brokenness known
intimately
surgeon hands the interior
mind chasms the learning burden
music lungs staff strings engendered harmony
digger brushes ancestral bones
artist brushes the onera of bodily composition
beauty brushes vanity guise
skin to skin like lovers
I to solitude
as deep as
the greatest ocean depth
yawning width such that
no humanly-engineered ceramic
might keep its atoms bound
when sunk in
to anodyne waters—
those touched by nothing unnatural
diving divining plunges
no fear; as far in as the core
has already been brushed
with flesh, hands.
the relationships are congenital—
birthed with them already inside.
cartography can draw
no name
for the deepness
that we know things
Monday, November 24, 2008
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Clusters of disorder
I despise writing essays about myself.
I don't mean essays about my experiences or observations, but rather essays that ask me to evaluate myself within the confines of a word count and prompt.
My topic this time: "Describe your academic and career interests and/or the most important creative, educational or personal experiences that have led you to persue a university education."
4000 character limit.
I have no idea where to start.
It just isn't possible to encapsulate a human being in what is roughly one and half pages. An infinite number of dimensions web themselves into the complexity that is a living, breathing, existing thing.
Somewhat related, the word-of-the-day today on my homepage thingy is "deportment," defined as "the manner in which one conducts oneself: behavior."
This swarmed around in my head for a bit...
I think a lot about personality; more specifically, I think somewhat obsessively about "personality disorders."
My primary concern with the whole concept is that the personality is the inherent, fundamental, intrinsic, congenital self--the very core of what we are. It is as deep as any known entity that can bury itself into our bones and hearts and blood.
We are, without that inarticulatable thing, nothing much more than atoms and elements. It is creativity and personality that perpetuate all things. It is how we have come into so much learning; it is also how we have so destroyed ourselves in the process.
If, for there to be progress, the personality is such a singularly essential component, it seems almost impossible that our brains--that humanity as a group--can classify a personality as "disordered."
I'm endlessly fascinated by personality disorders--how they've been classified and grouped and determined by however and whoever holds that particular authority within the psychological realm.
Of particular interest to me are what the oh-so-mighty DSM likes to call the Cluster B (dramatic, emotional, or erratic) disorders, particularly Histrionic, Borderline, and Narcissistic, as well as the Cluster A disorder Schizoid personality disorder. Good thing we have a manual to give proper name to all the world's mental illnesses, eh?
But despite my disdain for the classification/categorization/dehumanization of our personalities, I am indeed fascinated mostly by those "disorders" that involve a strange mutation of self-perception. Distortion and breaking away from whatever trauma might have been the catalyst. It is pretty endlessly fascinating stuff.
There is still that part of me, though, that can't quite seem to fully grasp the entire concept.
There are so many definitions, generally culminating in the idea that a personality disorder is primarily characterized by a pervasive set of consequences that disrupt everyday life and cause harm. Social and familial relationships are impacted, it becomes more difficult to separate reality from fantasy, and there is inevitably some sort of cleaving of the self. It's possibly comparable to addiction, I suppose.
I'd like to write a book on all of this. Mostly, though, I am just concerned with this phenomenon of classifying our most imperative, intrinsic selves as somehow damaged or diseased.
All this essentially this comes back to this essay I have to write...an essay about myself, about why I am engaged in my current course of education...how can I explain the "disorder" of my personality that is my addiction to learning?
Knowledge is my drug of choice. Once I get that first taste I need increasing amounts to satisfy the craving. This thing fulfills all the prerequisites of a true addiction as it is defined by the psychological powers-that-be. Primarily, it has pervasive consequences.
Knowledge brings a view and world and self that widens with every new fact or lore or fiction or myth or sensation. The imagination expands and brews up a tempest in the body. All things become more complex, more colorful, more intense.
But also, with knowledge comes a burden. The Consequences. Knowledge brings helplessness and cynicism and pain. With the new complexity comes an expanding amount of confusion.
I need to learn to go on. My body and brain has become dependent upon it...and it's addictive properties have seeped into everything I do. Learning has struck its way into my very genetic makeup. Without it, I might breathe and exist and be, but I could contribute nothing, and my world would be stark...horrifying...simplistic and sane and boring as fuck.
