A Penny For My Thoughts, or A Stream Of (Self-)Consciousness
March 25th 2009 13:53
Category: No Category
Sometimes I wonder who I really am and what I'm really thinking. It seems strange, to return to a question - Who am I? - that I asked most pronouncedly back in high school, writing it on a sculpture of a city building with faces of my favourite celebrities, but why not?
I have a feeling I should blog more often as I tend to discover, re-discover and change myself as I extend myself a helping hand out of my inner unnecessary conflicts. When I decided to use PmC as a journal I liberated part of myself which I was finding it difficult to talk about, starting with talking about myself intimately. I felt like some parts of myself were not acceptable for others to consume as part of their information technology experience, but I was ensuring that I had the short end of the stick, because by censoring my writerly access deepest, darkest fears (at least in theory), I was also censoring my ability to experience ecstasy and joy. I think the act of writing seriously informs your thoughts - moves them into and out of places you didn't know it could take you.
So what comes first - the thought or the written narrative? In what way do they overlap? Are they mutually exclusive? What would that mean?
Why do I prioritise some words over others, find them more appealing? For instance, I seldom use the words inherent and cumbersome. I believe the word 'inherent' is a byproduct of a careless predisposition towards a belief in metanarrative on the behalf of our slowly yet rapidly mutating world. Perhaps when metanarratives have lost all immediate bearing on society I can return to this word and figure out how to reclaim in, yet here and now, I find it misleading, and a nuisance.
As for 'cumbersome', I don't like the sound of the word. It has that hard K sound and assonates the two (or three, depending on your accent) 'ah' sounds in a way I don't find eloquent. This phonetic displeasure is accentuated by the association of the word with complaint and an opting out of a narrative of positivity.
I'll take the opportunity to remind myself that negativity should have some claims to the things I promote as visible, because it's in transforming it that positivity has any context and/or meaning. So I guess the key to life is transformation?
I only feel so good or bad because I experience the opposite, not to sound structuralist or Jungian. There's much more to life than chiaroscuro, and I don't think grey is the hand to play; I like to trade in colour. And yet, without grey, all the obviously delighting shades of a rainbow spectrum would be dimmed, lose their lustre, be stripped of the opportunity to get dull and faded, and hence be stuck in a vacuum where their intensity becomes garish, unwelcome and jaded.
My room used to belong to a tradition of fictions - that of the four elements (earth, water, fire, air) informing each other in mutually beneficial kind of relationships. Perhaps in losing that tradition a new opportunity has arisen - that of constantly reinventing the interest in re-imagining my environment, consciously. My rendering of every wall a different colour or multitude of colours was a very powerful expression of my personality, and while it is hidden underneath a coat of paint so thin yet so intensive as to cover up all traces of what lurks underneath, I have to admit that it encourages me to think about reinventing my walls all over again, exploring my artist's nature in a way I couldn't have done before, what with my limited knowledge of applying wall paint to brush to gritty wall texture.
I am thinking now of painting my room rainbow my starting out with pink/red and gradually blending the colours together so that the transition is gradual, attractive and smooth, yet varied. Not uniform. Not that it could be unless I really had a lot of time on my hands...
I could buy bright colours then add white or black to them as I wish, to give the wall depth, contour and texture. Now if only I didn't fear what the price of such an experiment might be... I suppose I could buy only red, blue, yellow, white and black, and make it up as I go...
Perhaps once I regain control of my immediate environment I'll be able to feel like I'm impacting upon the outside world more. It all start with the inner, personal sphere, right?
One reason it has taken me years to seek out the opportunity to re-paint my room is that I always feel like I am on exile in this awkward, obtrusive and unbecoming place I call 'home' - it's not just that living in Australia makes me feel like I'm in a waiting-pattern. It's the specific apartment I am forced to identify as 'home' (automatically or as default) that tramples on my freedom-loving sensibilities.
Yet there is so much work to do until I can move into an altogether more pleasing 'home'... I need to learn how to function in a workplace which is not friendly to my highly developed need for constant, creative, intellectual stimulation. I often feel like there is little alternative to this semi-hell wherein I reside, yet I cannot toss aside the dream of becoming financially independent. It is too tied up with healthy self-image and my intent curiosity leads to a desire to experiment with the kind of lifestyles I may terminate by moving into a new social and domestic sphere.
I've been thinking a lot about moving to Thailand to teach English, but I find myself skeptical at my ability to enjoy such a lifestyle, or even be able to upkeep it for more than a few weeks (due to the developing country status of the Kingdom). Perhaps I should focus on getting the CELTA qualification I am interested in here in Sydney, and then go straight over to my favourite European city, Barcelona, and start working there...
I have a feeling I should blog more often as I tend to discover, re-discover and change myself as I extend myself a helping hand out of my inner unnecessary conflicts. When I decided to use PmC as a journal I liberated part of myself which I was finding it difficult to talk about, starting with talking about myself intimately. I felt like some parts of myself were not acceptable for others to consume as part of their information technology experience, but I was ensuring that I had the short end of the stick, because by censoring my writerly access deepest, darkest fears (at least in theory), I was also censoring my ability to experience ecstasy and joy. I think the act of writing seriously informs your thoughts - moves them into and out of places you didn't know it could take you.
So what comes first - the thought or the written narrative? In what way do they overlap? Are they mutually exclusive? What would that mean?
