(no subject)
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness starving hysterical naked Dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix/ Angleheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machienery of night/ Who, poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of coldwater flats, floating above the tops of cities, contemplating jazz/ Who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated/ Who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy among the scholars of war/ Who were expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull/ Who cowered in unshaven apartments in underwear, burning their money in wastebaskets and listening for the Terror through the wall/ Who got busted in their pubic beards returning from Laredo with a belt of marijuana for New York/ Who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in Paradise Alley, death, or purgatoried their torsos night after night, with dreams, with drugs, with endless waking nightmares, alcohol and cock and endless balls/ Incomparable blind streets of shuddering cloud and lightning in the mind leaping towards poles of Canada & Paterson, illuminating all the motionless world of Time between/ Peyote solidities of halls, backyard green tree cemetary dawns, wine drunkenness across the rooftops, storefront boroughs of teahead joyride neon blinking traffic light, sun and moon and tree vibrations in the roaring winter dusks of Brooklyn, ashcan rantings and kind king light of mind/ Who chained themselves to subways from Brooklyn to holy Bronx . . .
That's all I've got so far; it's pretty solid until the subway line, which is incomplete and unsure.
Howl, by Alan Ginsberg, and I'm memorizing it because I want to and because it's alive. In case you were wondering.
This is different. Usually I get the inspiration on the walk and then write afterwards, if I write at all.
I suggested 2:00, Alisa wrote back agreeing. I got here at 2:10; she, having caught on to my normal behavioral pattern showed up around 2:30, which wasn't a bad guess. (As it was I haven't done the bathroom cleaning yet, but I can do that when I get back. Or, like, Monday or something. Anyway, I'll do it, and I did do the dishes already. I would have been on time if I hadn't decided I needed lunch.) She suggested getting some work done first . . . I hadn't brought any schoolwork but I'd promised myself I'd check out something by Chomsky and since I'd been on my way to do that anyway I assured her I'd find something to do.
Fuck informal arrangements. I should start bringing work EVERY time I come to campus. I just didn't want to haul my backpack around, not to mention removing all the books currently in it.
This morning I almost had one of those days. I didn't want to move. As a way to get out of it (I hoped) I did a 15 min meditation, or at least attempted to. I couldn't focus at all, not even superficial on-off concentration, until the last five minutes. I think it probably helped. Anyway, I put on some Crosby Stills Nash and Young for a hippy-type sense of new beginnings and dawning human consciousness and made breakfast. And took a bath. And, well, not much besides that, but I did get out of the house and I almost did something useful, but then everyone got home and I didn't want to be in the way and I would have had to tell Alisa I was postponing for a bit, although aparently she wouldn't have minded.
Yeeks I'm griping badly. Because this wasn't going to be a griping, this is going on journal entry. Because, dammit, I found Chomsky, and most of the books in the pocket I found were the linguistics ones but there were a couple on politics and one I picked up that had a chapter on the CONNECTION (surmised) between Chomsky's linguistic studied and his politics. So I read a few sentences, then browsed back to the linguistics and started reading (there was a diagram) and was undaunted by the fact that I didn't understand any of the technical terms, and it felt right, the challenge point where I don't understand something but want to. And I realised, this is my freedom. This is what I want to do.
There's the freedom, which is how you spend your time, and there's the cost, which is what you have to do in order to get a roof over your head and food in your stomach and whatever else you might need (art supplies, lift tickets, whatever) to do what you want to do. That's why I went back to college. It was something that'd get me my parents'/society's approval (which I apparently, unfortunately, do in fact need to function well) and material support, and something I could tell people I'm doing which I guess is the social approval part, and that would leave me time to do what I really want to do around the sides. I haven't been doing so well on the doing what I want to do part.
Interesting. I'm coming up with critisism saying the freedom part isn't going well with the implication that the cost is going fine (I did get perfectly acceptable grades last semester, and deserved them in at least three of the classes) yet just a few minutes ago I was thinking I'm slacking on the cost, but my freedom-side is getting better. Different time frame (on the latter I meant the last week or so, and the last couple days) but still, strange. I have odd expectations.
The other day I was looking through the library, and I had a feeling, it wasn't in words but if it was the words would be something like this: there's so many of them, too many to read all of them even on one subject, so why bother reading any at all? Of course that's not rational when put in words (I have noticed most mental/emotional realities have blatant contradictions when put in words) but being aware of the irrationality doesn't change the emotional state at all, so there must be something else going on.
Today I just read. I think the intention makes the difference.