How am I supposed to write all of this, in an essay about myself? How am I to declare, that by every definition, my personality and inherent self is fundamentally "disordered?" That I encompass every cluster of personality disorder? That I am an addict? That without learning, I would have no reason to exist? I would wilt, become dessicated, leaving nothing but powdery remains, like a crucible. How do I tell this to people?
I am broken in the most sublime and, subsequently, painful way.
Bukowski wrote about writing and poetry:
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.
when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.
there is no other way.
and there never was.
How true, how true, how true. How true it all is.
But the sun burns my gut. It sears and sizzles and bubbles from the heat. Burn burned burning burnt.
I have a disordered (unorderly, unruly, chaotic) personality.
It keeps me alive.
I don't mean essays about my experiences or observations, but rather essays that ask me to evaluate myself within the confines of a word count and prompt.
My topic this time: "Describe your academic and career interests and/or the most important creative, educational or personal experiences that have led you to persue a university education."
4000 character limit.
I have no idea where to start.
It just isn't possible to encapsulate a human being in what is roughly one and half pages. An infinite number of dimensions web themselves into the complexity that is a living, breathing, existing thing.
Somewhat related, the word-of-the-day today on my homepage thingy is "deportment," defined as "the manner in which one conducts oneself: behavior."
This swarmed around in my head for a bit...
I think a lot about personality; more specifically, I think somewhat obsessively about "personality disorders."
My primary concern with the whole concept is that the personality is the inherent, fundamental, intrinsic, congenital self--the very core of what we are. It is as deep as any known entity that can bury itself into our bones and hearts and blood.
We are, without that inarticulatable thing, nothing much more than atoms and elements. It is creativity and personality that perpetuate all things. It is how we have come into so much learning; it is also how we have so destroyed ourselves in the process.
If, for there to be progress, the personality is such a singularly essential component, it seems almost impossible that our brains--that humanity as a group--can classify a personality as "disordered."
I'm endlessly fascinated by personality disorders--how they've been classified and grouped and determined by however and whoever holds that particular authority within the psychological realm.
Of particular interest to me are what the oh-so-mighty DSM likes to call the Cluster B (dramatic, emotional, or erratic) disorders, particularly Histrionic, Borderline, and Narcissistic, as well as the Cluster A disorder Schizoid personality disorder. Good thing we have a manual to give proper name to all the world's mental illnesses, eh?
But despite my disdain for the classification/categorization/dehumanization of our personalities, I am indeed fascinated mostly by those "disorders" that involve a strange mutation of self-perception. Distortion and breaking away from whatever trauma might have been the catalyst. It is pretty endlessly fascinating stuff.
There is still that part of me, though, that can't quite seem to fully grasp the entire concept.
There are so many definitions, generally culminating in the idea that a personality disorder is primarily characterized by a pervasive set of consequences that disrupt everyday life and cause harm. Social and familial relationships are impacted, it becomes more difficult to separate reality from fantasy, and there is inevitably some sort of cleaving of the self. It's possibly comparable to addiction, I suppose.
I'd like to write a book on all of this. Mostly, though, I am just concerned with this phenomenon of classifying our most imperative, intrinsic selves as somehow damaged or diseased.
All this essentially this comes back to this essay I have to write...an essay about myself, about why I am engaged in my current course of education...how can I explain the "disorder" of my personality that is my addiction to learning?
Knowledge is my drug of choice. Once I get that first taste I need increasing amounts to satisfy the craving. This thing fulfills all the prerequisites of a true addiction as it is defined by the psychological powers-that-be. Primarily, it has pervasive consequences.
Knowledge brings a view and world and self that widens with every new fact or lore or fiction or myth or sensation. The imagination expands and brews up a tempest in the body. All things become more complex, more colorful, more intense.
But also, with knowledge comes a burden. The Consequences. Knowledge brings helplessness and cynicism and pain. With the new complexity comes an expanding amount of confusion.
I need to learn to go on. My body and brain has become dependent upon it...and it's addictive properties have seeped into everything I do. Learning has struck its way into my very genetic makeup. Without it, I might breathe and exist and be, but I could contribute nothing, and my world would be stark...horrifying...simplistic and sane and boring as fuck.
How am I supposed to write all of this, in an essay about myself? How am I to declare, that by every definition, my personality and inherent self is fundamentally "disordered?" That I encompass every cluster of personality disorder? That I am an addict? That without learning, I would have no reason to exist? I would wilt, become dessicated, leaving nothing but powdery remains, like a crucible. How do I tell this to people?
