inspiration overflow

what a day two posts! lots of inspiration? or lots of work? a little bit of both. anyway i saw this quote from the tao te ching and couldnt help but think.......

"And because he is not competing, no one in the world can compete with him."

I think this is a good line to reflect on amidst the chaos we live in. Often we all succumb to the pressure to compete. Buying a new car that's nicer then a friend. Having a better job. A better degree. A better paper. A nicer wardrobe. But in the the end all of this ends up creating more stress then it is worth. If we enter into the circle of competition we become burdened by it. We realize that although we may out compete some one in some area, we are also being out competeted by some one else in the very same area. This creates an endless loop where are best is not good enough, our things are not nice enough, we are not smart enough, wealthy enough....you name it.

But if we can some how step outside the competition and not compete then whatever we do is enough because we are not competing with anyone nor is anyone competing with us. What might this lead to? I think it could lead to that c word that is rarely mentioned. The c word that I am just as guilty at times of equating with death...Contentment. When was the last time you thought I am content. Often it is I am well, but could be better. The paper is good, but I could do a lot more to it. The car is nice but its not a.... The house its nice but will be nicer when...

I am guilty of this trap far too often. I rarely reflect that you know what things are good and I am content with where they are. How has something so natural become so foreign. Think about it. When was the last time you met some one who said they were content. A life lived nowadays seems to be one that must involve change, competing and constantly seeking better. But where does the line get drawn? When does enough become just that? When does time spent day dreaming in the sun become time lived rather than time wasted? Being content even if for a few brief moments, thats my goal for the week. Not complacent. Content. The distinction is hard and one I struggle with, but content is what I seek.

What would valentine's day be without family....

"The worst day of life life my life what do you think?"- Napoleon Dynamite

So the random quote comes from a valentines day card I got from my sister. It is one of those talking cards and it made me laugh so hard that I sat at my desk for a good ten minutes opening and closing it just laughing.

Now (you/y'all/no one) depending on who reads this blog might be thinking WTF bill, what has a silly valentines day have to do with all the insanely overly thought slightly depressing blog posts of the past?

Well thanks to a tip from a friendly Canadian blog reader I was persuaded to think that my blog should be a collage of me if you will. Rather then posting only when my life seems out of sorts and I am caught in some philosophical mess, I should also post when life feels good, when the sun is shining, I come to school happy and all I want to do is run around screaming life is good!

Today is one of those days, and looking at the card from my sister on my desk made me think about that. I am ridiculously blessed. There is a lot of things that dont make sense to me. There are many days I wonder WTF is my purpose here, it has to be more then this. But you know what, when I think back to moments I have had with my family and my friends EVERYTHING makes sense. I have amazing parents, awesome siblings, loving/funny/caring/ grandparents, an amazing god mother who is like a mom and best friend all in one to me, fantastic aunts, cool uncles....I dont want to brag but I am blessed. My friends I wouldn' t trade for the world, they keep me grounded, keep me afloat and each have qualities in them that I wish I had in myself. Most of all though they are loyal, and real.

So yeah. I am sure this is far from the end of my philosophical where do I fit musings, but this is also the beginning of recognizing that amidst the turmoil, sadness and confusion my life is filled with amazing people, and spectacular moments where I feel so incredibly lucky to be alive! Today is one of those days....

"Life is divine chaos. Embrace it. Forgive yourself. Breathe. And enjoy the ride..."

that place where weakness and genius coincide

reading Benjamins reading of Proust, forced to think about that place "at which genius and weakness coincide" or like Proust, Benjamin's inability to change his life's conditions "even when they were about to crush him". For some reason Benjamin felt the need to bless this curse. At moments I think this is each and everyone one of us, and I know often it is me. With school I know (think) this is not living. Up late reading, thinking, sorting, finding relations, thinking through existence, subjectivity, ethics, the shifting terrain of life. But all of these moments spent thinking, not living what of those? Forced to watch these moments go by, knowing they will not return but wholly incapable of escaping. What if our biggest strength is indeed our weakness ? What if that which gives us life is simultaneously removing it? What if the very thing that makes us who we are also is our downfall? Thinking of Chris McCandless in Into the Wild, his very essence, the thing that drove him to have all of these amazing/crazy/life affirming experiences. His ability to dream to set off for Alaska to satisfy that primordial urge to wander and find meaning is also the very thing that killed him. Alone in the wilderness of Alaska, driven by passion and curiosity (that genius) he was killed by that very unbridled curiosity that allowed him to take risks others would never have. His very being in the end betrayed him and was the end of him.

Good stuff

Check out the pictures from my friend Jeremy who I met in Zanzibar his photography is amazing....if you go to the archives page you can buy some great pictures too:

http://www.fedoraphoto.com/

http://www.digitalrailroad.net/shockley/Default.aspx

http://fedoraphoto.blogspot.com/

deleuze, delusion, its 1030 and I feel a flu coming on

you know that ache, the one that signals the beginings of getting sick...its that latent pain that is not yet but warns you of what will/ might be...well I feel it so its off to bed...

but briefly after reading some Deleuze I was intent on thinking about possibility, about that dynamic activity called life that Delueze says is lived in the in-between moments, those moments that offer nothing but the possibility to become, so we are always in the process of becoming, there is no stasis, no begining, no end point, but always eternal possiblity as Deleuze notes:
"life takes place in the middle:this indefinite life does not have moments, however close they might be, but only meantimes, between-moments"

what is interesting than for Delueze is neither the begining nor the end but the middle, that place where we always are and are always moving from. life in this sense is just between moments of possibility, with potential in each one. so those moments that feel like between? well they are moments of potential offering nothing more than the opportunity to become. i guess than our hope for stasis is irrational at best...hopefully there is potential then in this moment that I will not get sick. potential for happiness in the depths of sadness. potential for understanding when none of it makes sense. potential for clarity amidst the confusion. we are pure potential.

gonge xab dideh

I just read about this persian idiom today and found it pretty interesting...the idiom is meant to represent the state of awakening after a dream in which one is still bewildered but begining to decipher the images. This mental state I think can be applied to both dream and non dream like states. Those moments where we begin to awake from something, and bewildered try to "make sense: or piece things together. After trauma, tradgedy etc we there comes a moment where we realize we are emerging, but from what and to what it is not clear. Slowly in the re-emergence we begin to decipher, to understand or at least in some sense gain perspectice. The trouble it seems is that there is no real single oint of emergence from trauma, as a gradual process it would appear then that we are deicphering images but still fuzzy, still entangled in the very trauma we are trying to understand. Is there an idiom for perpetual bewilderment, constant sense making amidst inconsistencies...