Dialogue.
During
spring break, I went to a couple colleges in the Southernmost Carolina and hung
out with friends. Road trips rule. There were a lot of fun conversations, some
of them playing off themes. Let’s pretend like there was just one really long
one instead and it was more of a meandering essay.
Graduating
Governor’s School was like being infected with mono or some other chronic
illness. It takes you a while to recover, and it may be that you never do
fully. Instead there’s this part of you that just wants to coast on memories of
former glories. And, how is that we’re surrounded by the beauty of the world,
but we mostly ignore it? What part of human nature is it that causes us to
specifically not do things that we know can make us feel better when we’re
down? Just looking at the various colors and shapes of trees and leaves and
buildings can make you feel better, but if you don’t feel good, you don’t want
to feel better for some reason. Meanwhile, in the world of images, there’s the
world of Nylon Magazine and Adbusters Magazine. Nylon is a celebration of the
ephemeral world of high fashion and post-modern identity, whereas Adbusters
advocates the restructuring of capitalist society along less exploitive lines.
Nylon is almost sinfully wrong in some ways, but it’s also very artistic.
Adbusters meanwhile wants to destroy AmericaÙ with good graphic design but is
unclear as to what will follow. Really, that I can carry both magazines in my
bag without them annihilating like anti-particles is almost astonishing. People
who can live completely irony free Nylon existences confuse me. How is it that
some people just coast along life, seemingly all surface, no emotional
problems? Is it true that all people have more emotional turmoil just out of
sight, or are there people who are just as they appear and thus are never
afflicted by self-doubt or depression? Perhaps emotional problems are just a
consequence of intelligence, although it seems arrogant to say it. Maybe there
is a blend of blissful ignorance and naivete that makes one happy. Certainly,
most thoughtful people have long since pondered all of the questions raised by
the movie “Waking Life”--what’s the difference between life and a dream, what
do we know outside of our own existence, and what waits beyond death’s veil?
All of these questions have rattled through my head, since I was ten and the
pan-solipsistic answers proposed by “Waking Life” are hardly a breakthrough.
And yet, the questions remain unanswered and continue to dog me. Perhaps life
can be navigated through “post-irony”--that is a process of recognizing the
futility of an action and the futility of trying to respond to futility through
irony. With the realization of the existence of a recursive depth of ironic
response comes the emergence of post-irony, a measured knowingness that subtly
distorts not action (which is interchangeably ironic or ordinary) but the
intentionality of action. Yet, post-irony is largely just an expanded
solipsism, in which the meaning of communication is unreal even to its
originator. Solipsism always tempts from the edges, and perhaps a large part of
growing up is ignoring its charms and integrating oneself with society, in
spite of the lack of irrefutable proof that society exists in the ways that we
imagine it does. Life certainly has more pragmatic problems then the desire for
the banishment of Descartes’ demon. One must wonder if perhaps an eskimo
awaking on a frostbitten morning does not help but suspect to himself that his
life is somehow disconnected from the way mankind was meant to live. Certainly,
there are many positive aspects of eskimo life-- beautiful landscapes and the
sheer enormity of accomplishment that is man's ability to adapt, however
barely, to so daunting an environment. Yet is not eskimo life something
unintended by nature, an aberration from man’s place in the order of things.
That man was not entirely designed to live in sub-zero weather must be clear to
the eskimo and vex his soul. The modern world likewise is alienating to many
people. However, the modern world suffers from the opposite problem. The
removal of physical discomfort allows people to see more clearly that any
remaining dissatisfactions is an essential part of the human experience itself
and thus cannot be taken away by physical remedy, a thought that chills like
Arctic wind. Of course, survival in the modern world isn’t quite yet relegated
to abstract existential dilemmas, as many a Columbia bum will attest. They all
seemed to want exactly one dollar from me in order to, "buy a
sandwich." As improbable as that may be, I can’t begrudge a bum “my”
money. I try to be optimistic, and imagine they’ll use it in a way at least as
noble as I will. “Glass half full,” and all that. Unless it’s a glass of
poison. In which case, would a half-empty glass be better? I guess that the
main thing that one desires in life once all the basic necessities in life are
fulfilled is someone of the opposite gender, who will tussle their hair and
complement their posters. Or at least, that’s what I’m looking for: human
contact and the assurance that my choices as a consumer are well made. And yet,
what are relationships really like? Corey and I looked at his old scromping
grounds at Governor’s School, and it was noted that the key to utilizing them
was to pretend as though one just happened upon them spontaneously. So the idea
is, once you find someone really special, someone you can really relate to, you
try to trick them into thinking you aren’t plotting in order to make out with
them. C’est la vie,
non? There is this huge
communication gap in a relationship, a pit of feelings that you don’t express
for fear of disrupting the tenuous bond that couples you. I suppose that’s why
communications majors exist--to mock the distance that haunts the space between
words and meaning. Or maybe it’s a really easy major for surface people, who
are unburdened by the ennui of intellect. I asked a random Charlestonian on the
street if she had a cellphone, only to be ignored. I was just erased by her
non-reaction. So obviously, I need a communications major to understand the
exchange that took place. Really, when I do things like that, I’m just goofing
around, waiting for the end of this interminable “summer vacation” that is life
after Governor’s School. Much as during the summer between Junior and Senior
year, thinks my subconscious, this too shall pass, and a new era of Govie love
will be ushered in. The disease lingers under the surface, I suppose. Walking
along the beach, looking at the little creatures living in sand houses of their
own construction, Erin and I wondered if maybe that was as good as it got. Maybe
if we're really good in this life, in the next we can live simple lives along the
shore where everything makes perfect sense. No one can accuse those little salt water
worms of living in the wrong place, but... still it seems like maybe there are benefits to
this more macroscopic living too, benefits like walking along the shore with a friend at the
end of a long journey.
And that’s a short version of what we talk about during my spring break. A few
closing points:
- After
searching throughout the break, I finally found the current Nylon for sale
in the Rock Hill grocery store that I first noticed it and made fun of its
title. I dropped to my knees on seeing it, which put me in
micro-conversation with some woman shopping there. A little human moment
with a passer-by, talking about how I was looking for the magazine. It was
better than if I asked her if she had a cellphone. So, Rock Hill isn’t
completely useless.
- I think the
Eskimo would be happier living in the painfully cold tundra if he had a
family. A wife, kids, parents, a whole tribe of social relationships and
common values. Probably, you aren't as worried about living in the wrong
part of the world if people you love live there, too.
- There's
almost nowhere man was less meant to live than outer space. But we're all
indomitable like that. Keep having fun on the moon. Take a road trip to
the other landing sites maybe.
Peace,
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Back to the Earthbound kid...
Spring break photo safari.
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