eternal

Sal: Well Matthew---looks like this is the end. It was really nice being your avatar even though this is only my second time talking in your blog.

Matthew: Sal, you live through me---you are always speaking. Every single post I write, you write.

Sal: Yeah, yeah whatever---I've heard it all before. You're a good kid though, I like you. Keep writing and you too---someday--will have developed a voice so strong that maybe you will also start a movement---a revolution.

Matthew: Thanks Sal, not only for being my avatar---but for doing what you do. The way you lived life is so inspiring to me---it is my dream to live a life as beautiful and exciting as yours was. The only reason I use dashes is because you do it and use them instead of commas. So really---at the end of the day---my writing is just a sorry attempt to emulate your spontaneous prose.

Sal: *laughs* You're a great kid. Never stop writing and never stop learning. Take what the world gives you and engrave it in yourself---but most of all---"live, travel, adventure, bless, and don't be sorry."

Matthew: Forever.

Every character that we have read about has been a representative of the human individual's dealings with the obstacles faced throughout their course of life. Through Marjane, we are met with the obstacles of identity and war---how our identities are solidified in order to secure ourselves enough to remain sane. In A Man In a Case, Byelikov continues the human's desire for security by constantly sheltering himself and the environment around him---an irony that shows human insecurity at its highest. From our readings, we have explored the inner workings of the human mind and emotion---taking what we ingest and culminating it with our own world view. Perhaps we are asleep and this is all some sort of branch of a dream we are foreign to and, therefore, cannot differentiate from reality. But whether awake or not---we are here in this world living our life---and for that---we should be most thankful for.

first death

Francisco Goya's Saturn Devouring His Son

During my fellow classmates' performance of David Hwang's play, The Sound of a Voice, I noticed how the whole atmosphere and tone of the play seemed almost dreamlike---as if the characters were disconnected from reality and acting in this sort of limbo. Dreams have always been attached to the topic of reality. Whether they have some sort of significant meaning in our lives or are merely fantasies---the value of dreams has been argued over many years. From Freud's theories to The Matrix---the discussion almost seems universal in everything we encounter. 

And as I struggled to think about what to write to fulfill the number of posts requirement, I rummaged through my old iPhone notes that ranged from March of 2012 to now. Notes that included poetry, lyrics, unfulfilled lists and plans, but particularly some of dream accounts. I have a lot of vivid dreams and when I wake up from them---I try to make it a habit to write them down. Here is one particular dream (which I pieced together from fragments of my remembrance and refined of course to correct the typos and incorrect grammar that I had in my half-awaken stupor). 

----------------------------------------------------------------

I am riding a train for the second time with a small British child who faintly resembles George Harrison---as I talk to the conductor who is also British. We reach our station and talk and he says how his colleague and friend just died yesterday. 

I give my condolence. 

I bid farewell to him and the child and go to a toy store where my girlfriend works. My whole family is present there too and I walk over to my friends: Daniel---who has become increasingly over weight---and Will who is silent. Daniel is talking about something and is upset and I tell him that I notice his weight problem. He gets mad and his girlfriend consoles him telling him she likes it. 

We arrive in Italy to visit my great aunt and while we are there we are informed that foreign countries has decided to start a nuclear war and bomb us. Seeing that we are all doomed we all gather in a plaza awaiting our end and honor those who gave back to society. As I stand with all of my relatives and two friends, the bomb drops and I see this wave of gold and purple hit the ground. I feel no pain but I feel as if  I've entered some place different. I hear the cries and voices of my relatives and suddenly I see my dead body lying before me. I crouch down and lay on the stone tiled floor. And all of a sudden I wake up in my house. 

I check all the rooms and I find no one. The streets still have cars driving but I can't make out their drivers. I decide to fall asleep and I wake up to my mother and her brother. They begin to write their goodbye letters and wills and I begin to also. We enter a line and my mom and I decide to stop by a room. I break down to mother saying that I am uncertain on whether I will go to Heaven. I confess to my mom and she consoles me. I tell her that I argued with my dad in the car the other day when I was alive, saying, "Maybe I'll die young." As I cry to my mom I feel my consciousness return---with my eyes closed. 