Why do I prioritise some words over others, find them more appealing? For instance, I seldom use the words inherent and cumbersome. I believe the word 'inherent' is a byproduct of a careless predisposition towards a belief in metanarrative on the behalf of our slowly yet rapidly mutating world. Perhaps when metanarratives have lost all immediate bearing on society I can return to this word and figure out how to reclaim in, yet here and now, I find it misleading, and a nuisance.
As for 'cumbersome', I don't like the sound of the word. It has that hard K sound and assonates the two (or three, depending on your accent) 'ah' sounds in a way I don't find eloquent. This phonetic displeasure is accentuated by the association of the word with complaint and an opting out of a narrative of positivity.
I'll take the opportunity to remind myself that negativity should have some claims to the things I promote as visible, because it's in transforming it that positivity has any context and/or meaning. So I guess the key to life is transformation?
I only feel so good or bad because I experience the opposite, not to sound structuralist or Jungian. There's much more to life than chiaroscuro, and I don't think grey is the hand to play; I like to trade in colour. And yet, without grey, all the obviously delighting shades of a rainbow spectrum would be dimmed, lose their lustre, be stripped of the opportunity to get dull and faded, and hence be stuck in a vacuum where their intensity becomes garish, unwelcome and jaded.
My room used to belong to a tradition of fictions - that of the four elements (earth, water, fire, air) informing each other in mutually beneficial kind of relationships. Perhaps in losing that tradition a new opportunity has arisen - that of constantly reinventing the interest in re-imagining my environment, consciously. My rendering of every wall a different colour or multitude of colours was a very powerful expression of my personality, and while it is hidden underneath a coat of paint so thin yet so intensive as to cover up all traces of what lurks underneath, I have to admit that it encourages me to think about reinventing my walls all over again, exploring my artist's nature in a way I couldn't have done before, what with my limited knowledge of applying wall paint to brush to gritty wall texture.
'Semi-Abstract Seascape' - to give you some idea of what one of my walls looked like - it was a meditation on air/water
I am thinking now of painting my room rainbow my starting out with pink/red and gradually blending the colours together so that the transition is gradual, attractive and smooth, yet varied. Not uniform. Not that it could be unless I really had a lot of time on my hands...
I could buy bright colours then add white or black to them as I wish, to give the wall depth, contour and texture. Now if only I didn't fear what the price of such an experiment might be... I suppose I could buy only red, blue, yellow, white and black, and make it up as I go...
Perhaps once I regain control of my immediate environment I'll be able to feel like I'm impacting upon the outside world more. It all start with the inner, personal sphere, right?
One reason it has taken me years to seek out the opportunity to re-paint my room is that I always feel like I am on exile in this awkward, obtrusive and unbecoming place I call 'home' - it's not just that living in Australia makes me feel like I'm in a waiting-pattern. It's the specific apartment I am forced to identify as 'home' (automatically or as default) that tramples on my freedom-loving sensibilities.
Yet there is so much work to do until I can move into an altogether more pleasing 'home'... I need to learn how to function in a workplace which is not friendly to my highly developed need for constant, creative, intellectual stimulation. I often feel like there is little alternative to this semi-hell wherein I reside, yet I cannot toss aside the dream of becoming financially independent. It is too tied up with healthy self-image and my intent curiosity leads to a desire to experiment with the kind of lifestyles I may terminate by moving into a new social and domestic sphere.
I've been thinking a lot about moving to Thailand to teach English, but I find myself skeptical at my ability to enjoy such a lifestyle, or even be able to upkeep it for more than a few weeks (due to the developing country status of the Kingdom). Perhaps I should focus on getting the CELTA qualification I am interested in here in Sydney, and then go straight over to my favourite European city, Barcelona, and start working there...
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Comment by Morgan Bell
Science News
Deep Pencil
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Movie Train
Comment by Janet Collins
Acceptable Etiquette
The Social Critic
Janet Collins Blog
We always wonder who we actually are? Go for it if is is what you feel at the moment because you will always regret it if you don't do it. Attempts are great. Regrets are not.
Comment by Anonymous
Comment by Postmodern Critic
Postmodern Critic
Relativity Watch
Padsoc
Janet - Thanks for your positive feedback and encouragement!
In 2003 I boldly took up an English teaching job in Poland, and found that I didn't like living in Opole at all, let alone working in the culture of the school I had found. in 2004 I decided to try the same thing by changing continents, this time in Hong Kong. I didn't like it there either, and while I learnt a lot from these experiences, I have learnt to be a lot more cautious before leaping into the unknown, informed by the fact that I rely on Centrelink and my parents for money - one is very meagre, and the other is now very reluctant to fund my adventures, having taken on a cynical approach to my ability to relocate successfully.
My dad is actually okay with me teaching in Thailand now, but I think it's important for me to get a CELTA qualification first...
Even then, I'm pretty sure Thailand is the last on a long list of suitable places for me, due to the pollution, the people density and the developing country level standards of living.
And yet I want to get away from home, and from Sydney so bad that I am contemplating a temporary stint there.
It also has to be taken into account that I am recovering from some depression and while I feel quite strong I know that I could be stronger, and I may not realistically be up to the challenges of keeping a 'proper' job in a non-Japanese Asian environment.
Hi Anon
True happiness: I am skeptical that I will be happy to work as an English teacher, but I hope to grow tolerant of such toil, and even learn to like it in some ways. It seems like it's just something I will have to do, if I want to move out of my parents' apartment and be financially independent.
Answers: It's not them I seek, it's their far more elusive counterpart of questions that I am in search of...