Infinite Jest

‘We are all dying to give ourselves away to something, maybe. God or Satan, politics or grammar, topology or philately–the object seemed incidental to this will to give one-self away, utterly. To games or needles, to some other person. Something pathetic about it. A flight-from in the form of a plunging-into. Flight from exactly what?’ – David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest, pg 900.

I read this sentence the other day, sitting in Hampton Park near my new domicile. I underlined carefully, penciling in the small comment ‘Perhaps the best sentence I’ve ever read.’ Maybe. Maybe not. But I think it’s pretty far up there, and I’ve read quite a few sentences in my time. (Quite a few of the most beautiful phrases I’ve ever seen, by the way, appear in Love in the Time of Cholera. It made me want to learn Spanish, if for no other reason than to read it in the original.)  It’s not just the sentence though; what gets me is the literary space in which it is found, a novel that is quite long, like a brick more than a book. Weird, offbeat, wildly plunging into perhaps the most piercing meditation on addiction and the American personality than any other text I’ve encountered. By turns shocking and humorously absurd, I’ve laughed more than once, I’ve identified, I’ve been moved. Reading, I realize that I haven’t felt like this about a book in quite a while, like the author was actually talking to me, only the clarity was greater than as if we were having a conversation, with every word more carefully chosen and placed just so to generate a particular effect. No ambiguity except what is in my own head, no tone of voice, no quizzical looks at a smirk or a an errant tear telling me ‘No, that’s not what I meant at all!’ Instead, there is the simple clarity of the created meaning. the internal evocation of emotion and feeling.

One reason I feel so attached, so appreciative of Wallace’s work, is that I see my own ideas about America, about coming of age in an age that sometimes feels more like a fictional version of what a writer of 10 years ago would create than the actual present, refracted in prose. The curse of the intellectual, as he understands it (and I agree) is that everything, from other people, to the world to the dynamic of the three friend across the table from my in this coffee shop, is somehow a puzzle, a problem to be figured. Nothing simply is, not to this certain mind. For everything there is a reason, from the first gesture made on waking to the way the shower curtain is pulled tight while cleaning up for bed. And this makes any sense of failure nearly untenable, because to someone who is always questioning, who is always analyzing, there is nothing more puzzling, but also nothing more addictive, than the self. Within Infinite Jest, I can see his mind trying to work through these problems, from that of substance abuse, to the obsessiveness of competitive athletics to the bizarre dynamics of every family. More importantly, he addresses the need to cease analyzing, to forget to question, to simply believe, or be, or exist, solely in the present. And in those moments, the pieces, the puzzle, stops being a puzzle and becomes a picture, not to be picked apart, but to be taken in. Basically, you should read this book. Like, soon.

motes in the eye

I’ve been reading a great deal of theology lately, especially process theology and panentheism. Though I don’t really understand all of the details, I find it fascinating. One of the interesting assumptions, especially in panentheism, is that what we conceive of as God is at once coterminus with the universe, but also something greater. This means that God isn’t separate, outside, and substantially different from existence; s/he/it doesn’t exist apart from humanity (or anything else) in an unchanging and unalterable way. Neither, though, is God the god of pantheism, exactly consisting of everything in the universe and not extending beyond it.

Panentheism instead holds that the universe is indeed God, but that God is something more than the universe. In other words, for a panentheist, God would certainly be found in the trees, rainfall and humanity. All of these things, though, do not limit the boundary of God; they, taken together, form a God that is greater than nature alone. The clearest analogy for me is the human body. In its most elemental, we are nothing but a collection of carbon, various minerals, etc. Different types of cells have structured themselves, over time, to form muscles, fat, hair and skin, teeth and toenails. Some of them have formed our brain. What is the brain, physically, but soft tissue? Of course, it’s so much more. It is the seat of consciousness and reason, of love and belief, of humanity. Check out these images of neurons in the brain and the way they connect:

Now keep that in mind, and consider the superstructure of the universe. When I was a bit younger, I was really into astronomy (ok, I’m still really into astronomy). The first time I saw pictures of the cosmos, of the universe, I was amazed. I’m not talking about the solar system, or even the galaxy. No, these pictures are of the Universe, capital U, everything that is actually in existence. Theoretically, this is what all of existence looks like, if you took a slice of it and zoomed really, really far out:

I found this somewhat extraordinary the first time I looked at these pictures side by side. To see that the universe, that collections of stars, galaxies and galaxy filaments mirror the structure of the brain, is astounding

In light of my growing belief in God as the universe, but so much more, this has some interesting implications. I have no idea how this set up actually functions, what role we play in constituting God and how everything relates. I don’t know whether I actually think that the structure of the universe serves as a network of neurons for the consciousness of what I call God, the consciuosness that is aware of itself, in the way that we are aware of our bodies and neurons. But what an exciting possibility, that our very bodies and consciousneses form an integral part of some vast whole, and that whole is the structure of the mind of God! So we are not, in fact, tiny bits of dust in God’s eye (and yes, I know the original quote isn’t about that), but that we are in fact the components that constitute something so much greater than ourselves. Every one is integral, even if we don’t realize it, because we all, every day, with every decision and with every thought, affect God.