I have a plan. Last weekend was bad: highly unenjoyable and unproductive, what today could have been and still could be because I do not believe how foggy my brain is right now. Maybe getting up at a consistant time would help, I don't know. So, I have a gradual plan to get both productive (perform well on cost) and rocking (perform well on freedom) and it is this. This week I'm getting up on freedom. Next week, productivity. If all goes well, the week after I'll be able to do both. I'd better -- I'm overdue on last week's calc and I haven't actually finished a whole set of physics problems yet, although I am still floating, and picking up some understanding. Emily's class does not bear mentioning. I want to do physics now, actually. I have good memories from getting in the Zone on Friday.
Actually, this week's goal is meditation daily, in hopes that it'll help break the trapped feeling. Close enough. Next week's still schoolwork.
I'm waiting for a personal email that has yet to come. Oh well.
That's all I've got so far; it's pretty solid until the subway line, which is incomplete and unsure.
Howl, by Alan Ginsberg, and I'm memorizing it because I want to and because it's alive. In case you were wondering.
This is different. Usually I get the inspiration on the walk and then write afterwards, if I write at all.
I suggested 2:00, Alisa wrote back agreeing. I got here at 2:10; she, having caught on to my normal behavioral pattern showed up around 2:30, which wasn't a bad guess. (As it was I haven't done the bathroom cleaning yet, but I can do that when I get back. Or, like, Monday or something. Anyway, I'll do it, and I did do the dishes already. I would have been on time if I hadn't decided I needed lunch.) She suggested getting some work done first . . . I hadn't brought any schoolwork but I'd promised myself I'd check out something by Chomsky and since I'd been on my way to do that anyway I assured her I'd find something to do.
Fuck informal arrangements. I should start bringing work EVERY time I come to campus. I just didn't want to haul my backpack around, not to mention removing all the books currently in it.
This morning I almost had one of those days. I didn't want to move. As a way to get out of it (I hoped) I did a 15 min meditation, or at least attempted to. I couldn't focus at all, not even superficial on-off concentration, until the last five minutes. I think it probably helped. Anyway, I put on some Crosby Stills Nash and Young for a hippy-type sense of new beginnings and dawning human consciousness and made breakfast. And took a bath. And, well, not much besides that, but I did get out of the house and I almost did something useful, but then everyone got home and I didn't want to be in the way and I would have had to tell Alisa I was postponing for a bit, although aparently she wouldn't have minded.
Yeeks I'm griping badly. Because this wasn't going to be a griping, this is going on journal entry. Because, dammit, I found Chomsky, and most of the books in the pocket I found were the linguistics ones but there were a couple on politics and one I picked up that had a chapter on the CONNECTION (surmised) between Chomsky's linguistic studied and his politics. So I read a few sentences, then browsed back to the linguistics and started reading (there was a diagram) and was undaunted by the fact that I didn't understand any of the technical terms, and it felt right, the challenge point where I don't understand something but want to. And I realised, this is my freedom. This is what I want to do.
There's the freedom, which is how you spend your time, and there's the cost, which is what you have to do in order to get a roof over your head and food in your stomach and whatever else you might need (art supplies, lift tickets, whatever) to do what you want to do. That's why I went back to college. It was something that'd get me my parents'/society's approval (which I apparently, unfortunately, do in fact need to function well) and material support, and something I could tell people I'm doing which I guess is the social approval part, and that would leave me time to do what I really want to do around the sides. I haven't been doing so well on the doing what I want to do part.
Interesting. I'm coming up with critisism saying the freedom part isn't going well with the implication that the cost is going fine (I did get perfectly acceptable grades last semester, and deserved them in at least three of the classes) yet just a few minutes ago I was thinking I'm slacking on the cost, but my freedom-side is getting better. Different time frame (on the latter I meant the last week or so, and the last couple days) but still, strange. I have odd expectations.
The other day I was looking through the library, and I had a feeling, it wasn't in words but if it was the words would be something like this: there's so many of them, too many to read all of them even on one subject, so why bother reading any at all? Of course that's not rational when put in words (I have noticed most mental/emotional realities have blatant contradictions when put in words) but being aware of the irrationality doesn't change the emotional state at all, so there must be something else going on.
Today I just read. I think the intention makes the difference.
I have a plan. Last weekend was bad: highly unenjoyable and unproductive, what today could have been and still could be because I do not believe how foggy my brain is right now. Maybe getting up at a consistant time would help, I don't know. So, I have a gradual plan to get both productive (perform well on cost) and rocking (perform well on freedom) and it is this. This week I'm getting up on freedom. Next week, productivity. If all goes well, the week after I'll be able to do both. I'd better -- I'm overdue on last week's calc and I haven't actually finished a whole set of physics problems yet, although I am still floating, and picking up some understanding. Emily's class does not bear mentioning. I want to do physics now, actually. I have good memories from getting in the Zone on Friday.
Actually, this week's goal is meditation daily, in hopes that it'll help break the trapped feeling. Close enough. Next week's still schoolwork.
I'm waiting for a personal email that has yet to come. Oh well.