Epiphany

[salinea]

I feel like I've been misusing this journal terribly. Hence why I've been having so much troubles writing in it these past days.
When I started it, I didn't do it to keep tab with my friends (not that I don't want to check on what happens in all of your lives), nor did I do it to write things about what happened in my days and give the appearance I was busy and human still. Neither did I do it for fandom related subjects really, not that I mind using it as such, but not for fandom as itself certainly.

I started this journal because I wanted to put there everything that made sense to me. Not the moments but the realizations they induced. Not myself, but the trapping of my Self. I wanted to use it to help me find the Narrative of my life. All the meaning I found in a day to day basis that could help me create my identify, act within it, reach for what I wanted for myself.

But as often happens we get trapped in the way, and lost in the labyrinth of what others want to see, and what we shall provide them so that they can see us. So we try to speak their tongue, and then we don't understand ourselves anymore, and then we're only speaking nonsense. And then we don't say anything anymore at all.

Meanings.

That's what there is in beauty.

Magic. Power. Wonder. That's why I want to write. That's why i always wanted to write. Not to escape, but to find what was mine in reality. To make reality mine. I mean, there's no sense to feeling alienated to this world. Everything that is in it, is in us. And everything that is in us, is in the world. Is of the world. Dreams, tales, visions, fears, beauty... everything that comes from us, comes from this reality, this universe. This nature, our nature.

That's the power of words, of art, of beauty, not to create things (everything is already in the world), but to name them, to isolate them, to set them in a frame, to tie them to each others, in a storyline that gives sense - order - to it. And to do so, repetively, differently, with the same basic stuff all the time. With the same bare stones you can build a million different castles and bridges and arches.

And they don't contradict each others. They're all true. They're all of the world. Because they have meanings to us. As I never found any contradiction as a child into thinking that the world was both created in 6 days and that the earth was billion years old. Why should I have ? Both truth belong to different narratives, different frames, but they have both their own uses, their own power within it. It's the same way I understand that a scientist could consider light as an onde once, and as a particule then for the resolution of two different problems.
And the world is big, is rich enough to encompass all of our different points of views narrating reality.

Power then. Power for myself - to become what I want to be, to set myself free of all I didn't want to be. We do that, don't we ? With the right clothes, with the right rituals, actions that we do and that we give meanings to, places that we go, that we live in to make our world. With the right attributes and aspects we give ourselves power to be what we want to be - or what we fear to be as often, much too often, we get ruled by this power, by our uncontrolled chaos within of fear and vanity and anger and self-loathing instead of using it. And we trap ourselves, and let the words of others trap us. While we could use it to free us so absolutly.

And power for others. To tie myself to others. To let them see. Because that's what i loved in books when I was a child. The power to become anyone else so that you could see what it was to be someone else. Without judgement. Without bias. Empathy was what I sook into books, that one gift that I prize above any other. Utopian in a way of me to believe that, to believe that you could really see, just in a books, all of the world through the eyes of others. Of course, the world is not there, you have to bring that with you, as a reader. But the track marks are. The Frame, which tells you where the beginning and the ending are, and the cuts of chapters between them. Putting the negative space in, that's what writing is. This framing blankness around the reality that the reader brings with, so that when they walk see it, it is them that connect the dots together, them who brings the vision forth, into their mind that the picture becomes alive. It's got so much more power that way. So much more meaning to them. And that's when they can see, when they can connect with you.

That's the answer for me. I was that weird child that nobody could understand, who found things, saw things in the world that nobody else could see. I was - I am - lonely because of it. But if I don't want to wear a mask to hide beneath, to fit in and walk on the same road as everyone else, then can I do less that give others the key, the password to translate what I say and let them understand me ?

And I haven't been doing really that, have i ? I got used not to expect people to understand me. Which was the great vanity of believe that I alone could understand them no matter how different they were and love them as they while they could have not ? How foolish was that !

