TITHONUS' DIARY!!
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not old, just older I feel old. I need to do some kind of work or I will go mad. I watched another film today... that's three films in three days. There's too much culture. "Culture" and "clutter" almost anagrams of each other. - Right now I have this horrible feeling that everything is the same as everything else, and I've had it a thousand times before and I know it doesn't last, but while I feel it, it's horrible. The film I watched today was "Blow". Johnny Depp and Penelope Cruz; it's about a real guy, name of George Jung, who made a fortune dealing cocaine and then lost it all and ended up in prison. It's a depressing movie. Actually, it kind of suited my mood. Because at the heart of it there's this question; what's real? I mean, what matters? Here's this guy from a working class family where his parents fight like cats and dogs over money all their lives, working hard doing something useful and yet, never happy, never content, never feeling at peace with each other or the world. Well, his dad does. And that... it bothers me even more, actually. If his dad has managed to earn some inner peace, some contentment, then why doesn't his mother love his father? Why can't she let go of her greed... you know, I think greed is a response to ennui. There's this metaphor over in lia's diary which had me thinking a lot today, about sex and food. She says, sex is like food. The best food is prepared in spirit of caring and love; but if other people want to eat junkfood, that's their business, she doesn't have a moral problem with that. (I'm paraphrasing here; she puts it a lot better. Go read her.) Anyway, this connects... oh right. Ennui and greed. See, when people are greedy... it's not just a matter of being sensible about money, or feeling hungry and having another piece of cake. Being truly greedy is a state of mind wherein there is no limit... there is no "enough". Such a thing doesn't exist. And therefore, neither does contentment. And it's ennui that... see, it's like, everything is meaningless, the world is just a great big empty useless void of nothingness, no hope, no beauty, no pleasure, nothing... I think people latch on to something and decide that they want as much as possible of it in order to try to fill up the void, or hide the void. So George, Depp in the movie, is trying to fill the void with money. And he makes millions. Millions upon million, unbelievable quantities of money, and of course, money is all the same, it's never enough. There's never enough money... - Blah, none of this is going to make sense if you haven't seen the film. I don't even know who I'm writing this to, who my imagined audience is... is it me? I feel lost and confused... everything is the same. That's it, see, it's not just money. Food is all the same, sex is all the same, pleasure, peace, rest, exercise, writing, reading, it's as though none of it means anything. I'm sitting here writing but I could just as well be pacing up and down in the corridor, or eating something, or lying on the floor or doing push-ups or trying to start on some thesis work or out walking the streets... the same. That's hell. Salvation comes through love, that's my theology. Salvation comes through grace, of course. This is why I can't force my way out of the prison, can't force myself to feel differently than I feel; it takes a gift to do that. But... - No, I give up. This isn't helping. I really want to go back to playing games, or get drunk or do something stupid, do some violence to myself in order to jolt myself out of feeling like this, but I won't. I'll wait. Real life is here. Paradise is always here. I just need to remember that. Paradise is here. I miss my best friend. He's in Japan. I'm scared that life is going to pass me by. That it has already passed me by. That I am going to waste it chasing phantoms and then look back, at the end, and then realise what I've been missing out on all along... like the General in Babbette's feast. But... he's one of the lucky ones, of course. Maybe it gets easier not to be greedy as you get older. I think I need to read Serres again. Or maybe I read too much; maybe the problem is that I'm always reading another book, looking for answers that are already here... the more books I read, the more alienated I feel from nearly everyone I meet. And the few who do read... are nearly always so alienated that it's... no, these generalisations aren't right. Argh. - "My life should be better But it's not" - Chris Smither |
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