Rockbridge

Well, it’s been almost three weeks since Rockbridge, and surprisingly I’ve made it back in one piece (me and the mountains share an unpleasant history of blunt-force trauma). It was an amazing experience, but I think it will still be a while before I sit and sort everything out; I’m writing this in hopes of expediting that process. I have a lot of mixed feelings about a lot of things, and I certainly need to explore the topics a bit more before I’m sure enough to write, but hopefully I’ll be able to form at least a rudimentary thought on the matter.

I’ll start with my general consensus on the event, I’ve mentioned that it was an amazing experience, a good experience, and one I hope to revisit in the future. However, there is something markedly different about this past week that contrasts nearly every other experience I’ve had with events of this nature. The camp was moving, to say the least, but that movement manifested itself in the shape of more of a depressing compunction, as opposed to the customary “Yay, Jesus” kick we get on. That sounds cynical, and like it would make for a terrible week, but honestly I’m grateful for it. On the whole I think that, for me at least, that was more helpful than the Jesus high that I used to associate with gatherings of this nature. Whenever I think about Rockbridge now, I get the image of Christian pride, the love of God, and a conviction of purpose raining down on us from all sides. Surrounded by people who share at least one strong connecting thread, we go to tracks and lessons with very clear purpose and direction, we worship fervently en masse, hands raised and crying, and it’s all wonderful. However, from here I feel as if that rain, and those tears, used to wash over us, but then just bead on the surface. Everyone can see it there, you can feel it on your skin, you’re (counterintuitive to this metaphor) “on fire” for Jesus, ready to go out and convert the world by mere example. This persists, sometimes for a week, sometimes for the length of the car ride home. You move back to the familiar, away from the rain, and old habits greet you at the door and brush it off your shoulders. The water is shaken away, and life returns to wonted behavior. The event itself is not necessarily bad, or even a waste, there’s a certain level of religious affirmation that I believe is really healthy for the human, and more specifically, the Christian condition. However, that said, it still bothers me to know that I can feel so strongly about something one week, and even now, just not even two later, my fervor has waned to an barely perceptible glimmer, and even that is merely what lingers with the memory of Rockbridge, not something I’ve connected with my everyday life.

This is something I hope to amend, it’s not going well right now, but the glimmer is still there. When I sit down to work on this, or when I see one of the pictures from the week around on someone’s profile, or what have you, I remember my plan and more importantly what drove me to them. As I’ve said Rockbridge met me with a pang of conscience. I don’t want to call it guilt, guilt is not of God, but it certainly spurred me towards a change. I’ll admit that this process was augmented by a certain level of self-reproach over failure to enact these changes before now, over all the ruts I’ve ever fall into, all the roads I could have taken prior to now. This was not of God, it’s another weakness of my own heart, but nevertheless I’ve used it to fuel my efforts. In reference to my last blog, the rain this past week (yep, more water metaphors, get used to them) washed over the dirt in my eyes, and down through the ditches I’ve been laying in. I’m not calling it a cleansing rain quite yet, all the mud is still swirling in the water around me, but it’s diluted, at least for now. I’m above my ditch and treading water, but the storm has stopped and I’m left with a choice. I can start swimming or I can water for the waterline to fall and take me back. For now I’m just collecting my bearings, watching the stars. At the same time though, periculum in mora, yeah? Danger in delay.

Muddy Feet

They say a man can never step in the same river twice, both because it’s never the same water, and he's never the same man. Be that as it may, I can still feel the old me dragging my brand new feet into the same muddy riverbed. I’m not in the same water, and I’m not the same man, but the mud still surrounds my soles and grounds me. Seeps into my pores, and fills me with a familiarity I can’t brush off. I know I’m a different man underneath, but what can that stand for if the mud covering me still looks the same?

By nature, I try to fix myself, but my problem has always been that I can never step far enough away from myself to avoid the same rivers and mud-puddles that I’ve been flailing around in for so long. I can see that I am covered in dirt, and as much as I try to clean myself, my years of struggling have only muddied the water around me and rendered it just as useless. We’ve been talking about similar issues at Midtown (at least the last ones I was able to attend), particularly the Damaged Goods series. I’ve never had a problem admitting that I am an inherently imperfect individual, I can see the mud on me as plain as day, and the waters I wallow have become anathema to me. Seeing the problems has never been an issue, and consciously working against them has always been a priority, but to no avail. I sink further in as I try to bathe myself in the same river that soaks into me. And even now as I look at the Frankensteined metaphor I’m working with, I see that the answer has always been there. If I’d only looked at it as objectively as I always thought I did. I could look down at my hands and feet and see the mud on them, but the key was always to look around and find someone to pull me out onto firm, dry ground.

