Frustration. Disappointment. Dissatisfaction. Bewilderment.
These four words describe everything I feel, encapsulated in 52 letters.
Panic.
57.
When I get past 100, these words will dissolve back into the meaningless mixture from which they first emerged. Why? Because too many words dilute an issue or feeling.
Oftentimes we tend to exasperate a situation by creating a mythological fuss over it. It is easy to infuse but difficult to simplify. It is easy to craft sentence structures. But difficult to describe things with a single word.
Words by themselves are wondrous creations. Each one has a significant meaning. Its own character. Its own set of letters. Its own part of speech.
I am aggravated with myself. Because on this weblog I am oversimplifying my whole person, and erring in the aggrandizement of subtleties. The entries that I write only portray the me of that moment. The me of those few seconds. The me of those letters. By now, this blog seems so pointless. What am I getting out of it? What are you getting out of it? I thought perhaps with careful scrutiny one could see through either the humdrum or electrifying events in life and find the simple meaning, meaningful meaning, common conscious meaning behind it all.
But there’s so much of “all.” This is not me. In reality, it is only minutes of me. It is only a single letter from an entire word of thought and an entire sentence of feelings and an entire page of events and an entire book of life and an entire shelf of mystery.
Humanity, I am convinced, is in a constant struggle to be known. We as individuals are in a constant struggle to be known. And I am –perhaps like you -also in a constant struggle to be understood. Why? I don’t know. Why do we think our lives are so important? Why do we think we have something to offer the world? The 57 letters are most appropriate… now.
Hemmingford Quebec and the Nakhjavanis, Camping, Sheep, Country. Death of Dr. Javanmardi. Death of cousin from suicide bomber. My paper on Alternative vs. Mainstream media. My paper on Globalization. Montreal. My views on sanitation, goat herding, and humidifiers, India and postal services and family dinners and illness. These and more are subjects I would have liked to go in depth about. However, I haven’t the heart at the moment. Maybe next time. I need to figure out what I want to see when I look through. It is well past 100 letters. Clarity is beginning session. And I have come to the same conclusion as I have always come to. The simplest but most complex of words.
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Love.
Posts
13 comments:
sounds like someone is having a simone de beauvoir moment
This is a beautiful post. A complete expression of who you are if I ever saw one. But I don't understand you, right? So this comment will be easy to disregard. This compliment, easy to brush aside.
Zina, I think things started to make more sense towards the end of your post. Love, yes. Eternally. But I just wanted to make sure you were thinking of it the same way I was. Love for those around you for even attempting to comprehend your inner workings? Love enough of language to lose yourself in words - whether simple or overly complex? Love of yourself and a faith that even i f its in bite-sized bits, these posts reveal things about your character. The sum of your words is both a combination of different words with unique meanings and an entire entity unto itself. I think you object to that entity. I object to it too sometimes. But I've realized that the sum does not eliminate the parts - the ingredients are still there - it simply unfies them. And sometimes one word will compromise for another. And sometimes there's a power struggle between the two. It's like a marriage. And we shouldn't resent that transformation, we should admire it. It's science. This word plus this word equals what?! And the sum changes every time. It's a wondrous thing.
I love you so much Zina and I wish I could experience all of you all of the time. :)
I tried calling today but the phone was busy a lot. I have a calling card now!
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-239811793378811799
At this very moment I feel like watching Family Guy.
I love you Mo-Money, Mona. So much. I am visiting Southern New Hampshire –my hometown Nashua (for all you non-New Englanders out there). There is a low teak-wood table in my room and three little brass containers with red inlayed ornamental glass stones resting on it. Therein the middle was the bundle of mint candies which you “took” from our hotel in Chicago. You “took” them and you stuffed them into MY handbag. I thought you had taken two or three. Lo and behold you took about fifteen. Lo and behold I ate them all. Save two. One for me, and one for you; I am keeping them until your visit next. So we can eat our little mint memories together. That was one amazing trip. I did not know then that I would be visiting my family nearly five months later writing this, noticing the abandoned candies. There is snow sparkling right now in the clearest of moons. Seasons have turned. In my head the calendar image looks like measuring tape in a 3D circle floating in some weird world. (I’ll write about this later). Although I have gone around this measuring tape several times, some things never change. I think with you I’ll always be the neurotic philanthropist. (the autistic kid’s tune from that TV show comes into frame: dun-dun-dun dun-dun-dun dun-dun-dun-duNNNN) Let the times never end.
True and complete expression is what every soul desires, and that is why it is so important to listen to everyone. By doing so, we allow them to manifest themselves. However, knowledge of another's state and being is always done by inference. No form of communication, verbal or non-verbal, could ever completely flesh out the one's internal nature. Is it not normal then to be attracted to those that understand us best, and by the same token to yearn to be understood by those we are attracted to?
Love is a complicated word to those who try to understand it empirically. But to see it top down as one would accept the words of Truth, it is easily recognizable. Did you know there is no word for "love" in Japanese? But I assure you that many, many people of Japan have known and experienced it.
Do not despair if letters or words do not suffice at one instant. Even if they did, they become meaningless the moment you change, and change you will - constantly.
Hey you know, the measuring tape makes a lot of sense to me. I'll try my best not to launch into a nerdy discourse on rotational dynamics. But it's like, the tape of time unwinds into a long line and doesn't look the same in any one spot, but as it unrolls, you keep passing by the same point on the coiled circle. Was I close?
I love you to death. I would "take" all the mints in all the hotels and restaurants in the world, just for you. :)
Just wondering - is the phone number you put on facebook correct?
So you've found it tough to keep up with the writing, a very common blogger phenomenon, the initial joy of writing quickly fades once you miss a few days of writing, because you find it difficult to express everything that you have felt the past few days/weeks, and if you were to give an overview it wouldn't make any sense, because life is about details, and the bigger pictures is also often quite uninteresting.
Take a deep breath, pace yourself, write two stories a month capturing a single moment you think is interesting. And yes, although these moments will only show a sliver of your person, all the slivers put together will eventually piece to gether a complete picture of an exeptional girl.
Writing a blog is like running a never-ending marathon.
i used to like this blog, but i think it has become more of a "who can write longer comments and more verbose posts" competition than anything.
-anonymous
I think those who post anonymously are cowards. Capitalize your “i”s and post something of value rather than a disparaging public statement to a private web log. If you liked something in the past tense then remain there, otherwise you are not my partner in writing, you are wholly discouraging, and you’re a waste of an opportunity to speak up, speak out, speak productively. The only competitions we face are the ones that live in our heads. Now I have six essays to write and one project to complete and the whole universe and life and philosophy to contemplate. Who are you to think I write for your pleasure and satisfaction.
i am a coward, i never said that wasn't.
but i wasnt trying to be mean or anything. i know youre stressed, end of semester and what not, maybe woman issues, but i wasnt complaining or insulting your writing. take a chill pill and good luck with your papers.
http://www.the-artfile.com/gallery/history/greek/venusdemilo.jpg
Does this convey your sentiment?
"How great the multitude of truths which the garment of words can never contain! How vast the number of such verities as no expression can adequately describe, whose significance can never be unfolded, and to which not even the remotest allusions can be made! How manifold are the truths which must remain unuttered until the appointed time is come! Even as it hath been said: 'Not everything that a man knoweth can be disclosed, nor can everything that he can disclose be regarded as timely, nor can every timely utterence be considered as suited to the capacity of those who hear it.'"
- Bahá'u'lláh, Gleanings, LXXXIX
Well, the context is about the Word of God. But I think at least the first two or three sentences apply.
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