tu es triste. je suis désolée

Birds and Tears. Words and Fears.

If only I could be the wings on your caged bird

If only I were the songs of a dove

If only the swans shared their beauty

If only I, solely, was your love

But you are the cage that surrounds me

You don’t even know I’m inside

Maybe, when once you had found me,

You wouldn’t be lacking such pride

If you could see beauty that profounds you

You’d be a happier man

If you could accept me, my beauty

You’d love me for the who that I am

If only I could be there when you cry

Even just as the tear on your cheek

I’d comfort you, falling, and then dry

I would make your future less meek

I’d wash away hurt and stay close by

I’d be with you while you felt pain

I would let time pass and just stand by

I would, for your world, be the rain

And in the end, you’d see my beauty

In the end, you’d feel me again

In the end, I’d die for you, mutely

In the end, I’d have nothing to gain

But it’s not about winning or losing

The battle, it stirs deep within

For longing and longing, I’ve lost you

And I’ll never see you again.

l'avenir

It's a slippery slope, living for the future. The farther you get into it, the farther you feel from it, the farther you start reaching. I was inspired by Yeah Dave's guide to livin' the moment when I read it a couple years ago. Reading some of his stuff was like a revelation. There were some obvious things that I remember having heard all my life and I feel would be common sense even if no-one ever told me but there were also some things that I felt brought me to life.
I haven't focused on it so much in the day to day life lately but he recommended to each and every day enjoy: something beautiful, something humorous and something delicious. Within a few months after reading this, I was noticing to myself all that was beautiful, all that was funny and all that was yummy in a day. I often felt proud of this and would even share these things with my friends. Whether that meant sharing the actual experiences or sharing my tales of these experiences pretty much depended on where they were. I remember feeling energized and revitalized. I felt as though I was I doing something good even if I didn't really have a purpose.
It is hard to be happy when you are weighing yourself down with the pressure of having to matter to everyone. To be honest, if you didn't try at all I would be willing to guarantee that you would still matter to at least one person. And it's the people that you matter to without trying that you should be happiest about, should be closest to, should try to matter for.
It takes a really decent person to care about and care for other people. I don't mean to just care about and for your family- that usually comes naturally. And I don't just mean someone who does things for others. A lot of people do things for others just for the gratitude. Some don't help others out for others' sake. Some people do it for some sort of self gratification in the end. It's the people who just do it because they see a problem out there and they hope for a better ending. The people that share concern for the future of not just themselves but of others.
That got off on a tangent. I was talking about the future so I guess that was coming back but still. What I am trying to say is that I am finding it very hard to live in the now.
In interviews, people like to ask where you see yourself in five years. It completely freaks me out that I have absolutely no idea. It freaks me out thinking that if I were to instantly jump five years into the future, it would be like waking up an amnesiac with no idea of how I got there. I don't know where I'm going and I don't know what I'm doing to get there...

lire

Reading Palahniuk doesn't make you feel good about yourself. You don't become a better person having read his works. Your life becomes no more significant than it was before, necessarily.
It's like looking at Picasso's works. You don't admire them for their beauty. They don't show that you have a true appreciation of art. Or abstract even.
These men, their works, inspire. And not in the, "I'm going somewhere," "I can achieve greatness," "the world is my canvas," sort of way. But in a way more subtle. They challenge you to think. To look back at all that is crooked and easily undefined or more commonly over-defined.
Palahniuk, like Picasso, is giving you another approach to observing, to viewing. To thinking. To appreciating. To approaching life. He takes your world and, with words, tears it apart from the seams. He realizes all vantage points and selectively adheres new perspective to parts/people/places you already know.
And he is not doing it for you. He just does it because he can. If he knew that not a single person would read it, he would probably still write it anyway. Because he is a writer. Because that is what he does. Because he thought it. Or knew it. Or figured it out. And even if he weren't guaranteed readers, in written form, it would at least have the potential to be read. Even if just by himself again, years down the road.
How selfish would we be to keep our thoughts to ourselves? To keep our epiphanies, our revelations, our discoveries limited to those who epiphanized, revolutionized, discovered.
Still- How selfish would we be to expect that someone actually cared about every thought that we've had? Or any? Any epiphanies, any revelations, any discoveries. They may have seemed significant to us but why do we care if or hope that someones else learns of/from them?
Even the diary of Anne Frank, presumably written for her own eyes, is shared and studied and applied to modern day morals, philosophies, history lessons, etc.

la vie d'ennui

I know that the Bell Jar is well known for it's relevance to humanity. Though many people can say that they've never considered suicide, especially not by oven, I think most people (if not all) can relate to at least a moment described in this book. Plath struggles to find charm in the things she feels should be charming. It seems as though everything is part of a love-hate relationship. She either loves to hate something or hates to love it.
I am still reading it, slowly, but the part I think I relate to most (and most people I know can relate to as well) is where she talks about her future. She describes her possible future outcomes as being mapped out like a fig tree. There are so many options out there but she can't decide which branch to reach for and she just keeps putting off making a decision. Meanwhile the figs grow old and rotten.
I wish I had a passion stronger than most. Sometimes I think that one of the dumbest choices I have ever made was to major in a field of art. Partly because I feel so uninspired sometimes. And, though I love fashion and everything to do with it (designing, creating, merchandising, purchasing, etc) I feel torn as a human being for choosing something so materialistic. I know that when I was deciding to go into design, I wanted to make a difference but I still don't know how to do so.
Ideally, I would like to bring acceptance to the world of all body types and their related adornments. But at the same time, I don't want to accept the growing rate of obesity. Not because it is unpleasing aesthetically, but because of the health concerns.
And, as far as culture is concerned, there are some things that I believe lose meaning when they are accepted by and eventually lost into a culture not their own. For instance, the Americanization of kimonos: once used for ceremonial purposes and/or to signify such categories as class/wealth, beauty, importance, wisdom, and honor. Adaptations of such are mass-marketed to the kill-all culture and Americans wear (wore) them around as the hottest new trend, the latest look for look's sake.
There are still plenty of people out there, living in America even, that are knowledgeable, respectful and proud of their heritage but there are also, sadly, many who have no clue. I, for example, feel almost ashamed when the topic arises because I honestly don't know much about my family's past. I believe the majority of my ancestors came from England.
I said "almost ashamed" because there are days when I feel no connectivity to the past. I don't see why I should bother getting to know my ancestors if they didn't stick around long enough to get to know me. And if my family doesn't voluntarily educate me on my past, I don't think they feel it is all that important either.
Still, some days, I wish I was proud of our past. I dream of stories I could tell friends and growing-up family members (and those to come) of how our names mean something and how we are a family that earned our keeps. But I am afraid my family is one of the families that got swept up in the modern world where our biggest concern is the future. Even then, it's only for the near future. We are normally only concerned with the futures of ours and of the people we know and love presently.
And then we have Chuck Palahniuk to remind us that, "this is [y]our life and its ending one minute at a time."