This has always been a weakness of mine, and even as I saw it, I could never see past it. It was the water around me that I never thought to remove myself from. Struggling to wash my dirt off for so long, I failed to see it swirling around me and settling back down on my feet. I never asked for help, I never reached out for a hand. I could see people around, people cleaner than I, and I would try to climb up and reach them, but not once did I just reach out my hand to take theirs. As I stumble along through this thinning imagery, I’m reminded of another element to add to the heap: the image of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet. I’ve heard the story a million times before, but it wasn’t until I started writing this that I see the larger significance behind it. The lesson I had always taken was that of humility. That to be more like Christ meant living with a servant’s heart, and it’s always been a lesson I tried to hold to. Put others first. While that’s a wonderful lesson in itself, I believe I've misread the situation. To me it always read as "put other’s needs first, and don’t burden them with your own." I always tried to solve my own problems in the background, by myself. I was even reluctant to give them to God, and that was the root of my downfall. I could talk about my problems with God, and even a few select people here on Earth, but it was always on the terms of “I have this problem that I need to deal with”, or “I’m working hard to get this under control”, even with God, I simply tried to acknowledge the issue, and reassure Him that I was handling the situation. Oh, what a fool of such little faith I must be. I never gave it up to let Him help me through. I never saw the symbolism that it was Jesus washing the feet of his followers. That it takes Jesus’ hands to remove the dirt from us, to make us clean. That the weight of my filth is mixed in and subsequently washed away by the blood on the cross. Sorry to stretch this image for so long, I realize it may seem overplayed by now, but running with metaphors helps me think.

Looking back at these blogs I realize how many of my problems involve me being stuck in ruts, a creature of unerring habit. I’ve always seen recognition and acknowledgement of a problem as half the battle, but I’ve never thought about the fact that I’ve never really moved forward into the next half: seeking help. If it was of my power to remove myself from it, I daresay it would never have gotten to be a point of issue. I’ve heard it a million times before, but it’s time I actually listened to the saying “Let go, and let God.” I try so hard to be a respectable servant that I never look up see how my God wishes to serve me.

In Moratorium

So, it’s been a while. It seems that writing, along with many other things in my life, has been put on hold for a while. I’ve been noticing that I haven’t been doing much at all lately. I go to class, I do my work, I participate in the occasional social outing, but I’m not really there for any of it. At some points in my life I’ve been given to occasional intervals of introspection. Taking a brief hiatus to ruminate and reorganize. However, it has come to my attention that this is not one of those times. During those periods I’m merely too withdrawn into my own thoughts to make proactive decisions, but as it turns out, this time I’m not there either. I’m somewhere else, I think about nothing, I plan for nothing, I’m just growing stagnate.

I wish I were here to tell you that I’ve realized this, and that I’ve made a decision to move on. Unfortunately, I don’t know what to move on to. For the life of me, I don’t know what I want, or where I want to be, much less how to go about fulfilling those desires. I’m living by rote, simple subsistence. At first I thought I was just taking a break, seeking rest. I’ve been through a pretty rough New Year, pushed in and weighed down on multiple sides. I thought I was just letting myself adjust. However, as far as I can tell, I’m settled on those matters. I’ve addressed and come to terms with all the stressors I can identify, and I quickly resolved what I could, and ridded myself of what I couldn't change. Reason would dictate that I should be well on my way back to normal. I should be pretty close to living how I used to live, sure I had my worries, but I was happy, at least relatively. I’m not happy now. I’m not sad either. I’m not angry, I’m not pensive, I’m just here. I don’t believe one can live in total pervasive apathy. Everyone has to feel something, and certainly I do. Perhaps “melancholic” is the word I’m looking for. I don’t know. I’m stuck in some indefinite state of suspended action, idling away, snared in some perpetual ennui. I’m not sure how to go about remediating this. I’m not sure where it began, or where I should look to begin. They say time heals all wounds, but conversely it is also said that time destroys all things. I’m not sure where I need to go from here, or where I’ll end up, and I suppose only time will tell. So, I guess all I can do is keep waiting around for me to stop waiting around.

Beauty by the Books

It’s been one of those days. Driving four hours home on three hours sleep, then another hour and a half towards DC, before switching seats with my stepdad. That drive home is where I get most of my thinking done, and as much as I hate it, I can’t deny that it’s an almost invaluable resource for brainstorming or just mulling over life. Adding my lack of sleep into the equation negates the possibility of any intentional thought, meaning my mind had four hours to itself while the rest of me busied itself with the mundane process of adhering to traffic laws.

