Monthly bout of self-analysis
Nov. 27th, 2006 08:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tarigwaemirLowell House, on the Feast of St. Maximinius
I'm in an inexplicable mood. Can't quite call it discontent, can't quite call it boredom. I also can't figure out if it's a side effect of reading Sartre's Nausea--when Roquentin realizes that he has had no adventures. He's traveled all over the world and yet realizes that he has had no adventures. Then what about me, who have never traveled anywhere? Reading French existentialism is conducive to whining. Oddly enough, I find Heidegger much more calming. I realized yesterday that Heidegger is in fact rather similar to Zhuangzi, although I can never make that the subject of a paper. I get the impression that Heidegger would have better communicated himself through metaphor rather than exposition; he seems to be grasping for the right language to express his thoughts as he comes up with phrases like "the Being of a being is not a 'being'" and "the worldhood of the world". Perhaps that's why he turned to poetry later in life. My instinct is to sympathize with Sartre and his idea of total responsibility; there's a sort of absolute individualism to it that appeals to the youth in me. What doesn't appeal to me is the restlessness that follows.
I normally get these moods in spring or summer, so I'm not sure why I'm going through it now. Besides, we've gone on plenty of exciting outings this semester, to the point where I've even felt a little fatigued by them. So what's missing? Perhaps it's that some part of me is looking for a change--in what, I don't know--and feels impatient that all I'm doing is waiting for the metamorphosis to occur. I want something to happen, like a lightning strike, something irrevocable and irreversible. Not necessarily external; perhaps what I want is an internal transformation more than anything else. I feel cut loose, drifting, and I would like to be sewn back into place again. Is it loneliness, is it being tired of schoolwork and applications, is it the looming prospect of graduation? But the mood still remains, like an itch, worrying away at the back of my mind.
I wonder how I could write that better in fiction.
...Perhaps what I really need is to read more novels.
Yours &c.
I'm in an inexplicable mood. Can't quite call it discontent, can't quite call it boredom. I also can't figure out if it's a side effect of reading Sartre's Nausea--when Roquentin realizes that he has had no adventures. He's traveled all over the world and yet realizes that he has had no adventures. Then what about me, who have never traveled anywhere? Reading French existentialism is conducive to whining. Oddly enough, I find Heidegger much more calming. I realized yesterday that Heidegger is in fact rather similar to Zhuangzi, although I can never make that the subject of a paper. I get the impression that Heidegger would have better communicated himself through metaphor rather than exposition; he seems to be grasping for the right language to express his thoughts as he comes up with phrases like "the Being of a being is not a 'being'" and "the worldhood of the world". Perhaps that's why he turned to poetry later in life. My instinct is to sympathize with Sartre and his idea of total responsibility; there's a sort of absolute individualism to it that appeals to the youth in me. What doesn't appeal to me is the restlessness that follows.
I normally get these moods in spring or summer, so I'm not sure why I'm going through it now. Besides, we've gone on plenty of exciting outings this semester, to the point where I've even felt a little fatigued by them. So what's missing? Perhaps it's that some part of me is looking for a change--in what, I don't know--and feels impatient that all I'm doing is waiting for the metamorphosis to occur. I want something to happen, like a lightning strike, something irrevocable and irreversible. Not necessarily external; perhaps what I want is an internal transformation more than anything else. I feel cut loose, drifting, and I would like to be sewn back into place again. Is it loneliness, is it being tired of schoolwork and applications, is it the looming prospect of graduation? But the mood still remains, like an itch, worrying away at the back of my mind.
I wonder how I could write that better in fiction.
...Perhaps what I really need is to read more novels.
Yours &c.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-28 05:56 pm (UTC)grrr, yknow?
this is why i drink ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-29 12:49 am (UTC)Hm, maybe I should try drinking at the end-of-semester party then. XD