This might sound a bit weird, and it assuredly is, but like I’ve said, I think about this kind of thing quite a bit. So here you have my thoughts.

“Jesus said, “I am the light that is over all things. I am all: from me all came forth, and to me all attained.

Split a piece of wood; I am there.

Lift up the stone, and you will find me there.” – The Gospel of Thomas

ps, I couldn’t get the stupid picture to be where it’s supposed to be without putting it in twice. Sorry!

New Year’s Resolutions

I read an article the other day about new year’s resolutions, and how people don’t keep them. Turns out that one of the keys to actually changing something about yourself is to put it all out in the open, to let people know the things that you want to do. That way, the public shame of failure, and of being a hypocrite in somebody else’s eyes, is a pretty powerful motivator. In keeping with that, I’m going to throw up a few things that I’d like to do in 2009. I don’t make New Year’s resolutions, in fact I think they’re a bit silly, but then I thought, hey, why not? There’s a few things I’d like to get together, a few changes of habit I’d like to get in to. So, at the risk of oversharing, here area few of my new year’s resolutions:

1. Pray/meditate more. This, for me, will probably be one of the most difficult to do, because it is not even an action to take, a thing to do, but rather finding the committment to not-do on a regular basis. I have trouble setting aside time for myself to simply be, to focus on the light of a candle or the breathe in my chest, and to become receptive; I’d often prefer to read about religion, to learn about God, rather than experience God. I have trouble being comfortable with this, with opening myself up, but I’m beginning to believe that it may not be that it isn’t there, but that I’m just not listening hard enough. I need to do this at least twice a week, to form a habit; I’d also love to do a weekend retreat at Mepkin Abbey in Monck’s Corner sometime soon, to evade distractions and center myself for the coming year.  

2. Get healthy. The perennial favorite of new year’s resoluters everywhere, the lose weight-get buff-to pick up more chicks/dudes vow that comes around every January. I don’t really feel like I need to lose weight, I’m just not as healthy as I should be. Since my freshman year of college, I exercised fairly regularly, until my senior year. Then my senior thesis and various issues completely derailed my schedule, and by the fall after graduation I realized that I was horribly out of shape. Happily, I’m already turning this around. My new roommate is a workout fiend, so we’ve been running together around the penninsula. Plus, she’s a girl, and I can’t let a girl be in better shape than me, right? 

3. Talk to my father. I don’ t really speak with my dad, no one of my family is very close to him. He, quite frankly, wasn’t around much growing up, and had a substance abuse problem with alcohol that he would (and still has not, to my knowledge) admitted. I’ve never hated him, except for a few moments of irrational pain, but I saw it as a chapter in my life that had closed. I realize more and more that it probably isn’t, and I’ve begun dealing, in some very real ways, with the impact of his absence on my attitudes and on my life. (I told you to watch out for overshare!) I think that I forgave him some time ago in my heart, but I don’t know if it’s real until I tell him that, and why I felt that I needed to do so. I missed him for so long growing up, but never realized it until now, when I don’t miss him much at all, but feel the need to set things right. He’s getting old, and I’m 23. 

4. Write more. I’ve never had trouble writing, at least when the topic at hand is some form of analysis or critique or some hopefully pithy comment on someone else’s words. Putting my own words on a page, electronic or paper, has always been more difficult. I’m usually only write when compelled by pain, or by wonder, or by the need to get the words out and force them into someone’s skull by sheer velocity of phrasing. That has it’s place, but is not conducive, to put it midly, to any sort of regular composition. Trying to puzzle out how to channel that overflowing fountain into some sort of useful flow, or how to prime the pump when it seems dry, will be diffucult but rewarding. I think. 

I think that’s about enough. I could go on, but those are some of the ones that I’m really serious about. Plenty of room left for neuroses and complexes and confusions, no doubt. 2009 is going to be a good one, full of change and possibility, I can feel it. And if it turns out not to be, just remind me of this blog post, and tell me to go write something.

laundry day.

