When the demons come out

I remember some guy said that he writes surely as everyone else, to keep the demons at bay. Interesting idea I will admit, but a bit sinister, a bit depressing, and a bit limiting to my tastes. Our reasons for writing are many, but personally I do flee to writing and nature for solace when I get sad or depressed. Writing and the stars at night especially.

I had plans to write about the nature of the decision. About how a decision is limiting, that we exist in the realm of infinite possibility, the realm of thought prior to a decision. Everything we can ever imagine can exist. However, it is in the act of making the decision, of limiting oneself and dedication to a choice that something can actually occur. The problem with the infinity of man is that in the infinity of his own possibility he is infinite. We all are infinite, so what then does that mean. If you always keep holding a mirror in front of a mirror you can see till infinity (if it can be reached, which it cannot, for our sake) . It is all about making the decision. Perhaps this is what Keats was talking about in "Ode to a Grecian Urn." The poet seems to be lost in his own ruminations about the urn and what it says. He looks at the figures running and "living" mutely on the surface of the urn, yet he can't figure out what it is saying. Then, the urn, it seems, begins to ask him to leave thought behind, to jump into writing. To "tease out of thought" and thus write the poem. The urn can't speak and tell its meaning, neither can the poet, but he can act. Then through this act he can seek that meaning and through telling the story he can tell a bit of his own. Then through the writing and reading of the poem more possibility can be explored.

The decision gives power. It is the condition for us to move forward.

Now where does this leave me. Oddly enough I am listening to Imogen Heap's "Hide and Seek." Biography is always a bit easy. But often it isn't. I am a bit apt to get sad. It just happens. The problem with philosophy is that it burns you out. Every now and then you just have to ask the question, why does it even matter. I can talk about the notion of the object petit a and castration anxiety, I can talk about differance and the supplement and always already, the phenomenological of the wine glass, even about fate and free will, the categorical imperative, utilitarian calculus, the realm of ideas, the cave, the pharmakon, poesis vs mimesis, the discipline, the aesthetic, etc etc etc. But then you have to ask your self the question, WTF?

Me writing this post, drinking a glass of water--a rational agent has to assume that he has free will even though causality would seem to point that free will cannot exist. Does it matter. Not too much. Even political philosophy. Does man have innate rights or are they rights as citizen and thus he has no rights as man if he is not a citizen. Important yes, but when you get down to the brass tacks, you don't have to know. We never know. We know we don't know.

I never decide on anything. That is my problem. The problem with being good at nearly everything is that you never get burned. You never fail bad, fall on yourself. I was the guy who sat in the back, didn't study, managed to do well. I go through phases where I will hyper learn things just because. From quantum physics, to forgeign languages, to the piano, to the middle east, to history, from engineering to literature to philosophy...the problem here is that I never choose anything, maybe only the philosophy of life. I never wanted to make a decision. I still don't!

Odd. Probably not. I can never stand the thought of doing something that I detest. For me it is the easy way out. If you never decide on the big choices you can never be wrong. Gasp. Herein lies my fascination with the movie "Good Will Hunting." Smart guy, but he cuts everything off early for fear of failing and thus never did anything. He leaves behind love, jobs, his intellect. Now he turns it around and "goes to see about a girl" but the point is still the same. However as an aside, my favourite scene in that movie is when Will and his southie boys go into a Harvard bar and as the Ben Affleck character flirts with a Harvard girl the snooty Harvard grad student. He starts to drill Ben's character in an attempt to show how ignorant Ben's character is. Good Will pops up and starts ti peg the guy...1st year grad student reading a marxist historian, the flavour of the year, then he would move to Lemon then Wood, etc. The grad student retorts by starting to quote a critque (unattributed of course) about Lemon which Will finishes and then asks the grad student if that's how he gets girls, by memorizing obscure texts and then repeating them to girls. Then the whole 150 grand for an education he could have recieved i n $1.50 in late fees at the library is priceless (and true?).

I digress.

Time to make decisions? Yes. Always time. Time, time,time.

On a lighter note, when I was picking up my computer, I peeked over the desk to look at what the technicians were doing. It turns out they were watching YouTube tutorials about how to repair laptops. I mean, I guess that is good...staying up to date.