Epitaph

          I wanted to write up a fitting funeral of this dead blog, the brainchild of 15-year-old me, but I couldn't.
          I want to say that this part of me - this sometimes bratty, sometimes suspicious, and occasionally introspective me - is dead, but it isn't. I've changed over the course of these 3 (almost 4) years, but it has been a change that has built iupon the old - all these crazy life experiences, rants, and soliloquys are a part of me even if this doesn't seem so obviously.

Goodbye - I'll definitely come back here for the nostalgia, but this era is finally over.

P.S. Thanks so much to everyone who liked, commented, and read my posts - I'm forever indebted to the confidence and thinking you all inspired in me. 

Frustration

I haven't been able to write anything, and it's most certainly not writer's block - I have plenty of things to say, but it's just that those things are far too dry and sarcastic.
      My mind must be disgruntled and cynical about the world, and I have no idea how to control it).

Here's a poem about the tedium, the frustration of writing - one of the less eye-rolling-sarcastic pieces of this month

From: https://christopherscottdesigner.wordpress.com

I hate the emptiness that my mind has got,

And the fog swirling among my thoughts.

I hate these to-do lists that unroll themselves endlessly,

And the sound of ticking clocks.

I hate the feel of the skin in my hands as I clench them into fists,

And the wrinkle between my eyebrows that I am trying hard to fix.

I hate the smell of coffee shop vigor

And the words “resourceful and efficient figure.”

I hate their misunderstood praise

And the mirror’s expectant gaze.

I hate the check marks, the organization

And the emptying rituals of preparation.

I hate the incessant whirring of an unmoving motor,

And sowing seeds that reap no fodder.

Quote of the Day ~ Woody Allen

Watching Woody Allen movies, for me, is a struggle between enjoying myself and forgetting the nagging _ of the horrifying depravities of that artist's life. (And the fact that I'm willing to sound like a suburban housewife by saying that is testament enough of the inappropriateness of Woody Allen's infamous (illegal) private life..)

             But before I go off on the inevitable tangent on the ethics of art, I'm going to introduce my quote: a long favorite line from a long favorite movie (Annie Hall).

I'm not really a cynic nor a pessimist, but I do pledge by this quote in the least cynical/pessimist way. 

I think, for once, Woody Allen doesn't mean his words in his neurotically morbid way - I think he means that there are two types of people in the world: people who are allowed to be sad -the blind, the deaf, and the dying- and people who are not. No matter what the circumstances.

If you really have a visible condition (heartbreak, terminal illness, a lack of a limb/sense etc.), you fall in the former category - People who can be sad. People whose lives Woody Allen calls "horrible." This lucky affiliation means that you have a right to be depressed, or cynical, or anti-ambitious (if you want to be), without having sharp daggers of judgemental looks thrown upon your back. No, your negative feelings seem to be understood, and even - dare I say it? - accepted by society as normal/expected.

(Un)Fortunately, if you don't fall into the above category, you - like me - are among the the large ranks of the "miserable"ones. People who can't express discontent without feeling just a little bit ungrateful. There's always going to be one more staving kid in a Third World Country, or one more kid with abusive/neglecting parents - one more kid who is infinitely worse off than you are, so being sad about your own relatively plushy life will make you and your problems (valid as they might be) trivial. There's a sort of dilemma between being relatively well-off (mostly monetarily because that is all that society can see) and having problems that make you miserable. You're lucky to be where you are, so, how -society asks- do you have a right to be sad? 

             So miserable people don't have just the honor of the tragedies of human life (that befall everybody, I'm told), but also those of the trivialization of these tragedies by others -and themselves- who think them lucky to have what they've got, and better off not complaining.

I came home crying one evening -pricked particularly deeply by some thorn of everyday life- to my mother's arms and her comforting words: "Be grateful fo what you've got baby, because there's a kid out there in Africa starving right now."

           I'd basically been told that I wasn't allowed to be sad because a kid is starving in Africa. 