I am broken in the most sublime and, subsequently, painful way.
Bukowski wrote about writing and poetry:
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.
when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.
there is no other way.
and there never was.
How true, how true, how true. How true it all is.
But the sun burns my gut. It sears and sizzles and bubbles from the heat. Burn burned burning burnt.
I have a disordered (unorderly, unruly, chaotic) personality.
It keeps me alive.
Monday, November 17, 2008
"So what is this? A Taster's Choice moment between guys?"
Is it bad to identify so completely and wholly with a television character? I mean, within popular culture, there are certainly those things that I would not object to...being a Jedi or going to Hogwarts, among them. But even above those particular fantasies, there is Scrubs, which in my mind pretty much equates to brilliance. The show is really frickin' great.
I adore J.D. Probably because he's basically me if I were a dude and a doctor...awkward, always in an inherently lonely state even despite others, a writer (Dr. Acula, anyone?), and so heartbreakingly longing for the adorable mentor-y love of the untouchable, sarcastic, deep-down-heart-of-gold-despite-abrasive-outer-self Dr. Cox.
Here, have some self-disclosure: I am a complete, 100%, bona fide sucker for those inspirational mentor-saves-young-mentoree-from-self-and-all-learn-lessons-in-the-end movies. I love the formula, I love the angst, I love the warm fuzzies that inevitably come. It's just damn good stuff.
I mean, come on...the perils of youth and the wisdom of age meet and collide. Various events transpire. Eventually, both sides learn something. The youth gains vital life lessons and encouragement and the elder sees a part of their own self in the mentoree and both evolve in spirit. How can you not love it? It's like a horrible (read: wonderful), cliched Plague (causative agent: Yersenia Pestis)!
It's the downfall in my misanthropy...that damn Good Will Hunting, that stupid Emperor's Club, that lousy Dead Poet's Society, all that Stand and Deliver-ing! They make my heart smile a bit. And they sort of put a dent in my hatred of humanity.
Anyway, this clip doesn't have a whole lot to do with mentor-ish movies, but the J.D./Dr. Cox relationship got me rambling. Watch:
Ok. First of all, FECKING ADORABLE.
Secondly, AWWWW!!!
Thirdly, apparently "Broken Heart Syndrome" is a veritable medical phenomenon known medically as apical ballooning syndrome and is a sudden weakening of a heart muscle due to severe emotional stress or trauma.[1]
It is a horrible thought, to die that way. Perhaps the greatest sickness of them all. Maybe not, though. Maybe there are worse things. Physical pain to the most extreme, for example.
I think, though, that a pain so great the body cannot tolerate it could only eventually lead to numbness.
And numbness is a state of unfeeling.
It would almost make sense that the aftermath of a cracked heart will pang until the body reaches death. A perpetual ache. It might even persist after...there's really no way of knowing, eh?
O, angry world, if only thy cure was kittens!
______________________
[1] http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/56666.php
I adore J.D. Probably because he's basically me if I were a dude and a doctor...awkward, always in an inherently lonely state even despite others, a writer (Dr. Acula, anyone?), and so heartbreakingly longing for the adorable mentor-y love of the untouchable, sarcastic, deep-down-heart-of-gold-despite-abrasive-outer-self Dr. Cox.
Here, have some self-disclosure: I am a complete, 100%, bona fide sucker for those inspirational mentor-saves-young-mentoree-from-self-and-all-learn-lessons-in-the-end movies. I love the formula, I love the angst, I love the warm fuzzies that inevitably come. It's just damn good stuff.
I mean, come on...the perils of youth and the wisdom of age meet and collide. Various events transpire. Eventually, both sides learn something. The youth gains vital life lessons and encouragement and the elder sees a part of their own self in the mentoree and both evolve in spirit. How can you not love it? It's like a horrible (read: wonderful), cliched Plague (causative agent: Yersenia Pestis)!
It's the downfall in my misanthropy...that damn Good Will Hunting, that stupid Emperor's Club, that lousy Dead Poet's Society, all that Stand and Deliver-ing! They make my heart smile a bit. And they sort of put a dent in my hatred of humanity.
Anyway, this clip doesn't have a whole lot to do with mentor-ish movies, but the J.D./Dr. Cox relationship got me rambling. Watch:
Ok. First of all, FECKING ADORABLE.
