jmoiron.net

Feeling poetic. I wonder if Poe or Van Gogh felt their sanity slipping away. In Shelley's world:

And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea,
If to the human mind's imaginings
Silence and solitude were vacancy?

Indeed, to Shelley silence and solitude were not vacancy; but what if it were? Then Mont Blanc would just be a mountain, and the top, that which is not visible, wouldn't exist. If all the mind See's of the mountain was vacancy, would the mind, in classic rational sense, exist? Does being misunderstood constantly lead to the conclusion that we misunderstand the self; is religion mass hysteria held by 95% of the population of the earth, or is it merely a bitter irony that without a god in heaven, below, or on a similar plane, the mind has nothing to grasp at as it slips into feverish delerium?

As a quick aside, the one sure thing I can presently make of things, America in 2003 seems worse than England in 1819 after reading even 1 chapter of the Indispensable; the "propaganda model" so conclusively proven in previous works gains a new light through the didactic prism of Bill O'reilly's preachy distortion.

Back now to my state of confusion: I can't tell if my mind is too dull to take in all that I perceive or if it is so sharp that the smallest, mildest image results in sensory overload. I certainly feel overloaded often, and just as often dull. Of course, the positive side, and there is always one, is that it's easier to appreciate music, art, and literature as what so often is the subject strikes closer to home. So, all you mighty, see this, my meager work, and despair.

So, I've discovered (through no introspection of my own) that I appear to suffer from a mania that seems to be caused by an enlightened mind trying to escape from the problems and trivialities of the common man. It seems to me to be preposterous that we do not all share this lunacy; and so it seems evident that those who do not understand it deny its existence within themselves, or do not suffer from it. I think the former the more plausible, as we could probably all be experts in denial.

Some of you know what I'm talking about, or what I'm getting at. Some of you I've personally provided the slaps necessary to escape from the murky pool of disillusioned enlightenment that I now ford. You're free to slap me back, but only knowing that when I dealt it to you I knew full well the lack of happiness here.

And when it comes down to it, whatever it may be, it all stems from other people; when the ballance of necessary community and desired solitude comes in direct conflict; when meticulously laid foundations crumble overnight from the clash of perceptions and reality. But don't assume the self importance that you're at fault, or that being half of the situation affords you the knowledge of the other half. Its in these situations, caused by the failure of a helping hand, that we all get to re-affirm the knowledge that we'd rather leave the option over to rationalize actions up to evil, as George W. Bush does, than prod and pry and understand the reason for it's lack of appearance.

(what a load of crap -ed)