I can't feel the music coursing through my veins. I can't feel the heart of the painter. I can't see the beauty in a single second. I can't fall in love with a photograph. I can't stare at the stars all night. I can't get lost in her eyes. I can't cry for a statue. I can't. I can't.
I can smile when she gasps from the love in my kiss. And I do, as if it were a choice.
[Portfolio. Short posts. I think we've lost Brooke and Lyssa. I think my girlfriends have never read my blog more than . . . once or twice. It's you guys and my mother and Kyle and Manda. Hm. I think I blog for me.]
[Edit: I posted this originally as 2.14 for some reason.]
[Edit: I posted this originally as 2.14 for some reason.]
That sort of loss in the first paragraph that isn't bracketed made me think of Frodo near Mount Doom, when he couldn't remember the Shire or beauty or any good thing.
ReplyDeleteBut the second non-bracketed paragraph: hmm. Is he gasping because he knows he should gasp, even if his capacity to do so has disappeared? Or because he can't help it and actually does gasp? This paragraph makes me think that the first one is actually about him willing himself to not feel or see any of those things, which is a difficult and terrible way to live.
[Lyssa does post once in a while, but med school is sort of time and space consuming, from all I've heard. I'm not sure about Brooke's reason, but it starts with an Austria and ends with a Philip. I think your sister reads as well, Robby. Didn't she comment a few posts ago?]
Ashlee, could you not sleep? Your posts keep saying you replied after 3:30. That just can't be . . . hmm.
ReplyDeleteRobby, the stuff you posted here-- it does things. I want to try to explain but I'm not sure I can put it into words but you deserve more than that so okay here.
This is why I say happiness cannot be an end in itself. The more you chase it, the more elusive it is. Chasing happiness is a rather selfish thing, anyway, and people who are selfish are never really happy for long enough to count.
Plus, people often say happiness is some sort of . . . constant euphoria, but it isn't. That would be exhausting, and our levels of happiness do reset themselves after a while.
So your . . . "you" can't conjure up the feelings one usually associates with romance, beauty, etc. Okay. Not being able to feel the things one thinks one "should" feel is kind of irrelevant. The feelings are either there, or they aren't. Manufacturing them won't help. What will?
That is a more complicated question. But, assuming that "you" lives in a Christian universe, "you" should know that God promises happiness to people who live rightly, who live for more than themselves. Like happiness comes when a person is living out his or her purpose in the right relationship with God and man.
I fear none of that will make sense or that it will sound like I'm discounting feelings or too Stoic/practical or something. But feelings are incredibly important to me. I just can't make them the most important, you know? I don't think anyone can without losing his/her soul.
__
I don't get the "I can smile" with "And I do, as if it were a choice." Is that like, he (I'm assuming "he" now) smiles without knowing why, or like he has feelings about it that he's trying to deny, or like he smiles for her benefit even though he doesn't see it, or something else?
Because the interesting thing about all of those things is that he sounds like he loves her, whether he wants to or not. Either he's acting for her benefit regardless of his feelings, which is love, or he's glad for her happiness beyond his own, which is also love.
__
I don't think Brooke ever really cared about blogging/writing, and several times, she has said she took creative writing because she was hoping it would make her want to write more, but it didn't. So I don't think it's just being busy or distracted.
Lyssa puts a lot of time and effort into her writing, and she doesn't seem to have that time now. I doubt she's gone forever, though.
You're supposed to blog for you, aren't you? Blogs are very self-centered. But I'm going to be here, anyway.
Also: I'm glad your portfolio is almost done. That thing is the worst.
ReplyDeleteAlso also: Why is this for February 14?
Um, I posted at like 6:30 or so. It says for me that you posted at 4:00 something, so what time zone is your blog on, Robby?
ReplyDeleteWow, Janelle, that was a long answer. I like it.
Oh, I just thought you posted it as 2.14 to have it go along with the contents. Since, date-wise, 2.14 is Valentine's Day. I think your mind was being secretively clever on your behalf, Robby.
ReplyDeleteEXACTIMUNDO.
DeleteOK.
ReplyDeleteTo answer all of your questions, I wasn't thinking any of that when I wrote it.
Like, none of it. The things I was thinking were limited to "These are the sort of things that people in books do. This is the sort of thing real boys do. Wouldn't you prefer to have a real boy? I know the real boy would prefer to be real."
That's about it.
I like that. I like that very much.
DeleteSee, this is the reason why I don't talk in class. When I say, "I don't have anything to say," I don't mean I don't have thoughts or words or whatever; I mean I have nothing to say that's of value.
So I get what your sister is saying about feeling ashamed, and I get what you mean about a social contract, and I don't dispute that. But. Once I start talking, I can't stop. If I talk in class, no one will get a word in edgewise, or if I remember to give other people time and space to share, they won't because they'll wait for whatever I have to say.
