Posted by john on April 13, 2002 at 16:45:58:
In Reply to: Re: A flower in the desert posted by jonvon on April 12, 2002 at 15:40:12:
Wow what a flurry of action on this thread! That's cool. As for apprehending me, I don't aprehend myself. I guess it goes back to that schizm thing. It is true that I am not nearly as disturbed as many people might think, but then in other ways I am so desperately more disturbed than anyone would know. many things I argue and carry to the nth degree but could easily turn from and go on about something else. Sometimes i admit I do it just to get a reaction. Most of the time I just really want people to think. But then I'm not really consciously thinking that alot either. It is just sort of a background thing. I once remember feeling very liberated when someone (who could it be) convinced me that my true personality was somewhere beyond all of the things that were associated with me, and even beyond what i associated with myself. In this light I'm not afraid to let myself run a little to see what develops. But one thing I have noticed... if I really don't like someone, or something, I won't talk to them or about it much at all. For example the people at work are constantly discussing this or that and I don't participate, nor do I join them on many of their social things, mainly because I don't like them. Of course they probably have made up their mind about me and i don't plan to do a whole lot of revealing. I just don't care. So for me the opposite of love is not hate, or anger, or any emotion... it is apathy. All this to say, don't take yourselves too seriously, and least of all, me. One day we'll all know who we really are. I'm just not content to wait, and I'm not content for those I care about to wait either ;)
: Ah, but if you quit, then a piece of who YOU truly are will have been silenced, and that would suck mightily. Besides, I enjoy picking apart your "pursuits of nuance". There is something in your personality or in the way you put thoughts together that kind of reminds me a bit of kafka and kierkegaard and nietzsche and camus, you seem to often be troubled about stuff. But I think I'm learning, and correct me if I'm wrong, you aren't really all that troubled about any of it. You're jumping mad... but then you turn around and go sit peacefully on a log, or tell your wife a knock knock joke. Something like that. You seem to hover around this "pole of disturbance". It leads you into trains of thought that are probably disturbing to a lot of people. Maybe because they seem so disturbing to you. But, maybe you really aren't so disturbed. I find myself spending energy in moving you away from that darkling pole, getting you interested in the, well, in the flower in the desert. Maybe I want you to fall in love with joy, or at least I want to see you hovering around it from time to time the way you like to hover around your disturbances. But... even assuming I'm beginning to apprehend you, if this were the case, if you did begin hovering around joy (in the context of these writings/conversations), maybe you wouldn't end up writing something like kafka wrote. Maybe the world needs your critical eye. Maybe it helps us to be disturbed from time to time, and maybe you are around to do that.
: : I know this. And I really don't have a problem with any of it. This whole thread started with Bill's post about feeling like he could explode and I ran with it. Expounding a thought. Then I, in typical fashion that always ends up badly, felt the need to forever pursue the nuances of what I meant in response to other responses. As many people are well aware I have a propensity for being the Devil's advocate. But please don't confuse this with being the Devil (I know Steve doesn't). It is just my personality to offer objections to everything in a sort of purifying process of thought, testing, objecting, defending, and then testing again. But this is only in my head and on this board. I don't take it beyond here. If it really bothers people I'll quit.