But if I want to do this with that journal I have to do it entirely. I have to put the fandoms and the books, the thoughts and the daily reviews. I have to put everything that is me, so I can at least connect it, build it, make sense of it in a way that would, at last, help me create a narrative for myself. Make sense of me and the world for myself and for others.
And for that I need to cut, to cut from the chaotic mass to order it. To prioritize what I want.

As I've been living this past year under the sign of the Moon.
Who I am ? Everything I dream and wishes and fears to be.
What is illusory ? Everything I cannot make true by telling it the right way.
How do I make it ? By deciding. By picking a road instead of trying to walk two, a hundred, at the same times and not walking on anything at all. I can even cut my way across the bushes for myself if I want to, but I need to do it and to follow it wherever it leads to instead of keep retracing my step to find another path.

Once upon a time...

Comments

[goldenh.livejournal.com]

oooh, shiney!

*sparkles pixie dust everywhere*


good luck ete. I am all about the magic :)

[luminaire.livejournal.com]

But as often happens we get trapped in the way, and lost in the labyrinth of what others want to see, and what we shall provide them so that they can see us. So we try to speak their tongue, and then we don't understand ourselves anymore, and then we're only speaking nonsense. And then we don't say anything anymore at all.

Beautifully said. For the most part I agree with what you say as you're talking about things that I've been feeling for the past few months. But it's your journal to do with what you wish. Good luck with what you decide to do.

[kamitra.livejournal.com]

I've always known that I was arrogant, but it's only been recently that I've been able to pin down what those are. For one, the assumption that no one would understand me, or that I would cause only pain and suffering for those that I spoke my heart out to, was so very strong... perhaps because I was too aware of any mistake I would make in favor of my own sanity. So recently, I've been starting to try. It's hard on all of us, but the very least, people are beginning to understand what is truly important to me.

I used to hide what I really believed in, because it was against a lot of what I heard from my relatives. My friends were more understanding, but I never shook off the idea that I would be hated for what I believed in. And especially beacuse sometimes, it's not very beautiful at all, and yet it's more beautiful than I can describe, but most of all, it gives me hope and understanding.

We speak different languages, but I feel a great kinship to you. I hope that you walk the path that you want to, with the beauty of words that lies within your soul.

[sakanagi.livejournal.com]

That's the power of words, of art, of beauty, not to create things (everything is already in the world), but to name them, to isolate them, to set them in a frame, to tie them to each others, in a storyline that gives sense - order - to it. And to do so, repetively, differently, with the same basic stuff all the time. With the same bare stones you can build a million different castles and bridges and arches.

Very well put. ^^ I think my idea of writing/art/beauty/etc may be slightly different from yours, but a lot of the points you've made really resonate, particularly about meanings and narratives. I tend to think that it is possible to create things through writing, not because of necessarily creating something 'new', but more by the way in which things are arranged, as more of an individual expression.

If you're thinking that people don't understand you properly, I don't know, what you've just written seems pretty clear to me. ^^

[azure-empress.livejournal.com]

Well written.

I for one understand you, and do not understand you at all. But I love you all the same. ^^

[bog-mod.livejournal.com]

Gave me something to think about during the long hours between my morning and afternoon classes. Understanding can be such a hard thing. Sometimes harder to understand that which you are closest to I think. Maybe its just me though but I don't believe you need to understand something to be able to love it.

Its kinda like faith in that way. You don't have to know something for fact to have faith in it, and you don't have to understand someone to love them.

[kajata000.livejournal.com]

I understand what you're saying... I think... By viewing yourself through others perspectives, you are losing yourself in the desire to become more like what they feel you are? I guess that's just what I read into what you said; but either way, pretty profound!