I do talk in some classes, but only when the pain of staying silent is greater than the pain of speaking up.
(You should count yourself particularly . . . I don't even know. But I have never been able to shut myself up with you, even when I should.)
Real boys are grand. Very. I've been a bit tied up with mine--funny how that works. I always spent a great deal of time writing when I could have been living instead, and while the two aren't mutually exclusive, the little free time I have doesn't usually get spent typing. Not anymore. I prefer it that way.
ReplyDeleteBut I'm still around. I still read everything you guys write, even if I don't always have time to comment. Keep it coming.
"This is the sort of thing real boys do. Wouldn't you prefer to have a real boy? I know the real boy would prefer to be real." I like that. I also like figuring out what that looks like, being real. It's a great deal of fun and I would talk about it, but it always ends up sounding mushy and sentimental. We'll see. I'm on spring break, and Ryan's parents are visiting, so I almost have less time than usual.
I cannot tell you how excited I am that
Deletea) You posted! (You read all this stuff!)
b) You're happy!!
You're right, and you said this beautifully.
:-)
Well, I'm glad the boy would also prefer to be real. So would the girl, in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteYet I see a lot of pretending going on and it's a game (the pretending, being someone different in order to be liked or dated or whatever) I'm trying to not play. I wouldn't want someone to fall in love with a shadow of a thought.
"I wouldn't want someone to fall in love with a shadow of a thought."
DeleteYep. :-)
You know, gotta throw in those LOTR references whenever appropriate.
DeleteHuh. The good news is that IT DOESN'T MATTER IF IT'S WHAT I WAS THINKING IT'S WHAT YOU FOUND
ReplyDeleteok, Janelle. Now that that's done.
Basically, it's difficult to be a Romantic until something forces you to be sentimental.
BUT YOU HATE CONSTRUCTED MEANING. (Don't you? Haiku, and all that?)
DeleteI like that. One can't be Romantic without a muse?
You know what, that actually fits with EVERYTHING EVER.
People who try to be Romantic/sentimental but have nothing to be sentimental about rub everyone the wrong way and come off as false/immature/ridiculous.
The best Romantics had reasons to be Romantic, and they may have taken things to extremes, but they were writing about extreme things.
People who have never experienced love usually cannot write it well and often don't understand the people who are experiencing it (how they act/talk/think). People who had love but lost it also sometimes lose that understanding.
Hmm.
I do hate constructed meaning. But as long as you've found the meaning and expounded on what you SAW, that's fine. Really. I mean, you draw it to an extreme edge, but I'm learning to not bleed from the ears over it.
ReplyDeleteALSO HELLO LYSSA (though the likelihood you'll read this is low low low)
Do you have any idea how encouraging that is for me?
DeleteBecause it is.
Thank you.
I live for such distinctions.
DeleteLyssa, sometimes you are my favorite.
DeleteOk. That's fair enough. Just don't make a habit of it.
ReplyDeleteI should be writing my paper. I have three sentences.
This post is almost on the highest-viewed list. Those all have fifty or more; this is in the mid 40s. Hmmmmmmmm
ReplyDeleteWell, maybe we should just keep commenting in order to get it more views. Or is that just...I don't know, it's late for me. Off to bed go I.
ReplyDeleteIt's actually 10:55 PM for me. I don't know why it says 7:55 PM. That's not late for me. Weird.
DeleteMaybe. Maybe we should all just . . .
ReplyDeleteIt's late for everyone. Most people just don't have the sense to admit it. 10:30 is long after the sun goes down.
When I'm camping, I usually go to sleep with the sun anyway.
Even with electricity, I lived a whole ten months pretty much going to bed shortly after sundown (around 8 PM). It helps that sundown never varied as much as it does here. Funny, I could wake up at 5:00 AM at my first alarm and not want to keep sleeping. Huh.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was at camp in Alaska, I awoke at 5:00 in the morning most days and went to sleep at about 11:30 p.m.
ReplyDeleteThe sun never quite left, and then when I got back to places where it did, the darkness was too dark, and it surprised and even scared me for a while, even though I knew it was going to happen.
In Estonia, my friend Mari told me that her country has one of the highest rates of depression/suicide in the world because it is almost continually dark there for half the year. This is one reason, she said, why every house there has a sauna.
Why am I telling you this? Eh, something to talk about, I guess.
Estonia makes me think of Dilbert. Why? Because I can.
ReplyDeleteI usually have tremendously variant sleep patterns. It's terrible for my skin.
Officially in the top three posts. I wish this were Scarmarella.
ReplyDeleteBut this is more honest.
Yeah, I hear you.
ReplyDeleteEstonia and Dilbert make perfect sense to me, but I cannot tell you why.
We could always start a conversation on Scarmarella . . .