Kunst Macht Gunst

• I'm now working full-time at LWP, working with people who have intellectual disabilities. It's a temporary job--I'm taking over for someone on maternity leave. I enjoy it a lot.
  
  
• For the first week of full-time work, I was sick. Then I had about 3 weeks of work deleted. I'm still playing catch-up. I also still have phlem overload from my sickness.
  
  
• I'm still working on becoming half-decent at visual art; once I'm half-decent, I'm going to start working on a comic. I'll tell you more when I have more done, but the epighraph comes from Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim. The epigraph is one of those supremely elegant lines, that, on the surface, is very simple, but manages to carry the weight of the entire novel in its construction. Only a master can make something so simple carry so much: "What's his name? Jim! Jim! That's not enough for a man's name."
  
  
• I've joined the Ottawa Wolves: a predominantly-gay rugby team in Ottawa. So far, we don't have too many members, but hopefully that'll change soon. I'm doing my best to recruit new people, though. Rugby is such a wonderful sport. You should join the team, too!
  
  
• The last week, I've been thinking mainly about the role of passion and the role of strength in life. Let me explain the problem of passion for you: most people who do horrible things in the world do it through their passions. Very few people desire to do actual evil--they just have an erroneous idea of what good is. To me, though, passion is life--in all passion's forms¹. When you're passionate, the distiction between the self and the world falls away, our superego-imposed limits melt away, and the universe comes alive to us just as we become alive to it, vibrant; it responds to our touch just as we respond to it; we unite with the universe. But we can be wrong. We can be so wrong. Our minds are profoundly irrational, and they have to be--we would not have survived as completely rational creatures, and we would fail to survive if we became so. But, at the same time, this irrationality is what allows us to believe we are right while we abuse thousands of innocents; studies have catalogued hundreds of predictable human irrationalities and oversights that frequently create a completely wrong view of the world and of what we saw with our own eyes. The more experience I gather, the more Aristotle seems right: everything that we have is needed, even our irrationalities, but without strict guidance from our reason, we abuse them: too much or too little of anything is bad, and we must constantly question our own judgements because even our strongest virtues are not far removed from vices.²
  
  But where does this leave passion? How can we be passionate if we are constantly evaluating our own perceptions and thoughts for evidence of this bias? That shifts the focus from the world back onto ourselves--the antithesis of passion. And yet, without this reason, our passions can lead us to destroy those around us--and ourselves.
  
  I was beating this around for a while, and then suddenly I realised I had been thinking about it in completely the wrong way, that I had been seeing passion as something external. Let me explain with an example: Avenue Q's main plot focusses on a young man named Princeton. Princeton is looking for a purpose, but he cannot find one. This is, however, absurd: a purpose is not found like a penny--if it were, then it would be something outside of you, something that doesn't really involve you, something created by someone else for someone else. A purpose must come from within: if someone cannot find a purpose, it is because that person does not take the trouble to care about anything. I had been seeing passion as something external, something that you have or you don't--but that's not the way passion operates. Passion is always worked for and earned. It is the emolument for back-breaking labour. You do not have it every moment--you cannot--and this is where reason comes into play. Reason corrects our excesses and deficencies as we start our work, and then, as we continue working, passion is created and takes over--our awareness of our irrationalities becomes incorporated into the work at the beginning, and our passion allows us to finish it with heart and gusto.
  
  I do not know why it took me so long to realise this. I should have seen it instantly, how people will refuse to become passionate about work they do not wish to do, but how, if you allow yourself, even the most mundane task can become infused with passion; when I was landscaping, I entered a trance, becoming filled with my work, losing myself in it. It became a complete joy. And yet, so many people I worked with thought the job was beneath them, not worth the effort I put into it.³
  
  
• I have a new favourite weapon: tonfa. They are the most elegant and efficent weapon I have ever seen because they are designed so that the "weapon" is merely a tool--the real weapon is the body. The tonfa is designed to maximise the power the body naturally uses, flawlessly converting the torque of our hips, shoulders, and arms into centripetal force, and accentuating the natural strength of our body for both striking and blocking.
  
