miércoles, junio 27, 2007

hijacked by Nietzsche

So, I decided that I wanted to read Beyond Good and Evil by Nietzsche. I found a copy on the Gutenberg press that I could download for free. THEN, I discovered that I could also download it as an audio file. "Cool," I thought.

I downloaded it and began listening. The guy reading it had a great voice for softly reading..well, anything into your ear. I was seriously getting into the voice and realised that I couldn't listen to it while I was writing. Nietzsche isn't exactly background music.

I pressed pause..."TO RECOGNISE UNTRUTH AS A CONDITION OF LIFE; that is certainly to impugn the traditional ideas of value in a dangerous manner,... and a philosophy which ventures to do so, has thereby alone placed itself beyond goodand evil..."

Hmm...that didn't work.

I tried to close the player. "-how much of personal timidity and vulnerability does this masquerade of a sickly recluse betray!" The player disappeared but the voice droned on, it's sexiness being replaced by a certain edge of suspicion. (Or was that just my imagination?)

Ctrl + Alt + Del, the three fingered salute...
"...program not responding" No kidding?!
Stop program.

"You desire to LIVE "according to Nature"? Oh, you noble
Stoics, what fraud of words!"
...I'm sure that this soft spoken yet passionate man spouting Nietzsche is not as sexy as he once appeared. How did he hijack my computer? He was no longer welcome in the intimacy of my ears.

I began closing down other programs..."Is not living valuing, preferring, being unjust, being limited, endeavouring to be different?"

With that, it stopped. I breathed a sigh of relief. A couple more quotations ran through my brain as I shut it down.
Not there yet, I thought of my favourite Nietzsche quotations,

"Blessed are the forgetful for they get the better even of their blunders."

and

"There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness."

sábado, junio 16, 2007

married... and meandering

I'm 31. I have had a tremendous life so far- full of adventure and excitement and new places and people. I haven't been in a real relationship in a long time, or indeed in a long-term relationship- it's hard when one goes around and around the world. The people I'm closest to don't generally have relationships either.

My oldest friend (we met when we were 14 & 15 years old) got married a year ago. Now, we haven't been really close for years- but we've always been like sisters. The love remains. I couldn't make the wedding- she was really angry with me. We haven't talked much since (not that we talked much before).

Today she sent out the wedding pics finally. She was so beautiful- truly. As I sat here, in Madrid, I felt worlds away from everything she is and knows. It made me sad.

We met at a summer camp in Oklahoma. Her dad was the director of the session and my parents managed the camp. When I finished high school, I moved to Texas and her family helped me to get on my feet. I worked renovating houses with her mom. A few years later, after she finished University, I sponsored her and helped her get on her feet in Boston. She's been there ever since.

The wedding was beautiful- an eclectic mix of Texas and New England. It was so....domestic (please note: the word "domestic" is referring to the wedding, not the bride- she was more like a Goddess in white). It fit. She fit. He fit...they all fit together. There were her brothers, all grown up and with growing kids and looking more and more like her dad every year...her darling nephew looks like he's about 10 now- can that be??

I don't like looking back. I don't like returning to the U.S. I don't like being reminded of how I never understood nor was understood- I was just the square peg that could never fit into the round hole and didn't see the point of fitting in holes anyway. Why muck about in holes when there's the sky and everything under it to explore?

I've chosen the most beautiful life (for me)- a life filled with dreams come true, adventures, languages, far off lands with strange customs (to me)...everything I ever wished for as a kid and an adult. Still, I'm aware that there is a huge piece of life that I've never experienced. It's a piece that most people seem to know. It's a sense of roots, a sense of belonging somewhere- it's referring to "home" as more than the place & country where they happen to live this particular year.

I'm not from anywhere really. I was born in Northern California in the north end of the most beautiful valley. We left when I was 12. I don't know anyone there now. They've replaced all of the farms with outlet shopping malls. I've lived in Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Spain, New Zealand, Peru, Argentina, England, Maldives and now Spain again. I've been to 30 countries. I know more people outside of the US than inside. I love my family and they love me- but they're not really communicators by distance. I haven't seen them in four years, and they rarely answer emails.

One day, when I'm old and want to settle, I'll have a nice cozy cottage on the edge of some village. I'll be "the eccentric" that lives just outside of town. I don't know in what country or continent...one day perhaps I'll just stop.

Wouldn't it be interesting to change lives with someone for a week? To really KNOW what they think and feel? The things that go through their mind in a day? Their worries, their joys, their path...