31 days: August 12, "Man or astroman"
Aug. 12th, 2005 09:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tarigwaemirDeWolfe Apts., on the Feast of St. Euplius
I've been feeling rather melancholy all week, unable to really focus and invest myself in anything. As proof of my listlessness and utter lack of motivation to work, I spent an hour after lunch finishing up Going Postal (what an excellent book, though!) and felt annoyed at myself for wasting so much time when I had so much to do. But after everyone had gone home and I was still trudging away inefficiently with the little menial tasks that simply weren't getting done, something in me snapped, and I could finally concentrate again. It was such a very lucid moment, as if something in my mind had finally settled back into place, and I could move forward instead of staying stuck in that morose mood. Such a relief too, I felt that I could almost see more clearly afterward.
Walked home in the dark and realized that I had grown to like the feeling of being alone on an empty street beneath the streetlamps. As if, yes, this is the way the world is supposed to be: me walking home at night, aware of where I am and what I'm doing. It occurred to me that I was experiencing change: one must undergo deconstruction and immobilization before one finally reassembles into shape again. A mental reprogramming, as it were. Or at least that's the sort of ridiculous metaphors I come up with when going on too little sleep.
Enough of my blather, let's get to the real substance of the post. Something about today's theme invites philosophizing, I think. This fic is unabashedly obscure and probably makes no sense. I was thinking about Camus and Eliot and various poems from desert hermits quoted in Nouwen, and it all came out in a weird jumble. Second person jumble to boot. >_> Please note that my pretensions aside, I really know next to nothing about philosophy.
O Sisyphus
Dedicated to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ladydaera, with whom I can speak of solitude without reluctance
Look, a wasteland. Not flat or featureless, but sharp and violent, a harsh poetry gouged in rock and sand. Cliffs and canyons, shifting mountains--it is not still or silent, this dead, deserted place. At nights, the wind strums across the dunes in a high, keening pitch; you sense it not so much by ear but by the humming of your bones. This place recognizes you as a dissonance and attempts to dissect you into harmonic pieces. It knows you are alien.
And who are you to argue? You are a collection of scars masquerading in human form; even your arm is not your own. Above you the mercilessly clear desert sky, the wounded face of the giant moon that glares at you for the gaping scar upon its face. You cannot sleep under such a moon, under such a sky, for they are all reproaches for your failure to keep your promises, reminders of your distorted self.
Ah, but what is faith? he asks, from where he stands behind you. What is hope? We love in spite of everything, we love until it destroys us.
END
(In principle, I probably ought to have dedicated any Trigun fic to Angelette, who loves the series more than I do, but I don't think she likes this kind of writing. Also, I intended to dedicate a drabble to Daera for a series she actually knows, but hopefully she won't mind reading this fic even if she has no idea what Trigun is about. ^_^)
Yours &c.
I've been feeling rather melancholy all week, unable to really focus and invest myself in anything. As proof of my listlessness and utter lack of motivation to work, I spent an hour after lunch finishing up Going Postal (what an excellent book, though!) and felt annoyed at myself for wasting so much time when I had so much to do. But after everyone had gone home and I was still trudging away inefficiently with the little menial tasks that simply weren't getting done, something in me snapped, and I could finally concentrate again. It was such a very lucid moment, as if something in my mind had finally settled back into place, and I could move forward instead of staying stuck in that morose mood. Such a relief too, I felt that I could almost see more clearly afterward.
Walked home in the dark and realized that I had grown to like the feeling of being alone on an empty street beneath the streetlamps. As if, yes, this is the way the world is supposed to be: me walking home at night, aware of where I am and what I'm doing. It occurred to me that I was experiencing change: one must undergo deconstruction and immobilization before one finally reassembles into shape again. A mental reprogramming, as it were. Or at least that's the sort of ridiculous metaphors I come up with when going on too little sleep.
Enough of my blather, let's get to the real substance of the post. Something about today's theme invites philosophizing, I think. This fic is unabashedly obscure and probably makes no sense. I was thinking about Camus and Eliot and various poems from desert hermits quoted in Nouwen, and it all came out in a weird jumble. Second person jumble to boot. >_> Please note that my pretensions aside, I really know next to nothing about philosophy.
O Sisyphus
Dedicated to
ladydaera, with whom I can speak of solitude without reluctanceLook, a wasteland. Not flat or featureless, but sharp and violent, a harsh poetry gouged in rock and sand. Cliffs and canyons, shifting mountains--it is not still or silent, this dead, deserted place. At nights, the wind strums across the dunes in a high, keening pitch; you sense it not so much by ear but by the humming of your bones. This place recognizes you as a dissonance and attempts to dissect you into harmonic pieces. It knows you are alien.
And who are you to argue? You are a collection of scars masquerading in human form; even your arm is not your own. Above you the mercilessly clear desert sky, the wounded face of the giant moon that glares at you for the gaping scar upon its face. You cannot sleep under such a moon, under such a sky, for they are all reproaches for your failure to keep your promises, reminders of your distorted self.
Ah, but what is faith? he asks, from where he stands behind you. What is hope? We love in spite of everything, we love until it destroys us.
END
(In principle, I probably ought to have dedicated any Trigun fic to Angelette, who loves the series more than I do, but I don't think she likes this kind of writing. Also, I intended to dedicate a drabble to Daera for a series she actually knows, but hopefully she won't mind reading this fic even if she has no idea what Trigun is about. ^_^)
Yours &c.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-13 02:31 am (UTC)<3 I'm still thinking!!~~ (I know you get your obscureness from my incomprensibility.)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-13 02:44 am (UTC)And write KJK yourself, you're certainly better equipped to do it than me. ^_^
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-13 02:33 am (UTC)I can't place the last speaker -- logically Knives though I have trouble imagining it. But beautiful nonetheless.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-13 02:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-13 05:15 am (UTC)Anyway, desert stuff, spiffy. Um...I was gonna tell you about what this kinda reminded me of, but I think it might be a little far into the manga. I'm not sure how much you know about the manga, and I would rather not spoil anything for you...
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-13 02:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-13 04:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-13 02:04 pm (UTC)it is obscure, but i feel like it's more about the mood than anything else (well, also, because i wouldn't know where it actually fits into the series ^_^). and it does weave the mood into existence very... aptly? delicately? er... i suck at describing things. but... yes... *grin* i really, really, really like it. like a lot of your writing, it's very poignant
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-13 02:35 pm (UTC)(Ahh, you didn't check your voice mail did you? Have you seen Kofi's email? Do you know how to make int'l calls? It's like 11:30 PM in Korea right now...O_O;;)