Wednesday, 13 February 2008
Tired yet restive
I'm tired yet restive, I'm enjoyin havin a blog even though I'm not sure what to write and my g's don't appear unless i jam my finger hard on the keypad. Or is it a key-board? Maybe laptops have their own terms of their paraphenalia. Their own separate, distinctive names for exactly the same thing. Maybe keyblock or keyface.
Sunday, 10 February 2008
so-called lazy sunday
Today was a lazy sunday. The whole atmosphere was set-up to be lazy, even most of the people I met today have been reading, watching and talking lazily as I went by. Yet the only one who seems to not be so good at being lazy was me. I've been busy the whole day and now I feel as everyone else is going to bed, I am finally feeling lazy too.
I wonder if there is a lazy switch which people can tune into when they want to switch off, do white anglo-saxon protestants (I didn't really notice the ethnic background of the lazy people today - I'm just assuming they were WASPs) have an in-built off switch for Sundays. How do people relax without even trying to relax. I suppose it's a similar although a juxtaposed question as why can some people sleep-walk and others have to spend thirty minutes wondering whether they will have the motivation to get an extra blanket or not.
I wonder if there is a lazy switch which people can tune into when they want to switch off, do white anglo-saxon protestants (I didn't really notice the ethnic background of the lazy people today - I'm just assuming they were WASPs) have an in-built off switch for Sundays. How do people relax without even trying to relax. I suppose it's a similar although a juxtaposed question as why can some people sleep-walk and others have to spend thirty minutes wondering whether they will have the motivation to get an extra blanket or not.
Fired up to the max
Gratefully past the finish
There's no place like home
Gratefully past the finish
There's no place like home
Saturday, 9 February 2008
What's worth dying for?
The problem with blogs, is that you think, oh what shall I do now, the computers on and you've run out of things to google and then you remember you haven't updated your blog in a while and writing's good anyway for feeling good. So here's me now, wondering if I'm going to be funny/embarrassed or something else. Of course I don't need to publish this (although now I do).
...make some mistakes that lead to him dying on his own in the countryside. It's a real heroic ending in that it's portrayed like he has made a sacrifice for trying to follow his dreams/happiness. Unfortunately in the film it suggests that he realises before he dies that sharing happiness is necessary for it to be real. But then in his last moments, as he sees the sun come out from behind the clouds (which refers to the same thing happening earlier in the film when he is told God's love will shine down on him) he feels happy and wonders if indeed being with others would have given him the same happiness as how he finally feels.
This I thought was a beautiful and interesting question about what is happiness? If we're trying to be as happy as possible, then curtailing your ambitions and your dreams will mean you never know if this is as happy as you can be. If on the other hand, we are trying to just live life as easily as possible and try and maximise happiness along the way then we may still do the same things we would do if we were really pushing to be happy, there's just less chance of making it true.
Is this true though? Does it matter how passionate we are about making the most of this world? Will all things come to pass whatever we do? Again it seems like it's more likely that the things we want, we'll get, if we are more passionate about them. But who decides on their own passion?
I think that on the other hand we can talk about passion facilitating action but also we can talk about allowing whims and curiosity to lead our behaviour. Which is maybe what Chris may have done in real life (it is based on a real life person). For him, as a young graduated student from an affluent but unhappy background he could have felt he had nothing to lose.
I feel like I did the same thing and also because I didn't realise how a part of happiness comes from sharing, not just personal attainment I went off to follow my dreams of overcoming the challenges both inside and outside of myself. Maybe to some extent, the story in Into the Wild is unrealistic, because all he sees is happiness until near the end when he sees sharing is important. Because I certainly felt huge amounts of uncertainty about what I was doing and whether going off to do things by yourself was valuable on their own. In the end I came back to live with my family, my uncertainties meaning I felt I was not able to carry on on my own. Did this save me? Perhaps my life like Chris would have come to some premature end if I had not stopped from trying to be happy not from sharing it but from overcoming challenges. Maybe I'm taking it too seriously? Maybe not. Maybe I'm okay because I always wanted to take life less seriously (when I was younger, I remember thinking laughter was always a great thing) yet others like Chris in the film are brought up to take life too seriously regardless of whether that seriousness is doing something beautiful or less so.
In the film's ending Chris is suggested to feel happy even though he has "failed" and is dying alone. Why is this? Is it because he feels at one with nature and God as he goes through an experience which everything on the planet does? Or is he just glad to have lived. Perhaps it's a hollywood moment, do real people die beatifically even if they regret how they got to that point?
A book I read some of last night No COuntry for Old Men, which is about the effects of a man stumbling on a drug deal gone wrong in modern day wild west and then running off with the money. It hasn't had the same emotional impact as Into the Wild, partly because it is a lot more violent and so harder to relate to my own life but also because the pain of what the people are going through is so much more intense. Where Into the WIld allows you to follow Chris's dreams and your own for most of the film and then only stops at the very end to ask the Question: 'is it worth it', No COuntry for OLd Men, firmly doesn't ask but tells you it's not worth it, and it's not getting any better either. Admittedly I haven't finished the book yet, and I may have not seen how more hope may come into the final chapters. However most of the main characters....
***WARNING***WARNING***WARNING***WARNING***WARNING
PLOT SPOILER PLOT SPOILER PLOT SPOILER PLOT SPOILER
***WARNING***WARNING***WARNING***WARNING***WARNING
...die, and die inorexably, one after the other as the story progresses. In this book their deaths are seen as a whatever you do, you will die and when you least expect it and by the way don't even think of having some point or conclusion to your life, there won't be.
