Calligraphy
August 30th 2009 08:27
Category: No Category
Typing is an art form - coaxing each key into delivering a letter, number or symbol the best way you know how... Right now I am lying flat on my bed, with my legs crossed at a right angle to my chest... the computer digs into my lower rib cage and it's monitored surfaced presses up to my upper leg. My soft touch keyboard yields to my consistent pitter-patter.
Destination Unknown
But I know, as steadily and as comfortingly as I create text, that I should be reading... I have the mysteries of Jan Morris' Spain, Stephen Fry's Stephen Fry in America and Oliver Balch's Viva South America to delve into (and that's only to begin with).
I have decided that the US will be my major destination... I do enjoy Europe greatly, but the racism and (in most cities) homophobia gets me down, as do the authoritarian traditions. I have no doubt that I can find whatever I'm looking for in Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, UK, France, Spain and Germany (with an option on Belgium), however I feel that the American states of California, Oregon, Washington, New York, Massachusetts (and, to a lesser extent, Minnesota, Texas, Louisiana, Illinois and Pennsylvania) will offer me much more of what I need, more quickly.
I plan to travel around, but I also expect to spend a lot of time in San Francisco. This has been my ideal city ever since I found myself there one night, a bit disoriented at its size due to the small town feel of Stanford.
I suppose I should be reading 'On the Road' by Jack Kerouac - this phrase is so oft-quoted as to make me seriously consider spending quality time flipping through its anatomy. And yet, how inspired can I be by a text written by the 1950s? (I seem to be forgetting my love for Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde here.)
1.5 in 100,000
So my psychiatrist is of the opinion that I am an Eccentric. Why does that not surprise me?
I was listening to the Pussycat Dolls' version of Jai Ho, and thinking 'I am probably not exactly 1 in a million, but the spirit of this raucous fairy-tale rings true...'
Apparently an eccentric is the name given to a group of individuals who do not feel a need to conform to the codes and norms of society, creating their own intellectual aesthetic and sticking to it against all odds. They are happier than others, and live longer.
Do I know my own power?
I am consistently around people who do not recognise my self-worth in the way that most people do. My parents believe that it is a very bad thing that I do not wish to go to university, instead of recognising that I am much too talented to be wasting my time there. Hell, they think it is some kind of mental malaise (read: mental illness) that keeps me from being happy to conform to society by approving of the tertiary institutions of our time.
Perhaps if I was born in another 'time slot' I would still have been an Eccentric - no matter how things are advancing, they could always be doing so more quickly than the average person will allow.
Bursts of Intense Emotionality
I spend some (to most) of my time feeling subordinate, frail, undeserving and detached. When I break out of this self-made distopic trance I feel like my happiness is always in danger of being overturned, cast aside, dismembered. It is fear that makes it so - if you fear something enough, it will come true.
Where to?
I can only begin by building my confidence as much as possible and staying in the moment.
Trusting my belief that Chinese calligraphy is beautiful, for whatever symbolic reasons that I am not ready to disclose.
Destination Unknown
But I know, as steadily and as comfortingly as I create text, that I should be reading... I have the mysteries of Jan Morris' Spain, Stephen Fry's Stephen Fry in America and Oliver Balch's Viva South America to delve into (and that's only to begin with).
I have decided that the US will be my major destination... I do enjoy Europe greatly, but the racism and (in most cities) homophobia gets me down, as do the authoritarian traditions. I have no doubt that I can find whatever I'm looking for in Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, UK, France, Spain and Germany (with an option on Belgium), however I feel that the American states of California, Oregon, Washington, New York, Massachusetts (and, to a lesser extent, Minnesota, Texas, Louisiana, Illinois and Pennsylvania) will offer me much more of what I need, more quickly.
I plan to travel around, but I also expect to spend a lot of time in San Francisco. This has been my ideal city ever since I found myself there one night, a bit disoriented at its size due to the small town feel of Stanford.
I suppose I should be reading 'On the Road' by Jack Kerouac - this phrase is so oft-quoted as to make me seriously consider spending quality time flipping through its anatomy. And yet, how inspired can I be by a text written by the 1950s? (I seem to be forgetting my love for Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde here.)
1.5 in 100,000
So my psychiatrist is of the opinion that I am an Eccentric. Why does that not surprise me?
I was listening to the Pussycat Dolls' version of Jai Ho, and thinking 'I am probably not exactly 1 in a million, but the spirit of this raucous fairy-tale rings true...'
Apparently an eccentric is the name given to a group of individuals who do not feel a need to conform to the codes and norms of society, creating their own intellectual aesthetic and sticking to it against all odds. They are happier than others, and live longer.
Do I know my own power?
I am consistently around people who do not recognise my self-worth in the way that most people do. My parents believe that it is a very bad thing that I do not wish to go to university, instead of recognising that I am much too talented to be wasting my time there. Hell, they think it is some kind of mental malaise (read: mental illness) that keeps me from being happy to conform to society by approving of the tertiary institutions of our time.
Perhaps if I was born in another 'time slot' I would still have been an Eccentric - no matter how things are advancing, they could always be doing so more quickly than the average person will allow.
Bursts of Intense Emotionality
I spend some (to most) of my time feeling subordinate, frail, undeserving and detached. When I break out of this self-made distopic trance I feel like my happiness is always in danger of being overturned, cast aside, dismembered. It is fear that makes it so - if you fear something enough, it will come true.
Where to?
I can only begin by building my confidence as much as possible and staying in the moment.
Trusting my belief that Chinese calligraphy is beautiful, for whatever symbolic reasons that I am not ready to disclose.
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