One thing I have come to realize after a lifetime of scattered introspection is that I am an analyst. For better or worse, I have a natural inclination to break down and pore over every aspect of anything I leave in front of my thoughts for too long. This would be an almost eternal process if I allowed it to be, but over the years I’ve learned to keep these habits restrained. The reason this precaution is necessary is because a mind left unchecked is like a curious toddler with a screwdriver. Quick to disassemble and examine anything put in front of him, leaving petty concerns such as whether he can put it back together as an afterthought.

Now that I’m in the passenger seat, and have an hour or two to kill, I’m going to try to commit my thoughts to paper. I probably won’t be in this car for the entire blog, in fact this trip will have probably happened last week by now. Probably written at six different times in different places and patched together from different states of mind. Before I begin, I’ll go ahead and apologize if my transitions aren’t all there, I’m going to try my best to map out my stream of consciousness in a coherent form, but sometimes that’s not always possible. I also want to preface my thoughts with the disclaimer that very few of these are actually new ideas; I’m probably going to hit a range of topics as I go through, but don’t expect to be blown away by some new epiphany. I’m probably going to ask more questions than I answer, and I’m probably going to look into some pretty cliché approaches for validity, so if you’re still interested, I ask you to bear with me. This is another of those times where my main purpose for writing is to put the ideas in front of me in a physical medium, so that I can actually focus on breaking them down with a little more concentrated effort. I’m posting this here because I’d like to include anyone who may take something from my ramblings or shed some light on some areas that are a bit dim to me. Any opinions on anything, positive or negative, are welcomed.

Anyway it’s so late that its early at this point, and some of these topics may seem kind of emo. As much disdain as I hold for all things emo, I believe it is acceptable to briefly inhabit a state of “constructive emo”, for the purpose of resolving these conflicts, as opposed to retaining and reinforcing them as the face of a social identity. I would also like to point out that MacWord does not recognize “emo” as a word. I am eternally thankful for this, but I digress. If you haven’t noticed I also have a habit of prefacing in a rather lengthy and distracted fashion. So, moving on.

The first lucid thought to emerge from the inevitable fog that sets into an idle mind was the image of the road before me. I was on a two-lane road, with miles of trees stretched before me on either side. The leaves were changing, a mesh of beautiful earthy tones on a stark blue backdrop. The sky was so clear and perfectly shaded that it felt unnatural. I felt like I was only moments away from crashing my car through an airbrushed movie set. It was beautiful, but naturally I can only be preoccupied by one notion for so long, so inevitably the scene had to be broken down. I was trying to dissect the panorama in search of beauty. The following is a rough sequence of thoughts, and this is where my writing may become slightly lacking in the relevance and transition departments.

What specifically was beautiful in this scene? The leaves change because the trees are deciduous and winter is fast approaching. The sky is always blue, but perhaps the lack of clouds makes it beautiful. I suppose that would signal a low chance of rain, and more sunlight, meaning more vitamin D. But vitamin D, isn’t widely considered a thing of beauty, neither is the increased risk of skin cancer, multiple sclerosis or having to squint your eyes while driving. So it must be the leaves. The leaves were originally green because of the abundance of chlorophyll which absorbs and processes all but the green spectrum of light. The leaves are changing color because their chlorophyll supply is being allowed to dwindle in preparation to fall from the tree. Is it a fact that the spectrum of reds and yellows is more beautiful than green? Is beauty located in a specific hue? Just our eye's perception of a few key wavelengths? Of course this isn’t the case, but perhaps specific patterns of hues, certain contrasts of colors. If so, can beauty be broken down into a formula? A set sequence or position of color that results in a beautiful image?

Given that blue (~467 nm) is the backdrop and green (~505 nm) is the grass, Hollowell Postulate 17 would dictate that a scattered midground of reds and yellows (575-700nm) on dark brown lines, and lit from a 75 degree angle will result in beauty.