I’ve a confession to make: I have a tortured relationship with laundromats. Now this may sound odd to those of you who have never had to use a laundromat’s services, either in childhood or that bizarre world called college. I, however, have a long history, though an intermittent one, with these venerable institutions. When I was but a wee lad, I would often accompany my harried mother to do our laundry (A washer and dryer is one of those things that perhaps people don’t appreciate unless you’ve gone without one for some time). This laundromat is vivid in my mind, behind the ‘Mother Goose’ children’s nursery on Highway 441 on the way to my grandparent’s house, next to the Pizza Hut. The building was, in its former glory as a bar, where my parents met. Somewhat surreal, but that is the cheif fact I associate with the place, the way it looked with a bar, my mother 20 years old getting hit on by my father. Although, knowing my mother, she probably was the one hitting on him. 

So this laundromat was like any other laundromat, smelling of lint and heated clothes, with the drone of a television that no one could change the channel of, soda machines and arcade games all crammed together. I remember it being disorderly and dirty. I loathed it, everything about it. There wasn’t any order, no system, lint everywhere, people’s clothes, even their underclothes, spread about for all to see. I, being strangely modest about such things, was mortified. Coupled with the interminable time it took to do an entire family’s laundry, I didn’t enjoy the place. Especially since we never had quarters for me to play Galaga or Pac Man, and even if we did, I always died by level two (especially on Pac Man).

At the same time, I remember thinking that it was stupid to have such feelings about a laundromat; after all, where else are these people supposed to do their laundry? Now, unsurprisingly, time goes a bit more quickly, since I take a book or two and my mind is taken away. But I still have to fight down these feelings of unease with people who would do laundry in public, who would need to use a laundromat. I’m uncomfortable realizing that I judge people on nothing more than their need for clean laundry, on the fact that they don’t own a washer or dryer. Perhaps it’s because of my childhood associations of having little to no money, that I don’t like being reminded that I know what it feels like to watch your mother pawn her wedding ring for money as you sit in the car, that most of your father’s friends always seem to be drinking and sloppy, just like all the people at the laundromat are messy and loud and immodest. Maybe it’s that.

It’s a bit different now, though. Going to the college laundromat down the street from my company subsidized housing, I sit and read, and watch over the pages of my book. I see people, and I wonder about their stories, this one a medical student, that one an immigrant business owner perhaps, speaking Farsi into his cellphone. Those ones sorority sisters, their Greek letters across the rear of their velvet track pants. Old men that make their way to the corner to wash their sheets, and their old white faded shirts and dickies work pants, all of us mingle together, the unwashed and the privileged, all reduced to watching the spinning clothes, on every side. But in our lives of sequestration, it is somehow reassuring to know that we all have to see each other every now and then. And when I see that little girl unsteadily making her way around the washing machines and dryers, helping her father one article of clothing at a time, I wonder what she’ll remember of the laundromat, and hope that it’s a warm glowing feeling, and perhaps that the strange, quiet man in a corner smiled at her over the top of his book and that she smiled back. Probably not, but it makes me smile to ponder it.

pride and prejudice

So I’m rereading Pride and Prejudice, and I just wanted to share with all of you that it’s one of my favority books. I find this amusing, as no doubt will some of you, considering that I spend the majority of my time reading thinly disguised tripe about space wars and colonizing other planets (Although some of it is actually pretty fantastic and not at all lame, folks tend to turn up their nose at books involving spaceships….snobs ) And I must confess that I first saw the film Pride and Prejudice, you know, the one with Kiera Knightley as Lizzy Bennett. I guess it did it’s job though, drawing me in and then getting me to read the book  behind the movie magic. When I did, I was pleasantly a bit surprised. Like several other books I’ve read since becoming older that I had expected to be stuffy and quite a bit boring, it was a page turner (Other books in this category include Edgar Huntly, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, The Coquette, and A Room with a View). I chuckled frequently, I recognized the Janes and Lizzys and Bingleys and Mr Collins in my own life. I told Liz that she was an idiot, that Wickham was a knave who deserved to be duelled and defeated by Mr Darcy, and that Mary and Mr Collins belonged together, without question, even though she’s only like 15 or some such. Both so boring. Lord. 

I was, perhaps unsurprisingly, most intruiged by Mr Darcy. When he declares his love for Elizabeth, insisting that he cannot fight his feelings any longer, I couldn’t help but empathize. Admitting love, I think , at least for Mr Darcy and perhaps myself, is a difficult thing. It feels like a weakness, even though of course it is not. It feels like an admission of need, which is exactly what it is, but that feels so alien that it can be hard to fathom. Those of us who live so much in our own head can find it difficult to admit that we need anything that we ourselves cannot supply. 

