I fear dreams, ambition, entrepreneurial endeavors, goals, plans, obsessive self interest, vigorous career moves, grasps for fame, attempts at fortune.
I don't want to do anything spectacular with my life. I don't want mediated attention (yet, I write this blog...). I don't want to strive to achieve some self-eclipsing success. I don't want to contribute to society. I don't want to leave anything behind.
I want less.
of everything man-made
even dreams.
Since I was a child I've always been a dreamer and believed in the fecundity of my dreams - that like seeds they could be nurtured into a manifested reality. As Americans, I think we're acculturated to dream and believe in the power of dreams. After all, dreams make. dreams do.
But perhaps we've done too much. We've drown the world with our dreams and created an excessive amount of artifacts, so much that we don't know what to do with it all but dump it into the oceans, burn it, bury it, or enshrine as some mile marker in the history of our culture's stride of "progess".
As I live in New York City I meet so many impassioned people doing doing doing doing many things with their lives - but all seem to be striving for the creation of some sort of life-product: a material manifestation of one's life - that will be revered for its contribution to the progress of society. Whether they know it or not, that's what they're doing - artists, scientists, architects, designers, writers. it's manic and neurotic. in some ways I think western civilization is obsessed with creation. if we don't create then we'll be forgotten or left behind.
I'm not advocating that people should stop creating, although I might find solace and appreciation from such high moral and ethical behavior. I'm merely saying, don't expect anything from me. I feel guilty enough creating this blog, all these words and images. I want a simple life. I want to believe that I'm somehow beyond creation–that I'm ready to embrace telepathy or universal understanding, forgiveness, humility.
What can be said without words? What can be accomplished without goals? What if we put that old tool, the mind, to rest? What if we just rely on intuition, impulses, desires, instinct, necessity? What would the world look like? Who would we be?
yet we are here, a nation of dreamers. and rather than participate in this narcissistic national ethos of creation I'm going to stand back and witness it. Do little or nothing–only what is necessary, and strive for less.
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NEW YORK, YOU CRY IN MY SLEEP
FYI: This blog is not searchable by web browsers and, although public, cannot be discovered unless given the link or happened upon at random.
The purpose of this blog is to allow me a space to express my experiences of life in New York City and communicate them to family and friends who are not here to share this journey with me.
Writing is a way for me to process my thoughts and emotions - to get out that which pains me to hold in. I live day to day and even though this blog gives my words some permanence, they are also marked with a date that will expire as I continue to live. Therefore, this is more like a record tracking the evolution of my life's journey while swirling about in this huge urban cloud. If for some reason you don't like how the world looks through my eyes, stop reading. This blog is for the open mind.
The purpose of this blog is to allow me a space to express my experiences of life in New York City and communicate them to family and friends who are not here to share this journey with me.
Writing is a way for me to process my thoughts and emotions - to get out that which pains me to hold in. I live day to day and even though this blog gives my words some permanence, they are also marked with a date that will expire as I continue to live. Therefore, this is more like a record tracking the evolution of my life's journey while swirling about in this huge urban cloud. If for some reason you don't like how the world looks through my eyes, stop reading. This blog is for the open mind.
2 comments:
Interesting post. I agree that people spend too much effort in trying to attain meaning and purpose through their actions and achievements. It's sickening how much worthless shit we produce. Just imagine what we could accomplish if all of our effort and resources could be applied toward something meaningful (whatever that would be?). Seemingly limitless potential....squandered.
I would argue that being mindless, relying only on impulse and instinct, is exactly the reason why we are in this current situation. People only looking out for their own survival, with no concern or thought of their actions or the consequences is the reason for our current state. Remember that we are barely out of the forests. We are for the most part animals, with the ability to replicate and copy those few who have actually used their minds. Exploiting knowledge and technology for a quick profit, pushing worthless products upon hungry mindless mobs.
You strike at the very heart of existence. What's the point of it all? Lately I've been thinking we are merely natures attempt to understand itself. We are mirrors reflecting our experiences, we are observers recording the universe around us however imperfect and biased. It seems as a species we are lost, we are like children without supervision or guidance, left to our own dreams and delusions.
What then should we do? Nothing?!?!
Should those who can see, expose the absurdity of it all in hopes of improving or advancing us to a higher plane of existence?
I'm glad you're engaging in this conversation with me. It's pretty awesome.
I re-read my blog entry and right when I read, "if we don't create then we'll be forgotten or left behind," it occurred to me that that is perhaps all creation - at least concerning life on this planet. When I wrote that I was just referring to material creation by human beings, yet, all life on this planet pro-creates so that it's genetic information is not forgotten, so it occurs again and again. Is all life then grasping for immortality?
You wrote that being barely out of the forest we are for the most part animals - as if the mind sets us apart. Could we merely be animals with minds? I see the mind simply as a tool - which some other animals also have only it's not as evolved. We're still animals, we're just holding a bigger more complex wrench. And as a tool we use it accordingly - to help us survive. But beyond that it's pretty useless. I think the mind is a human hyperbole: we credit everything to the mind, to our rationality and ingenuity. Yet I think there's more that goes on inside the human brain than we're currently aware of. Our most human instincts (emotions and impulses for sex, companionship, etc) have nothing to do with the mind, unless posed with a challenge, at which point we pull out our tool box.
Aside from the mind, I believe there's something else that has been evolving in the brain as well - a consciousness, which perhaps encompasses the mind and all other facets of the brain, who knows for sure, but what's paramount is what consciousness does to life - making it aware. Awareness isn't just the mind. It's bigger than that. And it's something all living things have to some degree depending on their evolutionary history.
You say as a species we seem lost. Perhaps that's because we've been following only our minds or our bodies and not our consciousness (is there only one?). What is consciousness? What's it made of? How does it evolve? And if it makes life aware, what purpose does awareness serve life? To become one? one consciousness, everything connected, everything one. what then?
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