If this or similar theories were ever presented to me in school, I would cast down my pen and storm from the room. I would lock my door and wait for the world to end. But even as I say this, I know I have a couple film/photography buffs for friends that could probably teach me all sorts of ways that shades and lights can be manipulated to make any image aesthetically pleasing. If this were the case however, would that not make beauty objective? Universal? Our own well-worn axiom would disagree and say that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, subjective, arbitrary. For this to hold true beauty must not lie in the formulaic distribution of colors and light, but in the objects themselves. And not just the objects, but in what these objects evoke, what emotion these colors conjure. But is this even completely true, if this were the case then a vast majority of the subject matter taught in film and photography classes could be called into question. Are there just some things that are unarguably beautiful, while some others depend on the individual? Is the sun setting on a coastline, or sifting through the edges of a cloud beautiful regardless; whereas a park bench would only be beautiful to someone who is reminded of sunny conversation with a loved one, or particularly fond of sitting down? Do certain colors innately correspond to particular emotions? Or maybe they’ve been ingrained to do so. “Warm” and “cool” colors, “feeling blue”, “green with envy”, “red with anger” et cetera.

Even if their beauty lies in the emotion they evoke and not necessarily in the colors or images themselves, most of these things carry a universal beauty. While it can’t be precisely described or put in so many words it is widely accepted as beautiful. But why? Why when broken down can we not find beauty in the specific details? Why isn’t beauty a factual occurrence? How is it that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts? Why can the same scene be described as beautiful or not beautiful? The sun sitting lazily on the horizon, as last light peeks over the edges of a cloud. The light given off by a perpetually burning orb 93,000,000 miles away is being partially blocked by an accumulation of water vapor in the lower troposphere, as this location on Earth is slowly rotating away.

One thing I have noticed is that in different people beauty is ascribed to things below the physical and finite. Even people who have an aesthetically pleasing phenotype may not be considered beautiful. Pretty, yes. Attractive, yes. Beautiful, not necessarily. This may be debatable depending on your personal definition of beauty and how lightly you use the term. In a similar vein to the differences in the way you “love” your mother, your significant other, orange soda, and lamp. In my personal experience “beauty is more than skin deep” as They’re fond of saying. Someone can be physically attractive but be personally unattractive to me. General demeanor and the attitudes with which people hold themselves can bolster the physical form into actual beauty, or undermine it completely and turn me off to some people. These things are purely subjective, completely preferential and may in many ways be an imperfect method of categorization considering it only furthers the intangibility of beauty and leaves it even more ill-defined. When it comes to people, I feel beauty becomes almost circumstantial in some cases. That’s not exactly the word I want to use, in fact a few of the words I’ve used thus far have seemed ill suited to my meaning. By circumstantial I mean that people aren’t always at a consistent demeanor, this applies to both the beholden and the beholder. A person that I meet, with qualities that I would see as beautiful, may be having a bad day or at an uncommonly sour temperament, which inevitably affects my perception of them and how I judge them. I use the term “judge” because as much as I try to keep an open mind about people I won’t lie to you, or myself, and say I don’t judge on first impressions. I like to think I give everyone ample opportunity to prove themselves otherwise, but I’ve found that my initial impressions of people are generally accurate to a close degree and it would be foolish to ignore them for higher ideals. This is a bit of a different topic but it does bring me to another point, that my mood and current state of mind affect how I see people, and how I perceive beauty. The biggest example of this that I can think of is this entire blog. If I had been in a different state of mind, the sky and the trees and the sun would have all been beautiful, plain and simple, but I was feeling more pensive, and needed to digest the scenery rather than just accept it as beautiful. While I’m none too proud of it, I do sometimes take an inclination to the pessimistic. While I acknowledge this and try to counteract it, occasionally my self-diagnostic senses relax and my outlook on life and the world around me is affected. My pessimism generally manifests itself in a way very similar to this blog, I breakdown happiness into baser elements where flaws in perception or lapses in logic become much more evident. This undeniably affects my analyses of people, both strangers and acquaintances alike. Good friends are generally spared from these moods because I’m more comfortable with my relationship to them, and when they enter my mind or my life I become more aware that I’m looking through a darker lens and adjust my view. This leads me to another point, that people I’m already more comfortable with are easier to see beauty in. I can only assume the same applies with everyone else, the way little personality quirks that could be called irritating by the unattached passerby are dubbed endearing by close friends or loved ones. Or the way people can probably list off their physical preferences in the opposite sex, yet will often settle down with people who may have none of these features. Anyway this is just another day in my mind, I probably only thought about this for like an hour on the ride home, but I’ll probably comb back over it soon and add more. I apologize for the abrupt end, but this has been waiting patiently on my desktop for almost three weeks and I feared it was growing cold.