This is the height of stupidity, but it so often seems the correct action. So I think it’s important to admit that we, especially I, need things. I need God, even if I can only seen it in the random flashes of rain on the pavement or the way a large man sings opera on the streets of Charleston or the way the sunlight turns the sky the color of orange peels. I need friends and family, even though I’m not the best at being either and we sometimes antagonize each other over every single thing in the world. I need love, because even though I might become wildly successfuly and be respected the world over and rich beyond my dreams, it won’t particularly matter if there’s no one to share it with. I find it ironic that it wasn’t until my early twenties and a college education that I realized that. So bravo Mr Darcy, keep plugging away, even though you seem to haven’t the faintest idea what you’re doing most of the time. The truth will out, and when the truth is love, nothing can end too badly. 

I would hope, anyways.

grey days of charleston

Today was, indisputably, a grey day. When Charleston is overcast, it seems to be a different place. The clouds hang low, like they’re right on top of your head. One can nearly touch them. Sometimes the tops of the Cooper River bridge are lost in the mist. The cables of the bridge, though, are brightly white against the grey. I always notice it when it’s rainy. The cables pop. 

Looking out over the harbor, from the battery or waterfront park, you can tell the difference between ocean and sky. But not if you let your eyes get out of focus. If you do that, or don’t look too hard, the water blends into the sky and the distinction between the elements disappears, broken only by the color of the whitecaps. For some reason, these days have their own beauty, perhaps the beauty that comes from the severity of a scene, the bleakness of a view. Sometimes that’s when the city is the most real, when the tourists are all indoors, when there’s no sun shining down or picnicers in the park. There’s only the people who call it home, who are here when the sun doesn’t shine and the hotels are empty, when the parks are empty except for the figure or two silhouetted against the greyness of the world.

at a loss

Do you ever feel like it would be nice to be told what to do? I’ve had that feeling a lot lately, which is strange, because I am the type that chafes under most any type of restriction that I feel unfounded or unneeded. It is a part, I suppose, of growing up, the moment when, finally, you have the final say and the final responsibility for where you are and the roads you’ve taken. Which is, on the one hand, a great thing, a state of freedom that is what teenagers dream about and those locked into the dull routine of the everyday imagine as the be all end all of existence. And it’s great, really. Mostly. Kind of. It’s great in that there is that control, the self directed urgency of feeling that marks you as being the final arbiter of what you do every moment of every day. Don’t like where you live? Move. Hate your job? Quit. Need a new mp3 player? Go buy one. Want to eat Oreos for dinner? Sure. So that’s nice.

But what about when things go so far in that direction that we are not beholden to anyone? There’s obviously something reassuring about having the final say be someone else’s at least part of the time. In a sense, it’s freeing to realize that sometimes there are some things that one has to do, requirements that come from the outside rather than in, needs that are constraints rather than a casting off of chains. I’ve forgotten what that feels like–and I don’t mean things like work or school, where it’s kind of obvious that you have to toe the line and show up on time and do what you’re supposed to do. I mean the personal sense of obligation, the expectations of friend and family that we all need to guide our decisions. That’s what I miss. Not that having friends and lovers tell you what to do is the best way to exist, but that’s not what I mean. It’s more subtle than that, more complex and yet simpler. It’s like…..when you live with someone, you should clean the house. Not necessarily because you’re enthusiastic about cleaning, but because you know that you have to work together to not live like pigs. It’s wanting to work out because you know that somebody close to you, maybe in the next room, cares whether you have a strong heart and a decent looking body. It’s reading books because you know someone is going to bring them up and ask you about them, it’s wanting to go out to dinner to spend time with someone, not just to eat.

It’s the existence of something other than vacuum. I wrote here about how we are all just parts of a web, connected together by innumerable strands and strange ties. I just feel like mine keeps losing strands, and yeah, I’m weaving some new ones, but that doesn’t make it the same.

No more emo, I promise.

wild nights

I had an interesting evening yesterday. After hanging out with some people from work at Fuel, a relatively new Caribbean-themed restaurant/bar, I rode my little bicycle right on home to make some dinner. About 10 minutes after I sat down on my couch, though, I started feeling incredibly strange. Then I began trembling uncontrollably. Then I got extremely cold. Now, my house has exactly two window units, and it’s almost always warm, which doesn’t bother me, but it’s not the kind of place that gets chilly without some serious AC crankage and a cool night. So I was surprised to have sweatpants on, a blanket over me, and still be cold. Quickly realizing that I was perhaps coming down with a fever/flu/mystery disease, I decided to go to bed and sleep from 10 pm until 7 am, when I had to go to work. I turned off all of the air, put an extra blanket on, and tried to go to sleep.