I open my eyes to the new day.

leviathan

Last class, Kseniya did a presentation on Anton Chekhov and his impact on Russian literature. At the conclusion of her blog post, she ended it with one his quotes, "Take care of the human inside you." I feel as human beings, we are often reckless in our actions, for we see that our perceptions and decisions affect us both directly and indirectly. The quote may seem misinterpreted for promoting a sheltered life---but at its core---it calls us to maintain a clear conscience. A clear conscience leads to a peace of mind, which leads to an evocation of positivity. But why do we find ourselves---day to day---become attracted to that which is dark and wrong? Are we innately evil like Thomas Hobbes says? Why do I always put rhetorical questions in my posts? Perhaps the key to living is to remain indifferent to all things so we will never be bothered. Or perhaps maybe it is just to simply

be.

conversations with sal

Sal: Matthew, what the hell are you doing? I haven't been in one of your posts yet! Do you not know how to follow directions?

Matthew: Sorry, Sal. I've just been so busy, I hope you will still be my avatar.

Sal: Yeah, yeah. I was reading over your class presentation---I disagree with one thing.

Matthew: And what may that be?

Sal: The theme---it is not death. Although I partly agree with what you are saying---I feel that the primary theme is the search for one's identity.

Matthew: You're just saying that because that's all you ever write about!

Sal: Don't be ignorant! Anyways---Marjane is living amongst the lost Iran---and it is in this turmoil that she struggles to find herself.

Matthew: You prove a good point, Sal, if only you didn't drop out of Columbia.

Sal: I had that---I was already through that.

Matthew: Didn't Charles Manson say that?

Sal: No.

Matthew: By the way, why did you wait to discuss Persepolis with me almost a month after I wrote about it?

Sal: Because you never included me in your posts!

Matthew: Hmmm, I have been feeling an unexplainable absence in me lately.

Sal: You're searching for yourself---we always are.


Identity---a universal theme that can be found in almost any work of literature. Is there really any use of a journey of self-discovery? Or are we already and fully here?---our identity already intact---with no need for searching. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream," had a tremendous impact on the African-American's struggle for freedom---but the question arises whether they were searching for their identity in the present America or merely the acceptance of a fully established identity that they already possessed. 

During my experience reading literature---I have come across two general perspectives on the search for identity. One comes from Aldous Huxley's The Doors of Perception, in which he says, "Our goal is to discover that we have always been where we ought to be." Here he suggests that our identity has and will always be there---that there is no need to find it somewhere else. However, I do find a contradiction in his words, for is it not a journey that we must endure in order to come to this realization and discovery? 

Contrastingly, in Herman Hesse's Demian, the author says, "I realize today that nothing in the world is more distasteful to a man than to take the path that leads to himself." Here, Hesse disagrees with Huxley's view in saying that the identity does not lie in oneself---but wherever the path that points elsewhere leads to.

Is the existence of a middle ground between these views possible? Or will it always either/or?

Sal: "One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple."

- Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums

a man in a case

The play, A Man In a Case, tells the story of two lovers who seem to come from opposite ends of the spectrum---while, the girl is carefree and loving, the man is extremely reserved and timid. Although the man constantly patronizes his fiancé for her naiveté, she continues to express her love for him unconditionally. What causes people to want to create such a strong connection with another human being? 

