I have been discontented. I keep a fortune cookie fortune in my wallet, grimy now, as such items age badly, that says, "Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation." I hope this is the case, because otherwise, I have been petulant and recalcitrant to no purpose. That would just be a waste of time.
Inside the discontent about one aspect of my life is a careful exhilaration about a different aspect. I am not the person I would like to be. I am not engaged by my work in the way I wish to be. But someone may love the person I am right now, unperfected, in mid-stride. I am agog at such a possibility. Bewildered and doubtful, I nevertheless dream in brighter colours.
The joy inside the discontent is hard to identify, like an iridescent butterfly as the dusk grows deeper. I have taken to recalling good moments in my life, trying to remind myself that they were all bought with work or suffering, or simple patience.
But the boomerang of self-assurance I swing into the world comes back an arrow of defeat. Perhaps I misinterpret. Right now, it feels as if everyone else is winning, everyone else has eased their demons and begun to enjoy their rewards. Meanwhile, I long to go vaulting over the obstacles that taunt me. People wave at me from the far shore. Perhaps my demons, being harder to vanquish, force me to greater lengths, greater feats to defeat them. Perhaps eventually I will emerge stronger than I would have had the battle been swift and easy. Perhaps these arrows of defeat come from many sources, and my boomerang still hasn't arrived.
Perhaps I need some success and not so much philosophy or metaphor.
I watch others philosophize, and I can see they use philosophy to shield themselves from the truth that they will never reach their goals, never succeed. It gives my own philosophy a bitter aftertaste.
In the end, the only absolute path to failure is to stop trying.
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
Sunday, January 23, 2005
Best Behavior
It feels like I'm on a first date, and I'm not entirely sure what I want from the relationship. I'm at the table looking at a stranger, and I'm faced with the task of constructing a self for that person. I'm aware I could lie, that the beauty of the tabula rosa is the ability to redraw, but it's hard enough being truthful with oneself, why waste the effort with extra dishonesty?
So here I am, trying to decide what to tell you. Unlike a first date, I want to tell you whatever amuses me most in the telling. I say unlike -- I'd have much more fun if that were my thought on every date. I have a habit of responding to people in kind: that is, I try to adjust myself according to the company. Faced with the blank screen, all responsive cues are eliminated and I am adrift, briefly. It is not unpleasant.
So here I am, trying to decide what to tell you. Unlike a first date, I want to tell you whatever amuses me most in the telling. I say unlike -- I'd have much more fun if that were my thought on every date. I have a habit of responding to people in kind: that is, I try to adjust myself according to the company. Faced with the blank screen, all responsive cues are eliminated and I am adrift, briefly. It is not unpleasant.
Friday, January 21, 2005
Cross Words
Today, I did the crossword first, and it was easy. I know it was easy because I zipped through it, and only had to look up one or two words on the internet. (I'm sure someone out there knows the star system Draco is next to the Big Dipper, but it just looked wrong. I agree, it's cheating. I do it anyway.) I want to believe that I am so clever and word-rich that I am capable of ripping my way through any crossword, but last week I made that mistake. Five minutes into the New York Times crossword on the opposite page, I gave it up and went back to reading.
I blame my sister-in-law. She's the crossword demon. She infected my mother and I. Somehow, my brother and father have a deep resistance to crosswords, but send the family off on vacation, and give my sister-in-law the paper, and voila, there we women sit, stumped, for hours, doing the crossword. The three of us have a fairly wide range of knowledge together: My mother retains much of her French and the various details of being well-traveled and well-read throughout her life, I am the theatre and literature contributor (although I fail miserably when movie actors are involved), and my sister-in-law has a lifetime of dealing with crosswords, so she knows all the sneaky crossword tricks. Together, we have enough success to break even the New York Times crossword, but on our own, it's a struggle.
My mother, after a couple of years of only being drawn into the crossword only at holiday time, recently decided she could stave off intellectual flabbiness (and presumably, alzheimer's) by doing the crossword every day. My father initially supported this endeavor by buying books of crosswords as gifts, but soon we all realized what a time-intensive labour the crossword was for my mother alone. My father now refers to himself as a crossword widow.
