A much needed post.

"All thought is immoral. Its very essence is destruction. If you think of anything, you kill it. Nothing survives being thought of."

-a woman of no importance by wilde

"The body loses self-awareness precisely at those moments when it could be most revealing; consequently, memory cannot retain what the body had not been aware of, allowing crucial gestures to slip away, though it also endows them with a very special air, as the memory of a fainting spell can perserve only the curious sensations of losing and then regaining consciousness while the fainting itself, most intriguing to us, for it's a state like not other, remains inaccessible, unknowable."

--a book of memories by nadas


okay so these two quotes stick out for me today. Truthfully they stuck out for me the first time I read them, and now they are just as appropriately stuck on the inside of my forehead, where all thoughts that peek our interest and yet allude our understanding like to tap. The first quote pokes at the nature of thoughts as futile and ugly attempts to understand beauty. I suppose that right now, where I'm at I'd have to agree. I've hit the wall and it's time to admit to socrates that I don't know anything and probably know less than I ever did, and am doomed to contradict myself for the rest of my pretentious life. oh and this blog will probably touch on those quotes only superficially, because as much as I like them, as I said, I don't understand them.

In my memory class, (which has apparently become my major's focus although I am skipping this class as I type...) there are several students who represent this sort of struggle in such ways that sometimes I feel like I'm in a movie. Chris, is the trendiest person I've ever known, in that incredibly hip bohem sort of way. He is the collegiate artist, no he's too stifled to create art, but lets say he is the type to sit around in frayed jeans and cringe into the wind as he apologizes for his ineptitude at conveying his own thoughts accurately, all the while upsetting himself by trying to say anything. He is the type of person who has hit this very same wall perhaps a year or two ago, and instead of reconciling himself to the fact that nothing he says, no words that he may choose will fully and totally convey with the tone, and connotation he desires the ideas he beats himself up for deciding to have. If I'm not coming across very clearly this is because this is how Chris speaks. Every thought is followed by an apology, while cringing at his gracelessness. Every thought, even the most interesting, is cut short making me as frustrated as he appears to be.

I hope that paragraph has also frustrated you.

Then there are people who lack all ability to hear themselves, they are the exact opposite of metacognitive chris. They seem to sweat their speech from their bodies, there is hardly a thought that is not over-generalized to the point of blatantly offensive and meat-headed. This kid will never hit this wall. He knows he knows it all. For example, when discussing the ability of SS soldiers to participate in such a great evil as the death camps, one response was "lots of people die everyday." These people also irritate me.

On such a beautiful day, one should not be so irritated.

In both of these instances, these fellows struggle with the destructive force of thought, one by physically experiencing such futility, the other by avoiding thought all together and reacting to everything with trite pre-packaged sound bites and offensive over-generalizations.

The second quote thrills me too. Nadas reveals the power of the body to preserve specific experiences (chris cringes) and sensations (he howls aloud) so that they are absent within memory, and protected from the destructive power of thought. Do you think that's a stretch? It might be. heh. Anyway, I would be interested in any thoughts (however not from chris or that other guy i dont remember his name he's that kool) that anyone might have.

-gen