From reading the play, I learned that one cannot continue living a sheltered life forever. They will never be able to fully experience the whole ride we call "life," and as a result, deprive themselves of the chance to be truly fulfilled. Concerning myself, I often find that I forget to live in the present. My mind is always running---taking me to places both in the past and future, never stopping to appreciate the present beauty around me. I often find it difficult to stop this habit, for I know that it is difficult to have full control over ones mind and imagination without having it excessively expand. Consequently, I end up setting unrealistic expectations for everything in my life which just leads to my own disappointment, sometimes going as bad as a depression. I realize that the solution to my problem is to simply and gradually change my ways---but the lesson I have to learn seems to always get lost in my own mind. I always have the time to get better and I am trying so hard to make the best of it. But every time I focus on working towards a better self, I always get lost in the process---it is always either/or. At the end of the day---at least I can say that I am trying, right? In the words of the late Lou Reed, "I don't know where I'm going, but I'm gonna try for the kingdom if I can," but for now, "I guess, I just don't know."

astray

A subpar meter poem I wrote---when I was still a moody seventeen year old dealing with teenage angst---that never saw the light of day. I was really into the movie, Lost In Translation, during the time I wrote this and I figure that it relates to Persepolis pretty well, considering that Marjane was "lost in translation" when she went to Vienna having to adapt to a whole different culture.

Astray

Enter the night in a strange foreign land 

Seen through a glass as you watch the lights dance 

Feelings of buildings encumber your head 

Midnight arrival, you fall to your bed

Mundane affairs that you've done all before 

Lost in a world that's too vast to explore 

Peregrine dialects, labyrinths unsolved 

Blank is your face, but beneath you're appalled

Parallel others who share the same blight 

Roam through the city and luminous lights 

Taken amidst by the sight and the sound 

All that we need is now present and found

Broken by conflict, our peace now upset 

Sing with a voice full of loss and regret 

Further it worsens, alarms bring us back 

Held in each other, our time has now passed

Born in space crowded, depart all the same 

Gone in our ending, yet we still remain 

Moments connecting us, lost in the snow 

Translate our names just to scratch out our woes 

ode to beards

What I'm striving for.

Am I writing for the second time today just so I can get four posts on my blog by tomorrow? Maybe. But do not let that make you think that there is no sincerity in my words. I still have not done a post that contains dialogue between me and my avatar and I also have not shaved my face in almost three weeks and I am starting to seriously doubt whether I can go through the full Movember. Self-confliction epitomized.

Anyways,

today I attended the poetry reading of my Introduction to Poetry professor, Dave Denny. I was very impressed and entertained by the level of skill that Professor Denny had both in poetry and beard growing. My favorite poem of his was a mash-up of Frankenstein and the presidents in his lifetime. The two subjects were intertwined so smoothly and masterfully with the intensity of it all elevating as professor's voice raised and raised until finally reaching its peak and letting out that ominous but comedic shout, "IT'S ALIVE!!!" Truly amazing.

But regarding the class I am taking by him, we are currently studying about Pablo Neruda, whom Ms. Patton was talking about a few days ago and whose poem we had to read for homework. The evolution of Neruda's poetry is quite interesting. Starting out as a love poet, Neruda delved into more surrealistic imagery and themes in the 1930s while still maintaining his primary subjects of the sea, women as mother nature, etc, as his involvement in the Communist movement influenced his writing. In one of his most famous works, Canta General, Neruda displays a more dark and somber tone with drawn out Walt Whitman-esque lines and a wide range of diction. As oppose to this, Neruda's volumes of The Elementary Odes, displays a more a minimalistic approach, with some lines being just one word with the poem's subjects just common items. Neruda's ability to be deep and complex as well as minimalistic and economical in his writing, while also being accessible, is a quality that I find myself trying to achieve as I go through my days. When I write prose, poetry, and songs and instrumental parts and arrangements, I always feel that there should a balance between intricacy and simplicity, while still retaining some sort of universal appeal for listeners and readers. I feel that the primary intention to create any form of art is not to satisfy the viewer, but rather to be such an expression of oneself that the viewer relates to it as a byproduct of the artist's expression. Now I do not want to start rambling on about the philosophy of aesthetics, so I will end this post just like how I started (from the "Anyways,") with the first poem that really got me into poetry.

If—

BY RUDYARD KIPLING

(‘Brother Square-Toes’—Rewards and Fairies)

If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Source: A Choice of Kipling's Verse (1943)

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/175772