"It's just that they're so sneaky," my mother frets, drugstore bifocals perched on her nose. She loses glasses at an advanced speed, so we buy her boxes of them from Eckerd or CVS, and never mind the exact prescription. "The crossword will give a clue that makes you think they mean ONE thing, but they really mean something else. I just can't think sneaky like that." She also bemoans the crossword habit of having a clue match the answer - an abbreviated clue means the answer is an abbreviation, a clue in the past tense means the answer ends in 'ed', tricky things like that.
When I call my folks some evenings, my father usually signs off first and my mother has additional gossip or news. In the past few months, that's turned into: "Wait....are you still there? Good...I needed to ask you something. Let's see...I need a five letter word that means 'form a gully'."
In the end, I understand. The crossword never tempted me before those group sessions. But once I'd had a taste of the satisfaction of fully completing a crossword, even as a team, I was hooked. As I filled in the final blanks today, I felt the self-satisfied content of the conqueror. In the back of my head, I am aware that success is often defined by the comparative height of the bar and not your ability to reach it. But completing a crossword, however simple, has within it the seeds of linguistic mastery.
Now, on to the New York Times.
I blame my sister-in-law. She's the crossword demon. She infected my mother and I. Somehow, my brother and father have a deep resistance to crosswords, but send the family off on vacation, and give my sister-in-law the paper, and voila, there we women sit, stumped, for hours, doing the crossword. The three of us have a fairly wide range of knowledge together: My mother retains much of her French and the various details of being well-traveled and well-read throughout her life, I am the theatre and literature contributor (although I fail miserably when movie actors are involved), and my sister-in-law has a lifetime of dealing with crosswords, so she knows all the sneaky crossword tricks. Together, we have enough success to break even the New York Times crossword, but on our own, it's a struggle.
My mother, after a couple of years of only being drawn into the crossword only at holiday time, recently decided she could stave off intellectual flabbiness (and presumably, alzheimer's) by doing the crossword every day. My father initially supported this endeavor by buying books of crosswords as gifts, but soon we all realized what a time-intensive labour the crossword was for my mother alone. My father now refers to himself as a crossword widow.
"It's just that they're so sneaky," my mother frets, drugstore bifocals perched on her nose. She loses glasses at an advanced speed, so we buy her boxes of them from Eckerd or CVS, and never mind the exact prescription. "The crossword will give a clue that makes you think they mean ONE thing, but they really mean something else. I just can't think sneaky like that." She also bemoans the crossword habit of having a clue match the answer - an abbreviated clue means the answer is an abbreviation, a clue in the past tense means the answer ends in 'ed', tricky things like that.
When I call my folks some evenings, my father usually signs off first and my mother has additional gossip or news. In the past few months, that's turned into: "Wait....are you still there? Good...I needed to ask you something. Let's see...I need a five letter word that means 'form a gully'."
In the end, I understand. The crossword never tempted me before those group sessions. But once I'd had a taste of the satisfaction of fully completing a crossword, even as a team, I was hooked. As I filled in the final blanks today, I felt the self-satisfied content of the conqueror. In the back of my head, I am aware that success is often defined by the comparative height of the bar and not your ability to reach it. But completing a crossword, however simple, has within it the seeds of linguistic mastery.
Now, on to the New York Times.
Thursday, January 20, 2005
*clears throat*
Well...hey, can I have a glass of water? Thanks. It's been a while since I spoke up, I'm a little rusty.
Introductions? No, I think not. If you're reading this because you already know me, it's pointless, and if you just stumbled upon it, I doubt that I can sum myself up to my own satisfaction.
And get off my back about the title being overly-dramatic. Byron: "There is that within me that shall tire/ Torture and Time, and breathe when I expire."
Maybe it's "which shall tire." Anyway, I like it. I could do worse for a slogan.
Hello, then.
Introductions? No, I think not. If you're reading this because you already know me, it's pointless, and if you just stumbled upon it, I doubt that I can sum myself up to my own satisfaction.
And get off my back about the title being overly-dramatic. Byron: "There is that within me that shall tire/ Torture and Time, and breathe when I expire."
Maybe it's "which shall tire." Anyway, I like it. I could do worse for a slogan.
Hello, then.
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