September 18, 2007
Status
Sometimes life gets so busy you hardly have the chance to breath from one day to the next, and sometimes it slows to such a crawl that "watching paint dry" seems like it might be fun. Usually it's somewhere in between, and that's where it's been for me as well lately.
Don't get me wrong, I keep busy (last week: getting my car fixed, work, men's meeting, trustee meeting, shooting the bike rally, grandma's birthday, etc), but LIFE in itself doesn't present massive shifts in it's existence and perceptions. Not that I want to rock the boat, but it helps, from a writing perspective, to have some thing TO write about.
The truth is there is always something to write about, just like there is always something to photograph, you just have to train your eye to see what's there - not just on a surface glance, but the things that are deeper. Work is fairly interesting at the moment anyway - just finished up Nietzsche's book, "On the Genealogy of Morality." I don't get a lot of it, but still, certain ideas he proposes are interesting or (for me) fresh. There was one quote in particular that I saved:
"The beautiful," Kant said, " is what pleases without interest." Without interest! Compare this definition with one made by a real "spectator" - Stendhal, who in one place calls the beautiful "une promesse de bonheur" (a promise of happiness).
For me, it's less about what I read, and more about the ideas provoked by what I read. I run across phrases like "horror vacui" (the horror of emptiness) or "nitimur in vetitum" (we strive for what is forbidden) (from Ovid), and, for at least a brief moment (lately), my mind and imagination thrills with the thoughts, ideas, and perceptions caused by such statements. What I've been missing lately is the ability to take that spark and fan it into a bright fire, into a full-length poetic discourse into the state of existence it portends. My mind is striking steel and flint but without fodder. This is why I need to read more, and just write, even if it is garbage writing. Writing, like walking, is a self-continuing action (yes, this is scientifically proven - it's basically muscle memory or something like that). The trick is to start. For me, lately, it's been an issue of time. I'm busy, but worse, I don't utilize the time properly that I do have. It's analogized with the image of a rocket: focus, like the nozzle; control, achieved through the fins, and balance, proper distribution of assets, which allow it to fly, when combined with everything else.
I need to remember (and implement) one of my favorite ideas, a quote from one of my favorite low-budget films, "The First $20 Million":
"Simplify, clarify, economize."
The trick in life is not in knowing, but in doing....of such thoughts is my state of the union of myself address composed.
Don't get me wrong, I keep busy (last week: getting my car fixed, work, men's meeting, trustee meeting, shooting the bike rally, grandma's birthday, etc), but LIFE in itself doesn't present massive shifts in it's existence and perceptions. Not that I want to rock the boat, but it helps, from a writing perspective, to have some thing TO write about.
The truth is there is always something to write about, just like there is always something to photograph, you just have to train your eye to see what's there - not just on a surface glance, but the things that are deeper. Work is fairly interesting at the moment anyway - just finished up Nietzsche's book, "On the Genealogy of Morality." I don't get a lot of it, but still, certain ideas he proposes are interesting or (for me) fresh. There was one quote in particular that I saved:
"The beautiful," Kant said, " is what pleases without interest." Without interest! Compare this definition with one made by a real "spectator" - Stendhal, who in one place calls the beautiful "une promesse de bonheur" (a promise of happiness).
For me, it's less about what I read, and more about the ideas provoked by what I read. I run across phrases like "horror vacui" (the horror of emptiness) or "nitimur in vetitum" (we strive for what is forbidden) (from Ovid), and, for at least a brief moment (lately), my mind and imagination thrills with the thoughts, ideas, and perceptions caused by such statements. What I've been missing lately is the ability to take that spark and fan it into a bright fire, into a full-length poetic discourse into the state of existence it portends. My mind is striking steel and flint but without fodder. This is why I need to read more, and just write, even if it is garbage writing. Writing, like walking, is a self-continuing action (yes, this is scientifically proven - it's basically muscle memory or something like that). The trick is to start. For me, lately, it's been an issue of time. I'm busy, but worse, I don't utilize the time properly that I do have. It's analogized with the image of a rocket: focus, like the nozzle; control, achieved through the fins, and balance, proper distribution of assets, which allow it to fly, when combined with everything else.
I need to remember (and implement) one of my favorite ideas, a quote from one of my favorite low-budget films, "The First $20 Million":
"Simplify, clarify, economize."
The trick in life is not in knowing, but in doing....of such thoughts is my state of the union of myself address composed.