Secondly, AWWWW!!!
Thirdly, apparently "Broken Heart Syndrome" is a veritable medical phenomenon known medically as apical ballooning syndrome and is a sudden weakening of a heart muscle due to severe emotional stress or trauma.[1]
It is a horrible thought, to die that way. Perhaps the greatest sickness of them all. Maybe not, though. Maybe there are worse things. Physical pain to the most extreme, for example.
I think, though, that a pain so great the body cannot tolerate it could only eventually lead to numbness.
And numbness is a state of unfeeling.
It would almost make sense that the aftermath of a cracked heart will pang until the body reaches death. A perpetual ache. It might even persist after...there's really no way of knowing, eh?
O, angry world, if only thy cure was kittens!
______________________
[1] http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/56666.php
Monday, November 10, 2008
Things and other things
San Francisco this weekend had its perfectly San Franciscian weather. Lots of fog, drizzle, and cold bay air. Lovely.
Going into the city...look closely, there's a bridge some- where in the distance!
I don't know how to work my camera...
You know, clam chowder and rain and sea-smell are all grand things, but I think the highlight of this particular trip had to be the guy who held two huge branches. He sat, hidden, behind them and then when the unsuspecting populace would walk by, he would wiggle the branches and scare them.
Going into the city...look closely, there's a bridge some- where in the distance!
I don't know how to work my camera...
You know, clam chowder and rain and sea-smell are all grand things, but I think the highlight of this particular trip had to be the guy who held two huge branches. He sat, hidden, behind them and then when the unsuspecting populace would walk by, he would wiggle the branches and scare them.
There is something really beautiful in that. I may not be entirely sure what that might be, but just know, and be comforted, that it is there.
In other news, this week was elections, just in case ya haven't heard. Alas, my guy lost, but I had a nagging feeling he might not get the job ;-)...and I'm not talking about McCain here. All I can say is that, when the entire country implodes, as it inevitably would under the leadership of either of those two men, that's not gonna be on my hands.
In any case, congrats to Mr. Obama. May he somehow find a way to untangle what history has knotted.
You know, if history were a boy scout, it'd be an eagle scout, for sure. A venerable master of The Knot.
Sidebar: have you ever considered how truly lame it is that the boy scouts sell popcorn? I mean, really? Really? They get their asses kicked up and down sidewalks across America by girl scouts every year and they still aren't shamed. I'm sorry, but no measly popcorn can ever measure up to the power of the Thin Mint. And that's just fact.
Returning to main line of thought: Unfortunately, the good news of a change in tide for America was certainly overshadowed by a disheartening turn towards injustice. A repetition of all past mistakes. The reemergence of the maculation that is inequality and prejudice. A sad day, indeed.
But, at least we were able to pass a proposition so that chickens and cows aren't so cramped! I mean, really, I think it's just fantastic that farm animals are afforded basic freedoms before human beings are! How could we have been so horribly unjust before this? The chickens can't spread their wings! Oh, but they can now. So, congratulations, livestock! Basic human rights just can't measure up to your needs on the big scale of voter priorities, apparently.
I generally avoid political discussion, as politics are inherently evil and so, so vain, but this particular election seems to have called for a bit of personal opinion and disclosure.
Yes, I voted for a third party candidate. No, I am not crazy or uninformed (though I'm sure there are some who might dispute the crazy part :)), but I cannot stand petty catfight drama. Neither of those two men would have been out of place in a high school social setting at any point during their campaign. They were both self-absorbed and cliche. All this talk of "change" and being a "maverick" is nothing more than cheap rhetoric when observing their actions over the past months.
Politics politics politics politics politics. They fog up everything that needs clarity more than words can say.
Fog is pervasive these days...
I am happy that inevitable mutations in American genetics are coming. I am severely disheartened that prejudice is still so stabbing. I am weary of every day.
I want to stick a syringe of idealism into this nation's veins. I want a pure pursuit of intellect and knowledge to be the leading contender for office. I want this all with a desperate naivete. But we are all too tainted for that. The infections are already too deep. They've taken root in the marrow and now we are left with something so very chronic.
I feel a great deal of fear for what is coming.
Fear and fear and anticipation and fear.
I hope that someday a cure might be found for terror I feel.
I hope that someday a cure might be found for terror I feel.
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