I know my mother meant no harm, and I do care for starving children, but it is a burden indeed when you have to feel sad about whatever is making you sad in the first place, as well as wretched and ashamed at the percieved relative triviality of your problems.

                So cheers to being miserable right?

The Next New Thing?

I know my mouth was pulled into an uncharacteristic, self-satisfied smirk - I couldn't help myself. I was watching my arch-rival (or so I thought) as he read my Creative Writing Competition entry with widened eyes, and what sounded like comments of awe.
          The entry didn't win the contest, but I was convinced that this was because my ideas were too radical - so out of the box that they'd jumped onto a new plane, invisible to the lower minds of the judges. And I validated all these thoughts with just the look of respect I'd recieved from a fellow-teenage with his own meagre experiences.

That was more than three years ago, and today, as I felt that same satisfied smirk crease my face again, I was about to come to the same conclusions about my creative ability - that my art is just out of this world.
     This time, the object of my pride wasn't a contest entry, but an idle doodle that had turned into an intense art project. But then I really looked at this doodle - this picture of the earth, and Jesus, and an aloe vera plant/ fiendish fire of hell - and I doubted the creativity here.
       Yes, I'm fairly certain that the Jesus-aloe vera combination hasn't been done before (I'm making it sound more blasphemous than it looks - really), but is the never-been-done-before aspect the only requisite for creativity, for art?
      Anyone can put two highly improbable ideas together and that can be original/new, but is that creativity? Is that art?
       
I mean, just because something is out of the box of conventionality, doesn't mean it is creative and artistic. My doodle of Jesus and aloe vera, for example.

Can you spot the Jesus?

Art has to mean something - it isn't just the inane juxtaposition of random ideas that haven't been put together before. If the unconventionalism in your art is just for the sake of being unconventional, it's not art anymore - it's just an empty clash of vague ideas, like the output of a scrambled computer.

For years, I've heard the cry to think out of the box, to innovate, and create new things, but I've never once heard anyone tell me to create something meaningful. I've been "thinking out of the box," "and creating new things" this entire time, but I haven't really been doing these two things with an end goal of creating meaning.
       My aforementioned contest entry was a mess of ideas - Robin Hood meets Lady Gaga meets Oliver Twist - without any clear ultimate meaning or purpose. It was flamboyant, but empty.
          My doodle, as already described, was about the "decaying fungus of humanity in hell" and Healing. Again, I didn't really put those together the way they needed to be put together - instead, I garishly pasted two different figures of healing (Jesus, and Aloe Vera) on top of the "fungus" - juxtaposing them, but not really giving the whole thing any real meaning.

So far, for me, art has just been about creating new things that no one has ever thought of before. Somewhere along the way, the "innovating," "creating," and "thinking outside the box," became more important than the end result of creating something meaningful.

I'm really only speaking for myself here, but it is possible that, in this world of social media and the rapidly changing trends, art is more about being the next "new" thing, rather than the next meaningful thing. 

I've Changed My Mind About War

       I hate war, and suffering, and pain. I want it all to end - Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Ukraine, Yemen, and every other site of recent warfare that I don't know about.
       I'm decidedly anti-war, both for the troops (young boys and girls who go out bravely, and perhaps a little ignorantly? to do their family and their nation proud - some even join the armed forces to afford college after - something about ROTC?) who're going to come out infinitely changed both physically and mentally, as well as for the families in the region - the little children who could never grow up or those who grew up too fast; the new parents who weren't parents anymore, and the bawling baby left on the road.

Widespread destruction is inhumane - is this really how civilization deals with disputes?

But so far, my anti-war-ness(?) has only been half-hearted. I always took the realistic view that as long as humans have differences, there will be war.
            Plato said, "Only the dead have seen the end of war," and so far, I've agreed. I've thought that war is inevitable - it's a product of our rich differences and uniqueness as humans (see here and here).

I thought that the world must always be at war, because what's the alternative really? I've always thought that a world without war would also be a world without differing ideas and viewpoints. And that warless world of conformity scared me more than any missile strike could.
       I thought that war would only end if everyone agreed - but now I realize that there can be millions of different opinions and still no war - if we all just talked about our opinions and differences instead of killing each other about them.