[generalblossom.livejournal.com]

Beautifully written and I think I understand. Though somehow I took my time replying, making sure I understood. You know, I think the magic of writing is that when you do it you are freezing something of you, keeping that bit of you timelessly. I can reread all emails of mine and think, me said this? It is done unwarily, I seem to be much less verbal, I try to recall feelings by association (a color, a scent, a voice) rather than analysis which can be written but writing freezes time. This somehow also keeps on my toes, to what I write is not my worst, me being petty or bitchy ( well, not too much, not about *real* people), to not freeze myself in hate. Does it make it self aware or selfserving? Dunno, maybe, but maybe all writing is selfaware. So yeah, do go ahead and write, do not let bits you want to preserve go past because you think other people would not be interested. Or that things go without comment because people wish they had back the time of reading it, like in this case, my writing falls quite short of trying to put the ideas you provoked into digital bits.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

lol thanks ! Shiny ! Shiny ! XD

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

was thinking about you too when I wrote that part *hugs* Thanks ^^

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

*nods* I think it's a very seductive mistake to make. Because there is a lot of people who are not ready to listen to anything we might say... but they are a lot who can, and that's so sad to miss that because you don't just don't try anymore.

Thank you for your comment, it's always great to see someone understands you ^_^

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

hehe I have some strange ideas sometimes, and yeah, art was always one of those things I had a very firm vision of. In a way, I wouldn't be thinking what I said there if I didn't tend to pantheism (I'm agnostic, but if I had to believe in god, it would definitly be a pantheist kind of god)

and thank you, that helps to know that ^^

What's your own ideas about art ? do tell !

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Lol. I think love is all about understanding someone and not understanding them at all. *hugs* Thanks, much love to you too. ^_^

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Haha, mission accomplished ^_^

As I just said to May, I don't think you can understand someone completely and love them. And yeah, I'd agree sometimes it's the people you are the closest to that it's the harder to get and to make them understand. Especially family. That's why it's sometimes easier to open up to a stranger.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

It's one of the thing yes ^_^ Because people tend to put each others in little cases, under little stickers to make things simpler. They call you "female" "daughter" "pretty girl" "Jewish" or "intellectual" as if those kind of things could say everything there were to say about someone and you didn't need to dig further anymore. They see the facade and then they don't bother to listen to anything to wouldn't fit into the categories. I try to break those kind of fake conceptions all the time.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Self-concious maybe ? XD I think you're one of the kindest and more level-headed person I know actually. You never seem to get angry without a good reason.

About the freezing yourself it's interesting. It's true you can create... little bubbles of yourself that way and it makes it all the more easy to find that feeling back when you re-read yourself. Like an archeology of your life, it's fun. Especially when you revisit it in retrospect, with different experiences to shed light onto it. A man doesn't go through a river twice because it's never the same river and it's never the same man and all that ^^

Thanks for your comment *hugs*

[bog-mod.livejournal.com]

Is that why you call yourself Stranger?

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

one of them reasons ^_^

[sakanagi.livejournal.com]

It's a bit hard to work out exactly what my opinion is on that subject, but I'll try. I suppose that I don't think that there is any inherent meaning to to such things as art/beauty other than what observers put there themselves, so every person has their own perspective, and what one person loves can just as easily be something that another person will hate or be totally indifferent to. But a lot of the time peoples' perspectives are similar in some respects. It's possible to know that something is good even if it doesn't appeal personally, or to know that with different experiences it might have been possible to see things differently.

What interests me the most in terms of art is writing, especially the ideas expressed through fiction writing. Even among books which are considered good, there are a few which have a special quality to them, and are particularly absorbing and have, well, 'magic' to them. It may be that the author has just done everything right, setting up an excellent plot down to the finest details, etcetera, but sometimes the attraction of those books is that of an idea, something that the author is trying to convey, whether or not it's a major part of the plot or worked in to it inseparably. The author might not even be trying to convey an idea like that, but as with other things, it may be that someone else will find such a meaning even if it was far from the author's mind. Often when an idea works well it is the case that that was what the author intended, though.

(*checks the clock*) I don't have time to add anything more to that. Hope I haven't gone too off-topic. ^^;;