Word Stack or A Pile of Thoughts

The term "limnal time" is a bit misleading, because it actually is supposed to refer to time outside of time, which isn’t time at all.  Accordingly, it is in the dimension of timelessness that all that is divine exists; in the teachings of Eckenkar, it’s the astral plane; in Buddhism and Hinduism, it’s a realm of inner peace and enlightenment; for Christianity, it is peace of Christ which "transcends all understanding".  Believers are, from time to time, called to journey to this outer existence and return with new ideas, and a renewed sense of self.

It brings to mind Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces.  The archetype hero, according to Campbell, is a social deviant, who takes on a journey away from the home, the familiar, and the comfortable, to resolve a conflict; often this conflict is seen as an articulation of a contradiction faced in the human experience.  Every hero has some sort of journey: Luke Skywalker, Frodo Baggins, Achilles, Lam-Ang, Sir Gawain, Kenshin Himura.

But why do I refer to these two similar, yet opposing concepts?  Both are journeys, and yet one is of peace while the other is of conflict.  I’m looking at my life, right now, on the day after my graduation from university, as the confluence of both.  On one hand, it feels like there are so many possibilities, that I can finally be satisfied and study what I would like to study, read the books I want to read, write the papers I want to write, go to the places I want to go.  I feel like the obligation of education has been fulfilled, and now the real learning can start. 

On the other hand, there is a sense of dread of what comes next, the sharper turns and deeper ravines ahead.  I would be lying if I said I wasn’t afraid of what comes next; as the All-American Rejects sing, "The future freaks me out."  In my imagination, there are adventures and quests, people and places.  But even as I want to see these things come through, hope is tempered by the sense that in my experience, imagination is a dangerous thing.  Icarus fell into the ocean. 

More than hope, the fundamental fear is the one that comes with the realization of self.  The more pronounced the Self becomes, the clearer the absence of the Other.  Doesn’t it suck to be human sometimes?  The more aware it is of its identity and place, the more alone it feels.  My track record for having a partner to dance with isn’t very good. 

So, even though empty pages are filled with possibilities, it’s a double-edged experience.

I have achieved what I set out to do four years ago, when I left my job and my life in Fredericksburg.  Back then, I was blogging about adventures in the forests in Virginia, exploring the Boracay nightlife, hanging out around old Confederate graveyards, teaching people how to build bamboo rafts. 

Obviously, a person can’t go through four years of experience and emerge unchanged.  But…

"It’s not the years, honey; it’s the mileage."

So correct.  Time wasn’t the factor here; it was the places and people that changed things.  It was that hotel room in UP Diliman; it was a bus ride to Sablan; a conversation about post-structuralism; a purple patch and a goat; an Indian named Sallah who hated Singapore; a roller-coaster and a kiss;a Vietnamese girl sitting on the top of a building; eavesdropping on a museum tour in Hong Kong; it was every seven minute high.  It was all the crazy little things that somehow add-up to become the me that is me. 

But all this, all these things, wouldn’t have been what they are if there was one person who didn’t get the ball rolling, who– although it didn’t seem that way at the beginning– became the cause for my coming here and finding all this.  The last email she sent me before I left for the Philippines four years ago:

Well, thanks Kelli.

To sail up (which, in Egypt, means south) the Nile to the ancient ruins of Thebes, and strike out on foot to the Valley of the Kings.

To learn about the comparison between Angkor Wat and Borobudur, and maybe figure something out about Srivijayan/Sri-Visayan culture.

Do a project involving a collection of stories from Native American tribes.

To write a paper about the information landscape of medieval European culture, and how this was expressed in terms of 12th religion, politics, art, and economics.

To experience the meaning of geography being a locus of time and place– a moment of history somewhere in the world.

To live the lesson of language being the key to understanding a culture.

To drive an Italian sport’s car from Milan to Naples.

To drink vodka in a bar near the Red Square.

To hike up to a Shinto shrine in Hokkaido.

Bury an acorn beneath an oak tree in Ireland on a full-moon (with luck, an oak tree near a river bend)

These and about a million other things.  On the next page of a story, ANYTHING can happen.  Some of things I’ve wanted to do were things I’ve been thinking about for quite some time; others, I’ve picked up along the way.  Whatever the case, it’s dreams like this that keep me grinding away.  Hopefully, life won’t be too short.

In the summer we used to wrap detonation cords
Around a tree
Yellow bands twisting around the trunk
We’d use nails, bite them deep
right into the wood to keep the explosives in place
We also liked the thought
of nails mixed with splinters and sap

It would be a bright day, with sunlight and birds
the works
and a tree wrapped
root to crown
In high explosive PETN
Eight thousand and four hundred meters per second of gas rate expansion

It was the crack of lightning on a clear day
We’d grab each other in a violent kiss
And a tree would turn into a million splinters

I like to remember
the things we did.

It isn’t so much about dreaming as it is having the courage
to dream of anything at all

Heroes are accidents; kryptonite is whatever we let become our weakness. 

(CUE RANT:)
I can sit here, enjoying a quiet night with my iTunes playing, and just writing about nothing.  There’s a nice pile of books next to my hand, capped by Amartya Sen’s Development as Freedom, and a pack of Dentyne Ice chewing gum on one of the open pages… evidence of a day spent mainly just writing final papers.  This is my last week in university.  That’s the fourth time I’ve said that to myself since Monday started.  Its quiet, and I wish every night could be like this, without little things out there or in there getting to me.  It’s not a feeling of boredom, just gladness for nothing to do.  I have more to write tomorrow, but I’m not stressing about it; writing is something I enjoy anyway, and I have something that I want to say, which is a better reason to write than the threat of a deadline.  Just watched the new Indiana Jones trailer for the umptieth time, and nothing feels better than the lines "You’re a teacher?" "Part-time." 

I was awake the other night, after the senior ball, while the rain was coming down and the power went out when the lightning hit a tree near Silliman farm, thinking about if the answer to the questions of cosmological scale where to be found in explanations of quantum phenomenon.  Probably.  String theory isn’t exactly scientific yet. 

Religion evolves artificially, modified and adapted according to the needs and preferences of people.  Even rise in youth-driven evangelical ministry, for example, is a reworking of the social relevance/activist doctrine of the 1970s and 80s.  Its not too far off from the comparison made by Daniel Dennet, where the modern domestic cow was artificially selected into a specific animal quite different from its origins as a wild herd creature, the Aurex.  But which changes first? Society or religion?  In what cases did one happen before the other?  At what points did religion drive social change?  And at what points did social changes cause changes in religion?  How are religious beliefs manifested in cultural artifacts, such as architecture, literature, laws, urban spatial organization etc.?  How much of religion is actually a response to geophysical realities of a society?

When you’re dreaming with a broken heart
Waking up is the hardest part
You roll out of bed
and on to your knees

Hrm, yep, John Mayer seems to know what he’s talking about.  By the way, what makes a rose interesting isn’t the beauty of the petals, but the thorns on the stem.

Okay, time to go back to writing serious stuff…