I fell asleep, but did not really sleep; instead, I woke up every 45 minutes, feeling like I was dying of too much heat, having bizarre visions. Yes, visions. This happened to me once in high school, when I was laid up at home with a fever during the day. I put on Pink Floyd’s The Wall because I was bored, and proceeded to have strange altered states while my head felt like it was going to explode. So it didn’t completely take me by surprise, but it was still a supremely weird night. Most of the night, I thought I was calculus. Not that I was doing calculus, but that my body and my essence were the formulas and expressions and tangents and the like. This may have happened because I’m reading a novel set in the late 17th century and involving Isaac Newton, Leibnez, the Royal Society, and things such as alchemy. Riveting, I know. (Aside, it’s actually pretty good: Quicksilver by Neil Stephenson, Volume I of the Baroque Cycle.) So Ive been having weird thoughts about science, mathematics, and 1675 London. And all night I was calculus. Bizarre. But interesting.

It’s things like that that make me think it would be interesting to try crazy drugs, or camp out in a sensory deprivation chamber for a few hours. Most of the time I’m so literal, not given to daydreaming, at least when I’m focused on a task. So when my mind goes a little crazy, in my dreams or fever delusions, they really interest me as an altered state, as a way escape the humdrum literalism of my everyday thoughts. LSD anyone?

Elvis Rocks. Don’t Hate.

ok

moving time

A little backstory: I grew up in several different homes; my first was a single-wide trailer that had been added to with a ramshackle two bedroom/living room addition, thus creating a hybridized living situation whose full strangeness I did not appreciate for years. The second was a much classier double-wide trailer where I had a big bedroom, as well as a family den and fireplace (movin’ on up, as they say). After my parents’ divorce, there was a crowded house where I shared a room with my brother, then a small house on a major highway (literally, our driveway led to the highway) where I had a tiny, tiny room. Then another double-wide, which, if you know me, is the one that burned down while I was a junior at the College of Charleston. Then came our current, much classier double-wide. Personally, I’ve lived in Buist, a freshman dorm where I had two roommates and a hall bath; then came Rutledge for two years, where I lived with one other guy, in what amounted to an on campus apartment with an actual kitchen!! For the last two years, I’ve lived West of the Ashley in a nice two bedroom two-story townhouse. I didn’t realize it until I was moving during the last week, but I had become rather attached to that cheap townhouse.

Packing up all my books, all of my odds and ends, computer parts and shoes and shelves, I became quite sad; it wasn’t just that I was leaving, it was something more, something that I can’t put my finger on. Partly, I honestly think, it was packing up my books. I have many. Many many. And I’m constitutionally unable to throw them away. Boxes and boxes of books, taken to storage or to my new apartment. Partly I think it was the impending drastic change in behavior; for the last two years, I have ridden the bus every day, twice a day, for two hours, almost every day except Sunday. While it will be very nice to not have to get up that extra hour early, it feels strange already.

Mostly though, i think it was the memories, and not even the memories that are necessarily tied to the place itself. It’s instead a feeling of passing, of moving on to something else, of growing up and yet going nowhere, of becoming established in another place without setting down any roots. In fact, I seem to be losing my connections everywhere, some a long time ago and some today and yesterday. Some are going to be pruned tomorrow, I already know. And all of that is folded into the feeling that I want to settle down, I want to know what I’m doing and where I’m going, and with whom. But many of the whos are missing in action, the wheres are uncertain, and the whats are swirling around in a maelstrom inside my head and heart. So everything is changing, yet nothing feels different, in this in between moment I’m trying to find out who I am while the people and things that made me who I was yesterday seem to be drifting away. It’s exhilarating. It’s incredibly frightening. Navigating between those two extremes is becoming tiring. Also, moving forced me to realize that I have entirely too many things. Not in a complaining sort of way, but in a larger spiritual sort of way. As in I’m too attached to all of my things, and I think that they give me security, the books and little things I know so well. I knew that was an illusion, but now I know that it’s foolish–which are two different things.

Things to Do:

1. Liberate myself from earthly possessions. After all, nobody who seems like they know what they’re talking about says “Go forth and accumulate things, and thou shalt be happy!” Rather the opposite; think of the man who questioned Christ about how to get into heaven and the eye of the needle. Buddhism asserts that man’s (gender inclusive, of course) attachment to possessions ties us to dis-ease, to samsara and the eternal cycle of rebirth. Islam demands a religious tax on material wealth. You see the problem.

2. Work on 1.