Monday, January 10, 2011

200, two hundred, 200

1. I suppose this is a celebration.

2. An acknowledgement.

3. A reflection.

4. I've reached 200 posts and I find it to be a curious landmark.

5. There is something going on with my writing these days.

6. Something that I feel uncomfortable about.

7. Not that I think I'm doing anything wrong.

8. I'm just losing track.

9. Even as I'm writing this thing I feel a twinge.

10. I think about how I did this 100 phrases for 100 posts.

11. Now here I am doing 200 phrases for 200 posts.

12. Not sure how I feel about it.

13. I guess I just have lost track of why I'm doing anything I'm doing.

14. The working world sometimes feels less novel.

15. Routine gets to me sometimes.

16. Makes me feel locked into a cycle, a world, a pattern.

17. One that can be frustrating.

18. Writing about novelty.

19. Someone told me that frustration seems to be a consistent theme with me.

20. Seems like it these days.

21. But I'm not sure why.

22. I'm not sure what is happening to me these days.

23. What I'm feeling, I guess is what I mean.

24. I'm just not sure what I'm feeling.

25. Im going through a vague process of grieving.

26. For an actual family member lost to age.

27. And for the rest of my family that I'm now further from before.

28. I imposed the space.

29. But I'm not sure why.

30. Just to do something for myself.

31. But I'm not sure what I'm doing,

32. I'm sorry that this is just becoming a rant about confusion and frustration.

33. One structured by silly numbers none the less.

34. Am I really going to write all 200 of these little numbers?

35. Cause for some reason it doesn't feel very engaging to me right now.

36. It feels forced to me right now.

37. When I did this for 100 posts it felt strange and exciting.

38. I was still wrapped up in the writing I was doing.

39. And I'm still very much interested in the writing I'm doing.

40. But I just don't have a lot of faith in this current project.

41. Art, Zen, And Insurrection.

42. I don't really like the title very much anymore

43. I feel myself lapsing at work.

44. Lapsing in how engaged I am with customers.

45. Today I was just so very tired.

46. I was having too much fun this last week.

47. I was just so tired today.

48. I'm giving someone their change and I almost ask them how they are doing.

49. Then I simply feel the moment pass.

50. Last night I woke up at two in the morning and my arms were numb.

51. I looked around me because I thought that there was someone in the room.

52. I felt like there was someone in the room.

53. But of course there wasn't anyone in the room.

54. I was alone in a dark room like I usually am.

55. But my arms were numb.

56. I turned over on one side and looked into the room.

57. I tried to get the feeling to return to my arms but they continued to feel weird.

58. I don't know what was happening to me.

59. But I lied there for a little while.

60. I thought maybe my arms were cold.

61. So I put them under the covers.

62. I got too hot.

63. I put them out.

64. Then something happened and I managed to go back to sleep.

65. That was it I suppose.

66. That was all that happened.

67. Someone came to see me at work today.

68. I was telling her about it.

69. About how it isn't uncommon for me to wake up in the middle of the night and think that I see someone in the room.

70. I think my mind plays tricks on me.

71. Collingwood and Frith both have things to say about this.

72. About how the mind and the imagination are positive and constructive.

73. They build reality.

74. Sometimes a pile of clothes looks like a woman sitting in the corner.

75. Sometimes a bush looks like a girl standing outside my window.

76. One problem I have with my writing is how much it resembles these instances of weird imagination.

77. My writing just pops up and I follow it.

78. I just think certain things and then they develop themselves on paper or on word documents.

79. Then I pursue them.

80. I keep looking at them and I keep writing them and they change and I change.

81. But I don't like how beyond my control it seems.

82. Or how little I understand what it is that I'm doing.

83. I think things and then I tell people about it and then they think totally different things about it.

84. I suppose in theory I'm okay with only having access to my own perspective.

85. But in reality I am troubled by it.

86. I don't understand why I see from the perspective that I do.

87. Why I think things are the way that they are.

88. They are okay.

89. Things are fine.

90. I feel happy.

91. And at the same time I don't.

92. I just have been so tired the last couple days.

93. Too much partying.

94. I can hardly keep my focus on writing all these numbered statements.

95. I can't keep my focus because I don't like doing it.

96. But it appears as though I'm going to keep doing it.

97. It doesn't look like I'm stopping.

98. It appears as though I'll hit the halfway mark with resolve to keep going.

99. Sometimes I like to force myself to write.

100. To not let my fingers stop.

101. Because I'm curious about what will come out.

102. But right now I don't have much resolve for honesty.

103. Mainly because honesty is too contradictory for me to make sense of.

104. My writing is still going through all kinds of weird changes all the time.

105. I don't know what I'm doing.

106. But why is it bothering me so much?

