world …the feet on the ground is remembering that the sky is up and the earth is down, making sure O have a roof over my head, that I'm taking care of myself and that I'm present with the people I love, that I do something conventionally productive once in a while…
No comments:
Post a Comment