happiness # 7

the final monologue of American Beauty. to understand it, to feel it, to know it, to love it, again and again and again.

a map of silent places

looking at a map of the world. many places i see in my mind, imagine what they look like. places i have never been but seen on photos, or places close enough to other places of which i know what they should look like. but looking at that same map, i see how many other places there are of which i can in no way form an image, only an approach to that image. for example, some peninsula on Nova Zembla north of Russia. of course, there will be snow, but what exactly would it look like? or those many small islands that constitute the fragmented shores of many parts of our world?

more places i have no idea of what they look like, than places i know or think i know. frustrating? no. i could probably make it frustrating, but that would not help me at all. in this life i will not have enough time to visit all the places i know, and will have even less time to visit the other places. i will not see the world, i will catch a glimpse of it. and even if i started walking today until my death, i would forget more than half of that same world. what was where and when was there... all unknown again. but what it can really mean, is the potential of places out there, inviting us. and even if we do not go to every invitation, the fact that at the end of our lives we can look back and think of all that other world out there, with its people and lives and happiness and sadness, is enough to be satisfied. satisfaction cannot come with wanting the world, satisfaction will come by loving the wealth this world has to offer, without tasting it all. that wealth is beauty, the unrealised potentials are roads not taken but are roads anyway. perhaps we should just be thankful for the many ways we can lead our lives, even if we follow only this one road from beginning to end.

happiness # 6

to cover a two-person bed just by yourself, lazily stretching out, lingering between falling asleep again or gently waking up. one leg this way, one leg the other way, floating on an endless sea of mattress. being a daybreaker on a bed that is worth two of its kind, on a surface that is to be covered eternally by the lengths of your own body.

amusing ourselves to death

moby's dick... ahahahahahahahahaha

heh heh

ahem

sorry about that

zilt 2

the second of the two.

same comment counts as with the previous one.

aha

i believe the quote was by James Larkin. not that anyone cares, i guess. who am i talking to? oh no, the walls are closing in on me! paranoia! Thomas Pynchon! psychedelica and i've got a bike you can ride it if you like!

ahem

too late to be sane. and it's not that late. says a lot about my sanity.

give me summer

lovely scent of endless summer in the air. corn fields. clouds and no-clouds inbetween.

dublin was nice. love the accent. look left, look right, confusing. busy but some nice history. and smokefree breathing space loveliness. james joyce, eccles street. and everything.

and found that great phrase which so very much raises my own inner powers. but i'm still looking for the exact formulation, as the internet apparently keeps turning up different versions. this one looks closest to my own memory, and the author, whose first name was James, i believe, is to remain a mystery. woooooh. mystery! okay, i'm just too lazy to look it up properly. so anyway:

"The great are only great because we are on our knees: let us rise."

a history of violence

in the news recently: a group of boys threw a jacket over a young invalid boy's head and started kicking/punching him. "happy slapping" it's called, and there is no point but to slap and do it happily.

heard from a boy yesterday who got attacked by four other guys who wanted nothing really but to make fun hurting him. grrreat fun indeed. ho ho ho.

i abhor violence. but when hearing about those things, something shortcircuits inside my brain. i get past any moral issues of pacifism and feel nothing but an intense urge to hurt those people doing these things. smash their faces. kick them in the stomach. bury my elbows deep in their eye sockets. and then there is the eternal confusion. am i no worse?

what does my vengeance do, achieve besides the proof that my moral (and heartfelt) ideas of abhorring violence lead to nothing when it all comes down to "real life"? i am - from the comfort of my living-room, i admit - very much convinced that i would be able to kill someone, out of pure anger and rage, in an attempt to shatter each and every bone inside his/her body, should he/she hurt my girlfriend, for example.

am i then really no worse? is violence really that much a part of my own life, my own being? and is this something to accept, something which is nothing but an element of the conditions i am born with as a member of the homo sapiens (sapiens) clan? or should i try to ban all of these feelings, these sensations, as vengeance is nothing but a sweet-tasting destructive and empty bitterness? does being a part of mankind mean being a violent entity, or is it rather possessing the ability not to do so? is being myself an opportunity to culturally oppress those genuine and true feelings of violence inside of me, or is it an instinctive duty to embrace them?

chanel 9

i'll get me coat...

Bobbles 1