And so begins my last year in Stac. It's a stranger feeling than I thought being a senior. I'm half wondering what I'm still doing here, a quarter grateful everything hasn't changed just yet, and a whole lot of a jumbled up mixture of everything that I know would connect if I just took so time to think about it.
I'm at a weird point in my life. I haven't accomplished much over the summer aside from being okay with not accomplishing anything (which for me is an accomplishment). I have this weird new confidence where I'm pretty sure I'm a genius but I don't want to get my hopes up. I think I'm getting something about life that I didn't always get. I have a new philosophy that I haven't quite located yet, a kind of determinism that is not in conflict with free will. I've begun to look at things as though everything is as it should be and nothing can be otherwise. We make decisions, but we could not have decided otherwise because we decide based on who we are and what we've experienced and everything in our lives that has led up to that decision. It's making me a little more alright with the world. It's making me start to love the world.
It's helping the way I look at art. Art requires an acceptance of the way the world is. Everything in the world could not be if it weren't for everything else. So art has to be everything at once. Every piece of art is the entire world, even if it's only addressing one aspect.
I stopped doing my daily practice. This was part of my new religion of acceptance. I had to accept that it was over. The idea of having one goal to begin with each quarter excites me immensely! Since my sophomore year, I've wanted to write and direct a play, and this year I'm going to do it. And I'm saying it so certainly so that if anyone catches me not doing it you can try to help me out by putting me back in line. It's that time of year when I feel that need to make art; I need to get it out of my system, out of my brain and somewhere I can see it.
I'm anxious for this year to be on its way. I hope to get to know all of you soon.
As for a daily practice, I want to read. Suggestions to start off with?
Excellent! I would LOVE to see a play from you.
ReplyDeletePhilosophy... hmmm... what you're describing sounds like.... I have to think a little more on it, it has something familiar to it, it's sort of eastern, but there is an element of a great Sci Fi novel there... Asimov's Foundation Trilogy. He invents this science called Psychohistory, and it really connects to what you've written above about freewill and predeterminalism. Google it. It might not sound like much of a series, but it is utterly amazing and mind blowingly good.
I also want you to take a crack at Foucault's Pendulum, maybe at the end of the year.
It seems to me you're in a very philosophical place, and that needs to be fed.
I think you're a genius. I really do.
I think what you're looking at is fate. And acceptance based on fate. That every decision is predetermined.
ReplyDeleteI don't think you can prove either way. I think that "fate" is a matter of opinion.
I also really like your idea that the world is perfect because it can't be anything else. And that can be personalized into anyone and anything. Isn't a human being perfect, then? Because he or she is born? I think it's a beautiful way to look at it.
Also reminds me of this philosophy that I tried to look up for you and couldn't find. About people who try to fight fate by making important decisions with dice and coins. (rereading this.. I think I might've just made that up and thought I read it somewhere. whoops.)
And I really want you to write that play. So. get on that.