Moments, paradigm, and expectations
I dream in moments and snapshots. It's impossible for me to dream in long stretches. Always my mind dwells only in the smallest measures of time. Not that I'm unrealistic about the intermediate time, but I can happily blow it without remorse.
Somehow this same snapshot mentality encompasses my attachment to people. Looking back objectively on who I've spent time with and when I did so, I come to realize that many of the attachments that lasted quite some time are, in fact, relatively non-meaningful to me. Contrapositively, I have a deep attachment to some people who have shared little more than a moment with me, but a moment that is still imprinted.
In turn this affects my visions of the future. My dreams of adventure, romance, and daring-do manifest not in daily situations, or even time spent, but in moments of extreme power. These moments form paradigms - lenses through which I read the significant of other points in my life. Transformational moments that organize all of the other moments around them, imbuing meaning where I wasn't sure meaning existed, or depriving some circumstances of meaning where I felt sure there was a bond. Life isn't a steady process, but a punctuated equilibrium.
Perhaps this is why I cringe at people who have been with their b/f's or g/f's for years and years. Perhaps it's also why I'm so blastedly unforgiving about power lapses in judgement. I would do no such thing... I cannot accept that my interactions with a person are not their paradigmatic moments... that I'm simply one of the other events that is given meaning or not by another, quite unconnected event. Powerful moments, deeply ingraned, of which I cannot let go, and I cannot understand the mind that can put them in the past. Beautiful icons can only gain value, not dust. The icon can hurt, but it is there, deeply impressed.
Much of what i've learned the past couple of years has stimulated this kind of thought, or at least helped me to quantify it. But, I don't experience anything I never did before, I can just vocalize it now. an entire life is only a few small narratives, repeated over and over in various amounts of pertinence.
It's why I love songs; and why I listen to the lyrics. It isn't enough for me to 'feel the beats' without trying to feel the writer through the lyrics, exacerbated by the music. But they almost always paint a picture of something small and tangible. Small parts of life which have impressed themselves on the writer. It allows me insight into what they're really like, beneath whatever they're doing at this time or that.
And so my expectations take the form of moments and glimpses. When I think of something I can taste, touch, or whatever, it's not the joy of the intermediate moments that get to that moment, but the moment that helps me see the intermediate moments necessary to get there. It's not the school work, but the graduation. From there I can fill in the gaps. The gaps themselves are boring.
Like an icon, or a photo, you can see the static picture. From that picture you can feel all that is around it. The looks on the faces belie this feeling or that. Some of these moments are just stuck there... eternally captured at this point, and all that went into them and came from them, however non-obvious, can be encapsulated here... viewed, sensed beneath the surface tension.
I get more incoherent by the day.
Somehow this same snapshot mentality encompasses my attachment to people. Looking back objectively on who I've spent time with and when I did so, I come to realize that many of the attachments that lasted quite some time are, in fact, relatively non-meaningful to me. Contrapositively, I have a deep attachment to some people who have shared little more than a moment with me, but a moment that is still imprinted.
In turn this affects my visions of the future. My dreams of adventure, romance, and daring-do manifest not in daily situations, or even time spent, but in moments of extreme power. These moments form paradigms - lenses through which I read the significant of other points in my life. Transformational moments that organize all of the other moments around them, imbuing meaning where I wasn't sure meaning existed, or depriving some circumstances of meaning where I felt sure there was a bond. Life isn't a steady process, but a punctuated equilibrium.
Perhaps this is why I cringe at people who have been with their b/f's or g/f's for years and years. Perhaps it's also why I'm so blastedly unforgiving about power lapses in judgement. I would do no such thing... I cannot accept that my interactions with a person are not their paradigmatic moments... that I'm simply one of the other events that is given meaning or not by another, quite unconnected event. Powerful moments, deeply ingraned, of which I cannot let go, and I cannot understand the mind that can put them in the past. Beautiful icons can only gain value, not dust. The icon can hurt, but it is there, deeply impressed.
Much of what i've learned the past couple of years has stimulated this kind of thought, or at least helped me to quantify it. But, I don't experience anything I never did before, I can just vocalize it now. an entire life is only a few small narratives, repeated over and over in various amounts of pertinence.
It's why I love songs; and why I listen to the lyrics. It isn't enough for me to 'feel the beats' without trying to feel the writer through the lyrics, exacerbated by the music. But they almost always paint a picture of something small and tangible. Small parts of life which have impressed themselves on the writer. It allows me insight into what they're really like, beneath whatever they're doing at this time or that.
And so my expectations take the form of moments and glimpses. When I think of something I can taste, touch, or whatever, it's not the joy of the intermediate moments that get to that moment, but the moment that helps me see the intermediate moments necessary to get there. It's not the school work, but the graduation. From there I can fill in the gaps. The gaps themselves are boring.
Like an icon, or a photo, you can see the static picture. From that picture you can feel all that is around it. The looks on the faces belie this feeling or that. Some of these moments are just stuck there... eternally captured at this point, and all that went into them and came from them, however non-obvious, can be encapsulated here... viewed, sensed beneath the surface tension.
I get more incoherent by the day.
posted by Roland at 4:40 PM
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