From:tumblr.com

War isn't inevitable, and it can be completely avoided through compassion -looking at the world from another's eyes for example- and civilized discussion - just common sense really.

I mean no-abuse is a rule in everyday relationships so I don't understand why it cannot be a rule in international relationships. 

A Portrait of Domestic Abuse

I've never done this before, but I think the following content might need a trigger warning. It's a piece of fiction that clawed at my heart as I wrote it - nothing explicit in the writing, but its theme is domestic abuse.
      Well I think that was warning enough. On with the show..

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          Angry barks in lieu of greeting, and cold, frosty silences while I try to make light-hearted conversation like I always do.

            Then, I become aloof - his unreasonable anger has always served its cause of pushing me away, but in this case it shoves me so hard that I’m on the ground. I pick myself up, of course, dust off my 3-day-old clothes (which receive another angry breath), retort sharply, and walk off haughtily. I don’t look or feel hurt, but I am.

           I don’t like conflict. I don’t.

           I’ve run far away in my mind even though I can still hear his infuriated anger. At least, I think I’ve run away.

           I try not to pay attention -every word taunts me, bruises my ego, and challenges me to come running back and flash angrily- and intentionally smoothen the crease between my eyebrows; I look and feel better, but I’m not.

          I don’t fucking like conflict. I don’t.

          Music, books, politics, friends, and school - I have a whole world to distract me, and it does. Life, as they say, goes on.

From: tumblr.com

         But then it halts altogether when I find myself lying on the floor, blood from somewhere trickling down my fingers - I pause, admiring the deep red, and almost remark about its beauty, when I catch his look.
       He’s angry - of course he is, that’s all he ever is - and I see it shining brightly in his eyes. Anger -along with that beautiful, bubbling laughter of his- is what brings him to life.

           I’m angry too - my anger is not as becoming, and not nearly as deep as his, but it satisfies him. He likes to see me angry; he likes me in conflict, and I’ve finally obliged.

       But I still don’t like conflict. I don’t.

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Thanks for reading :)

TomAEto tomAHto - Semantics are cool

          Have you ever repeated a word, any mundane word -lamp, tire, mistletoe- over and over again until it eventually loses all meaning (and sounds like season’s greetings in some alien tongue)?
           If you have, then you have experienced what is known as Semantic Saturation. You’ll also understand why sometimes some popular words and phrases get distorted into only vaguely familiar versions of themselves as they are repeated excessively and passed from mouth to mouth. Words often get used in different contexts, and gradually, they come to mean different things. It is Semantic Saturation in a society.

          One word that has long been a victim of this Societal Semantic Saturation is the word, “given”. For something to be for given free -a helping hand lent, or veteran advice offered- it must be a non-refundable present, one in which the presenter expects no returns. To give for free is to give with no thoughts other than those related to the giving itself.

Today, the word “giving” is used in place of the word “exchanging.” To give for free today, is to do someone a favor in return for a favor they will do for you in the future. ‘Giving’ implies that your present will be returned in another form sometime in the future. Today giving is not a present, it is a mere loan.

From:imgarcade.com

“Nothing is for free,” my economics teacher stressed as he taught us the workings of trade, “the economic systems of the country pivots on this fact.” In the world around us, trade is glorified and exchanging favors is what is expected, it is the norm. People today give with intentions of gain because that is the mentality that the system has instilled in them. To stop this Semantic Saturation of the word giving, we must stop referring to such mere transactions of favors as presents of generosity
         
         While the economy runs on trade, society -human interactions alone- does not. Social relationships are not business partnerships; they are not founded on the terms of mutual materialistic benefit; giving, in a relationship is not in return for (or to intentionally elicit) the other’s generosity, it is simply for the pleasure of giving joy to the other. If social relationships themselves are becoming subtle forms of trade, then the word "given" has definitely been distorted.