So is it so impossible things could get better? In the old west where things are being shook up by more organised, globalised crime cartels, where business as usual means greater control by legions of heartless criminals (both in and outside the boardroom) then normal community has less and less chance of being able to exist independently. Maybe the question should be not is it impossible for things to get better but why are things not getting better. Why are the important things downtrodden. Inevitably, human nature can be questioned here. Do we have an innate destructive drive? Or is it just the heartlessness of the society that we created that does not allow for emotional reality to play a part in our decisions. Again I'm not sure it matters, other than it's good to have something to fight for, be it your own challenges which you want to face or the challenges of making the world better. In general I think most people want the latter and will always want it.
To go back to my title, I'm not sure if there's anything worth dying for or whether death's worth changes regardless of what you do or even how you think. I'm still scared that I don't know what to say or even think when I die. Do you? Will it annoy you if I use your last words? it will make me feel better for not thinking of some of my own.
I don't know what it is I'm aiming for. I saw a film this week called Into the Wild by Sean Penn. A good film, though apparently not as good as the book at showing Christopher McCandless (the main protaganist) in an unsentimental light. The film concentrated on Chris's journey to ALaska to be by himself and surrounded by nature. This boyhood fantasy trek sees him eventually...
WARNING ************ the next few lines involve some plot parts given away even though I'm not ruining the film I don't want to be accused of not giving a WARNING*******************
WARNING ************ the next few lines involve some plot parts given away even though I'm not ruining the film I don't want to be accused of not giving a WARNING*******************
...make some mistakes that lead to him dying on his own in the countryside. It's a real heroic ending in that it's portrayed like he has made a sacrifice for trying to follow his dreams/happiness. Unfortunately in the film it suggests that he realises before he dies that sharing happiness is necessary for it to be real. But then in his last moments, as he sees the sun come out from behind the clouds (which refers to the same thing happening earlier in the film when he is told God's love will shine down on him) he feels happy and wonders if indeed being with others would have given him the same happiness as how he finally feels.
This I thought was a beautiful and interesting question about what is happiness? If we're trying to be as happy as possible, then curtailing your ambitions and your dreams will mean you never know if this is as happy as you can be. If on the other hand, we are trying to just live life as easily as possible and try and maximise happiness along the way then we may still do the same things we would do if we were really pushing to be happy, there's just less chance of making it true.
Is this true though? Does it matter how passionate we are about making the most of this world? Will all things come to pass whatever we do? Again it seems like it's more likely that the things we want, we'll get, if we are more passionate about them. But who decides on their own passion?
I think that on the other hand we can talk about passion facilitating action but also we can talk about allowing whims and curiosity to lead our behaviour. Which is maybe what Chris may have done in real life (it is based on a real life person). For him, as a young graduated student from an affluent but unhappy background he could have felt he had nothing to lose.
I feel like I did the same thing and also because I didn't realise how a part of happiness comes from sharing, not just personal attainment I went off to follow my dreams of overcoming the challenges both inside and outside of myself. Maybe to some extent, the story in Into the Wild is unrealistic, because all he sees is happiness until near the end when he sees sharing is important. Because I certainly felt huge amounts of uncertainty about what I was doing and whether going off to do things by yourself was valuable on their own. In the end I came back to live with my family, my uncertainties meaning I felt I was not able to carry on on my own. Did this save me? Perhaps my life like Chris would have come to some premature end if I had not stopped from trying to be happy not from sharing it but from overcoming challenges. Maybe I'm taking it too seriously? Maybe not. Maybe I'm okay because I always wanted to take life less seriously (when I was younger, I remember thinking laughter was always a great thing) yet others like Chris in the film are brought up to take life too seriously regardless of whether that seriousness is doing something beautiful or less so.
In the film's ending Chris is suggested to feel happy even though he has "failed" and is dying alone. Why is this? Is it because he feels at one with nature and God as he goes through an experience which everything on the planet does? Or is he just glad to have lived. Perhaps it's a hollywood moment, do real people die beatifically even if they regret how they got to that point?
A book I read some of last night No COuntry for Old Men, which is about the effects of a man stumbling on a drug deal gone wrong in modern day wild west and then running off with the money. It hasn't had the same emotional impact as Into the Wild, partly because it is a lot more violent and so harder to relate to my own life but also because the pain of what the people are going through is so much more intense. Where Into the WIld allows you to follow Chris's dreams and your own for most of the film and then only stops at the very end to ask the Question: 'is it worth it', No COuntry for OLd Men, firmly doesn't ask but tells you it's not worth it, and it's not getting any better either. Admittedly I haven't finished the book yet, and I may have not seen how more hope may come into the final chapters. However most of the main characters....
***WARNING***WARNING***WARNING***WARNING***WARNING
PLOT SPOILER PLOT SPOILER PLOT SPOILER PLOT SPOILER
***WARNING***WARNING***WARNING***WARNING***WARNING
...die, and die inorexably, one after the other as the story progresses. In this book their deaths are seen as a whatever you do, you will die and when you least expect it and by the way don't even think of having some point or conclusion to your life, there won't be.
So is it so impossible things could get better? In the old west where things are being shook up by more organised, globalised crime cartels, where business as usual means greater control by legions of heartless criminals (both in and outside the boardroom) then normal community has less and less chance of being able to exist independently. Maybe the question should be not is it impossible for things to get better but why are things not getting better. Why are the important things downtrodden. Inevitably, human nature can be questioned here. Do we have an innate destructive drive? Or is it just the heartlessness of the society that we created that does not allow for emotional reality to play a part in our decisions. Again I'm not sure it matters, other than it's good to have something to fight for, be it your own challenges which you want to face or the challenges of making the world better. In general I think most people want the latter and will always want it.
To go back to my title, I'm not sure if there's anything worth dying for or whether death's worth changes regardless of what you do or even how you think. I'm still scared that I don't know what to say or even think when I die. Do you? Will it annoy you if I use your last words? it will make me feel better for not thinking of some of my own.
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