(no subject)

[reenka]

Sometimes I think it's not enough to just... live. To just accept things as they are and portray them-- or worse, exacerbate them. Take all the darkness and dinginess of the world and merely swallow it, perhaps even use it to your advantage. Sometimes I could almost hate the people who help the wheels turn in any way-- however personal or public. Then again, the personal is always a miniature of the public, so any domination and subjugation of the will of one is a reflection of the many. The one -is- the many, in some ways.

I'm not sure what to be idealistic about, even. It's like... I'm such a great example of the postmodern disaffected youth, not knowing what to hang on to, what to believe in, but needing something. Needing any art I create to reflect something greater than myself, and failing miserably for the most part. It's like... my inability to really navigate my own life reflects my inability to see through the haze of misery and fear I see in the world at large, and I hate it, I hate it so much. Not the world... and yes, the world. Where does one draw the line between the real and potential, and deliver judgement?

Art-- literature and visual-- is... is like religion to me, I suppose, except I'm more than a bit drunk with it. It's an illusory escape, I suppose, just like religion, and a real one, too, except.... Everything blurs together. What I want the world to be and what I want myself to be and what I'm afraid of being and what I think I need and everything-- all of it-- so overwhelming. I probably just have too much time on my hands-- or at least, I spend too much of it letting myself imagine things. And even now... even now... now that I know so many people (comparatively), and I'm not a 15 year-old misfit anymore... it feels like the writers and artists and all-around geeks I know all have a better grip on how to live without dreaming all the time than I do.

I just... want everything to be beautiful. As beautiful as it can be. I don't know how to make that happen. I mean... there's a saying, right. 'If you don't change the world, the world will never change.' I guess that applies to yourself, too. If you don't get up, no one's going to pick you up. If you don't walk, you will waste away, not even crawling. If you don't choose, nothing chooses you.

I don't think I can explain anything this way. I've gotten better, though. It used to be that I was even more obtuse and pointless in my writings. Hard to believe, I know. I've come a long way towards lucidity, which is just hilarious, all things considered.

People may ask, "what is your point?" and I may answer, "I don't know, what's yours?"

I want to do (or say) something important, I guess, but even though I can make a good attempt, maybe, all that comes out are garbled rantings. Maybe. I mean, I think sometimes I do have an idea, and I can focus. And sometimes it just seems like any point I could have is way off in the distance, somewhere beyond the horizon. All I know how to do, then, is tell fairytales. I can do that. It's sort of what I do. I suppose I'm embarrassed of myself, a lot of times, something like I never grew up and a part of me realizes that children aren't like this, either. I'm in a state of perpetual confusion punctuated by endless repeated flashes of blinding certainty.

Things are clear, though, when I write or, to a lesser extent, draw-- when I really feel something intensely. Like when I'm alone with nature. Sunsets... lakes... rivers... streams... trees-- sometimes even people, when they're still. They all make me feel some sort of deeper peace, like the questions can wait, like they're not urgent. It's okay, then. One could just exist without always worrying about who you are and what you're doing and why. You can just-- enjoy. And if you don't think about that as the "answer"-- you can just go with it. Life is handed to you, so you take it. What else can you do? Maybe that's as important as anything gets, I think, before I begin doubting all over again. Maybe.

It's funny, isn't it? Like, why have I written all this? Who am I writing to? What do I hope to gain? How can I expect to be understood when I don't even know what I'm really trying to say? I rarely do, of course. It's like I say things, and then figure out what I meant later.

I think I just... want to capture that peace and hold it. That sense of the terrible beauty of the universe. I just want to spread it everywhere, until it touches everyone who'll listen or watch. Not exactly something one tells one's guidance counselor, and then goes out and gets a job. "Hello, I'd just like to be a surveyor or possibly a transmitter of cosmic beauty. Thanks."

Like that feeling... my favorite feeling in the world....

When the world is soft around the edges, and the sky is the darkest blue it gets before it's black. There are only a few stars, and the moon is so clear you can see the face on it, all the shadows stark and vivid. There's a light wind, carrying a number of scents too subtle to name. Everything sways a little-- the trees and the grass and your hair. Every artificial light seems welcoming and warm, then, like everything would be warm and shimmering bright if you could just follow it. If you breathe out, it's only a little bit warmer than the air, and you're slightly cold if you stop moving, but you don't want to stand still anyway. You just want to walk and walk, watching the stars come out.

It's no longer Friday evening, or Saturday or Monday. It's some timeless moment, suspended and seemingly endless. There's no yesterday and no tomorrow-- there's only the world as it is, cloaked in enough mysteries to keep one occupied forever, all of them shimmering on the surface like a smattering of dew.

I love feeling like that. Like nothing matters except the way I feel right now, and that seems to encompass everything in existence. It's like... listlessness turns to calm, rushing turns to running, and fear turns to anticipation. It seems so easy-- like there's a hidden trick to it, but one can't always get to it in the light of day, the way one forgets how to fly when one wakes up. There's no longer any hurry to the world, and that seems to unclench some essential knot that had been keeping everything in place inside you. It's like floating and swimming and flying and like none of those things. Both active and passive at once. Just... peaceful, as if there was a music to everything and you're only hearing it now, after a long time plugging your ears.

That's all I want. That music.