107. I seem to have lost some of my comfort with uncertainty.

108. Because that really is the issue.

109. I've become frustrated with not knowing what I'm doing.

110. As much as I laud my desire for uncertainty, I'm still so stuck with it.

111. Still so confused by it.

112. Still so not okay with being confused.

113. I think that confusion will change or fade.

114. I think that the holiday traveling got me all confused.

115. I think that my return has got me all confused.

116. I think a lot of things have gotten me all confused.

117. I'll become more settled hopefully.

118. Just put on Panda Bear's "Person Pitch".

119. Sounds intense so far.

120. This song is taking me back to old times.

121. I'll try to remember always, just to have a good time.

122. Try to show that you know me.

123. Do you know what coolness really means?

124. Panda Bear.

125. How fun.

126. I suppose I will just keep trucking away at this writing project.

127. Keep thinking about the different things that I'm doing.

128. One thing I really feel that I'm doing in this big project has to do with a point that Collingwood means.

129. He says that his definition of art has implications for all of life.

130. That all of us can make ourselves into artists all the time.

131. That because we use language we need to be concerned with how we use it and what we do with it.

132. And then he just moves on.

133. Then he just keeps on giving his explication of art and how art works or whatever.

134. It frustrates me that he would make such a claim and then not tell me more.

135. But he has told me enough.

136. I know he told me enough.

137. I know he said a lot of things about consciousness and the way that it is involved in all this business.

138. I'm just losing myself in it all.

139. Losing all the different threads.

140. But I don't know.

141. I continue to think about philosophy and the history of philosophy.

142. I need to know more about history.

143. Much more about history.

144. I feel like taking a break from this writing.

145. Just from this post.

146. And just for a few minutes.

147. Because I felt like I was getting trapped in a certain line of thought there.

148. What is all this business about aesthetics anyways?

149. Why does it matter?

150. It matters how we use language and express ourselves, sure.

151. But how can the word aesthetics have any kind of meaningful definition or discussion?

152. I don't know why I think it so important.

153. Or how to make it seem important to others.

154. But it gives me certain issues to think about.

155. Frames other issues in certain ways that I don't understand.

156. I wonder what will happen to America.

157. What kind of world it is now.

158. What kind of world it will become.

159. Still have 'Person Pitch' going.

160. Still blowing my mind a little bit.

161. 'Bros' just came on.

162. I'm not trying to forget you.

163. Oh oh oh.

164. I just like to be on my own. AHHHHHHHHHHahhhhhh.

165. Nice song.

166. But I dunno I went to a weird jazz performance thing last night.

167. It was strange.

168. It is interesting to talk to musicians and other people about art and expression and craft.

169. Whether they are trying to just say something for themselves, something about themselves, or if they are trying to say something to other people.

170. Nice to ask people where they are expressing or if they are communicating.

171. I suspect that both things are going on.

172. But yeah, I like to ask people.

173. But I do feel like I don't understand what philosophy is all about.

174. I don't want to just get pulled into it because it excites me.

175. Because yeah, it excites me.

176. But it doesn't excite everyone.

177. And it certainly isn't useful to everyone.

178. I wonder how useful it is for me.

179. I wonder if me expressing myself is helpful for me.

180. I think it is.

181. I think there is a weird anxiety that is looming in my life.

182. But writing about it makes me feel better somehow.

183. It puts me more at ease than I might be otherwise.

184. Funny, I've almost written 200 sentences now.

185. This really hasn't been that much fun.

186. I almost think I'm doing it just to avoid something else.

187. If I stick to this numbered format then I can somehow avoid any serious writing.

188. I can avoid just spilling my guts.

189. Because I'm quite tempted to spill my guts most of the time.

190. And then sometimes I'm just so reserved and tired.

191. So sleepy, so tired.

192. Free lunch.

193. There is such a thing as free lunch.

194. I have one waiting for me tomorrow.

195. Why would I worry so much like I am?

196. Such a vague worry too.

197. Just a drifting.

198. Many of us have vague ambitions.

199. But boy do they feel vague these days.

200. Boy do I feel myself drifting towards something that I can't anticipate.

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About Me

I spend most of my time working as a mental health professional. I have been preoccupied with philosophy, politics, healing, and many other questions for the last 15 years or so. I am currently working on putting together my study of Plato and Aristotle with contemporary work in philosophy, psychology, psychotherapy, and trauma research. I use this place primarily as a workshop for ideas. I welcome conversation with anyone working on similar problems. The major contours of my basic project have been outlined here

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