Comfortable Rhythms

So, I’ve been trying to forcibly enact change on my life. Nothing super-crazy, I’m not going green, Vegan, Buddhist, Anarchist or anti-anything. I still listen to the same music, eat the same food, and frequent the same social circles; but I am trying to change some things. Most of these changes are just small, almost subconscious tendencies. I’m just trying to objectify my life and find areas where it could be more efficient. I’m not writing this blog to explain all these changes, not because its overly personal, so much as that its personal enough to bore you. These are just things I want to change, and many of them lack a definite form or stated cause, so I would have trouble explaining them within the limits of language anyway.

What I want to talk (read: vent) about is this feeling I keep fighting. While I’m adamant about this change, I find that I can’t be all about it all the time. Because these are mental processes, when I’m not focusing on them I’m sliding back into old habits. I’m just sitting here alternating between typing this and fiddling with my bass, and I’ve noticed I do the same thing with a lot of things I do. If I’m not intensely focused on trying to create a new tune, then I inevitably give in to listening to my muscle memory. Obviously I’m thinking about more than playing my bass right now, and I just noticed a moment ago that even though I sat down to make something new, whenever my mind begins to wander from the fret board I inevitably fall back on familiar rhythms. Unbidden, my fingers trace their practiced patterns over these same four strings. Playing out my life over a tired ostinato. Living in consonance with the same jaded melody.

There’s Schism, with it’s simple beginnings, straight to the double hammer-notes. Then the transition into Anesthesia that I came up with two years ago, I can play it faster now, or I can slow it down and still stay in time. I can change the emphasis, go down a register, make it sound so new… but it’s the same pattern, my fingers know it just the same. I want to make something new, something fresh, but then I inevitably seek the comfort of a minor pentatonic scale. It may sound different to me, I’ve maybe never played out that exact sequence before, but it’s the same tired motions, bouncing between the same three-fret stretch, moving up, or down, or around in the same comfortable technique. Is it new? Am I forging forward? Or am I just letting myself become comfortable with my subconscious’ new intonation? Am I changed just because it sounds so new to me? Or is it still the same old song calling my fingers to motion?

I believe an introduction is in order.

Blogging, huh? This is a strange territory for me. As a general rule, I keep my thoughts to myself, or late night one-on-ones, but what have I really got to lose? Any of you who would read on, I would probably have talked to anyways. Any of you who would judge, are perfectly within your rights. Any of you who would disagree, I welcome your opinions. And any of you who would listen, I sincerely thank.

Welcome to my thoughts, if they don’t always make sense to you then rest assured, I feel your pain. I overanalyze, underutilize and generally carry on living through rather imperfect processes. Take what you will; I’m here to give as much as to receive. If I can help, I’d be glad to, and if you could help, I’d be grateful. I promise not all of these will be sappy and emotional. I don’t live in a world of instability and venting insecurities, but I do wax reflective on occasion, so bear with me. Or skip around, I don’t care. It’ll probably be obvious when I’m actually writing a blog to you, and when I’m just processing my thoughts in a medium I’m comfortable with (writing, not blogging). I’ll try to add in events I find funny or ironic. I may throw in some fiction piece or other I want opinions on, whatever. I’m not trying to bore you with this, don’t feel as though you’re obligated to comment on, or even read, anything you don’t want to. I’m really doing this for me, but I’d like to invite you into my thoughts if you wish to be included. You’ll find that the wee hours of the morning find me at random conclusions, from sleep-deprived abstractions to sappy pseudo-philosophy that I think is too cool for school, until I wake up the next morning (you’ll see).

Anyway this is my intro to what may or may not become a blog space. Feel free to comment or critique anything, you’ll find me hard to offend. Tell me when I suck, or when I should have probably stopped writing. Compliments are nice, but there is really no need to fabricate a few to cushion a blow. I’m not here for empty reassurance, I’m fishing for criticisms. This is generally going to be me laying ideas out on the table to dissect and sift through for validity or fault, so feel free to lend a hand.

Stereopsis, pardon my nerdiness, means solidity of sight. It is the process by which we perceive depth from two-dimensional images by combining two different projections of the world. And this difference is granted to us by the binocular disparity caused by the fact that our two eyes see from separate locations. That makes it sound way more complicated than it really is, and I apologize for that (and any future overcomplicating I will inevitably fall prey to), but my point is that I’m telling you how I see the world, and I’d like to know how things are on your side of the nose, so that maybe we can figure out how far we have left to go.

P.S. I estimate that one-third of you thought that was a spiffy way to end that. Another third thought that was probably the corniest thing you’ve read all week. And the final third just thinks I’m trying too hard.

To all of you… you’re damn right.

By the way, I’m Chris.

(As it stands now the two latter thirds have come to an agreement.)