  
• I have spent far too much money this month, and broken my budget. Whoops.
  
  

• On Monday, I saw rottenfruit and nuotio perform. Elizabeth was amazing! I had only seen her perform once before, and that was good, but she really blew me away on Monday. She has this wonderful on-stage power. She looks very timid, shy, and fragile, but she also radiates power, and when she starts to sing, her voice is strong enough to have stopped the Maenads. I skipped out of Better Friends Than Lovers because it was past my bedtime and, from their sound check, they didn't sound that great. However, I think I may have been hasty in my judgement; their music sounds quite good on their MySpace page. Still not as good as Elizabeth's, though. Also, she made vegan cake! It was excellent.
  
  
• I am crazy busy with school. Surprised?
  
  
• Today is election day! Vote! Be informed, and vote!
  
  For those of you who dislike the three big parties, I must pimp a party I don't support: the Green Party of Canada, and the Green Party of Ontario. I'm a pretty hard-core Dipper (NDP member), but I respect the Green Party. They're a fiscally conservative party that is open-minded about what works and what doesn't, and actually listens to the research on subjects before creating policy (which the big-C Conservative party doesn't; thus, I see the Greens as the best small-c conservative party out there). I fundamentally disagree with them on many topics, but I still have a lot of respect for them. Therefore, I pimp them. Even though they will not get my vote (I feel like pimping my party would be wrong, because then I'd be influencing people to vote the way I do, which is wrong. However, pimping parties I don't vote for is OK by me. I have a very weird sense of morality; if I were telling people to vote as I do, then I'd be implying that I'd prefer you voting the way I do. Which, of course, I do not. Thus, recommending parties that I don't vote for feels more like saying, "Well, you can consider this, but if you disagree with me, I don't care--I don't support them").
  
  
• I've been playing a lot of DDR: Hottest Party (i.e. 3-4 hours a week). It is so much fun! Though all the guys in it are ugly. But, then again, maybe I just think that because I'm used to DDR: Mario Mix, and, as we all know, Mario to me is what Laura Croft is to the straight boys.

I.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,	
  Alone and palely loitering?	
The sedge has wither’d from the lake,	
  And no birds sing.	
 
II.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms!	        
  So haggard and so woe-begone?	
The squirrel’s granary is full,	
  And the harvest’s done.	
 
III.

I see a lily on thy brow	
  With anguish moist and fever dew,	      
And on thy cheeks a fading rose	
  Fast withereth too.	
 
IV.

I met a lady in the meads,	
  Full beautiful—a faery’s child,	
Her hair was long, her foot was light,	        
  And her eyes were wild.	
 
V.

I made a garland for her head,	
  And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;	
She look’d at me as she did love,	
  And made sweet moan.	       
 
VI.

I set her on my pacing steed,	
  And nothing else saw all day long,	
For sidelong would she bend, and sing	
  A faery’s song.	
 
VII.

She found me roots of relish sweet,	       
  And honey wild, and manna dew,	
And sure in language strange she said—	
  “I love thee true.”	
 
VIII.

She took me to her elfin grot,	
  And there she wept, and sigh’d fill sore,	       
And there I shut her wild wild eyes	
  With kisses four.	
 
IX.

And there she lulled me asleep,	
  And there I dream’d—Ah! woe betide!	
The latest dream I ever dream’d	       
  On the cold hill’s side.	
 
X.

I saw pale kings and princes too,	
  Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;	
They cried—“La Belle Dame sans Merci	
  Hath thee in thrall!”	       
 
XI.

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,	
  With horrid warning gaped wide,	
And I awoke and found me here,	
  On the cold hill’s side.	
 
XII.

And this is why I sojourn here,	       
  Alone and palely loitering,	
Though the sedge is wither’d from the lake,	
  And no birds sing.	

Current Mood: happy

Current Music: "Franny & Zooey" -- Matthew Mongrain