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Meta
Tag Archives: Psyche
On David Foster Wallace’s Birthday
[CC licensed image by darkpatator] Eighteen months ago– a day after his suicide– I packed up every David Foster Wallace authored book, every journal, magazine, and photocopied piece of ephemera he appeared in, and everything else I could find with … Continue reading
Posted in Art & Life & Politics
Tagged david foster wallace, Psyche, writers, Writing
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“What is to give light…” (Victor Frankl)
“What is to give light must endure burning.” –Victor Frankl
OUCH
I know this comment was a compliment… yet it illustrates the fundamental divide in the person I once was (and want to be again) and the person I’ve become, despite my efforts. No poetry.
Posted in Art & Life & Politics, motleyread
Tagged motleyread, poetry, Psyche, reading, Writing
3 Comments
2010 Theme: I Like What I Like
aka I am what I am aka taking the guilt out of guilty pleasures My second theme for 2010 is to double or treble my efforts to reinforce my defense against the pressure to conform aesthetically to please others. Some … Continue reading
2010 New Year Theme: Generosity
The Buddha said: “Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared. It’s a cruel irony that by not giving of ourselves we … Continue reading
Themes for the New Year: 2010
I’ll be indulging myself over the next few weeks with ruminations on my themes for the new year (I hope you’ve noted the overall optimism I’m implying by adding the year in this post’s title). I’m not one who stands … Continue reading
Getting From Here to There
[photo by Stuck in Customs] I’m consciously convinced that aesthetic appreciation is ultimately a subjective experience—a happening, even a communion, but in the end comprising a wholly individual appraisal. People come together to beauty in part due to the skill … Continue reading
Could I Care Less?
[photo by zebra.paperclip] With depression comes malaise, apathy and torpor. I know the phenomenon well. Over the years I’ve developed somewhat productive ways of dealing with the high-wire unicycling of my psyche. But I can’t help thinking there’s something else … Continue reading
Pretending
Does anyone else ever wonder how long they can keep pretending? I do.
Death in a Small Town
[image by naccarato] It was pretty disconcerting to stumble upon, while reading The Guardian, a news story on the suicide–right here in tiny town–of a former faculty member at the small University I work for. And it was even more … Continue reading
Posted in Art & Life & Politics
Tagged david foster wallace, life, nicholas hughes, Psyche, suicide
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on Fear of Ourselves (Marilynne Robinson)
People are frightened of themselves. It’s like Freud saying that the best thing is to have no sensation at all, as if we’re supposed to live painlessly and unconsciously in the world. I have a much different view. The ancients … Continue reading
“Betrothed” (Jack Gilbert)
“Betrothed” You hear yourself walking on the snow. You hear the absence of the birds. A stillness so complete, you hear the whispering inside of you. Alone morning after morning, and even more at night. The say we are born … Continue reading
On the Shore of the Wide World
I love Keats, and while it isn’t my favorite poem of his, today I can’t help but recall these words from his sonnet “When I Have Fears that I May Cease to Be” (text and audio): …on the shore of … Continue reading
from “Statement for the Paterson Society” (Frank O’Hara)
…it’s a pretty depressing day, you must admit, when you feel you relate more importantly to poetry than to life. –Frank O’Harafrom “Statement for the Paterson Society”
The Ironist
[image by S. Casey] David Foster Wallace’s passing has spurred a lot of conversations that in one way or another invoke the idea of irony and his work’s relationship to it. Some of the arguments to be found in and … Continue reading
Posted in General
Tagged david foster wallace, dfw, irony, Psyche, reading, richard rorty
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Another and Another and Another
Last night I found out about another local teen suicide victim… another friend of my children… another child I knew. That’s two in as many days, three in as many weeks. And that on top of a string of senseless … Continue reading
Resuming the Memory Feed
[photo by Greg Gladman] As part of an effort at soul-salving, I am resuming my poetry memorizing routine. I’m just going to start with a new list, including some that I already know though I haven’t sat and recited them … Continue reading
A New Year
The calendar is about to tick over. I spend this New Year’s Eve like the last– and the one before that– alone with my thoughts, some music, and a drink (flowering oolong tea). At the best of times I’m not … Continue reading
Lightening Up
And not just my skin, though we are down to just over 4 hours of daylight and not a lot of that is quality time with The Great God Sol. After a few weeks of rumination, scheduling and unscheduling, re-prioritizing, … Continue reading