This blue I could take a spoon to
I cast myself into it
Feeling myself thrown and turned
    This thrill I could build my life on
        The ocean calmly places a hand over your mouth
        And whispers hymns older than the stones
        You dissolve into her like sand
    This joy I could give in to
I return to the land
As my ancestors long ago
I return to the sky
As my brethren before me
And I remain in the sea
    This home I could find freedom

This monument to souls long since dust
Of wars swept clean by rain and rust
A place of rest now for us, worn yet alive
The rosemary-tinged air no longer thick with memories of loss
A sole poppy, a stubborn red tear
A flush of green and white, steadfast mourners and a reminder of continued life
This cocoon, a quiet spot
The world is at peace, at least in this small nest.

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Photo of Ithaca War Memorial, where this was written (September 16 2015).

Lisbon

"It is possible to die."

These words are never far from my mind. And while it is unavoidable (necessary, even, should we believe in some greater cosmic order), that is it possible, that we may have some say in the matter, provides me with more comfort than God ever did.

These words are particularly resonant in this city, where life and death so freely and frequently mingle. Every street is full of broken, burnt, and decaying houses, pressed between their still-functioning contemporaries. Why did this house fall to disrepair while its neighbour continued on to house further generations of families, future decades of laughter and fights? Why was this door boarded up while its fellow remains, to greet guests, to welcome home, to be slammed in rage and sadness?

One cannot help but be reminded of ghost towns, where the situation was so bad people left without selling their homes, without their possessions, just their families and their lives; a midnight flight from a life whose abuses could no longer be tolerated.

We, the house proud, would never understand.

It is possible to die, yes. It is possible to run, to rot, to hide, to go up in a blaze and be reduced to dust and ash, or to slowly fall apart until all that is left are rubble and the hint of a memory.

And it is possible to live.

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Soundtrack: "Now You Know" - Arca

"It is possible to die" from "The Hours" - Michael Cunningham

Photo of Lisbon from Castelo de São Jorge, where this was written (August 7 2015).

Beyond Essentialism: Embodied Identity And The Self (A Working Idea)

So I started re-reading Lakoff & Johnson's "Philosophy In The Flesh" over the last few weeks and it's all been wandering through my brain and I think I've finally reached a bit of an understand. This may not make a lot of sense but it's still a work in progress and, really, I think it makes a lot of sense.
THE CRUX of the issue is that a large portion of philosophy (at least existential philosophy) is the question of essentialism: what are the necessary and sufficient qualities of something that define IT and, for humans, WHO and WHAT am I. The greatest problem that this results in is that most people end up in a reductive essentialism where they want to find their one true self, the one part of themselves that is them and no one else.

The fact is THERE IS NO ONE TRUE SELF, which is why people spend their lives in vain searching for it (those who bother with the quest). We are all the result of slightly different programming on similar hardware; we are the physiological consequence of an embodied experience but, importantly, our own UNIQUE embodied experiences. Indeed, there are some universals (or near universals) because we exist in the same physical space with similar physical experiences and limitation, but from that first movement in the womb, our experience is fundamentally individual, for it occurs in a new space and a new time that has never existed before and can never exist again.

There is not one essential James The Linguist, or James The Cook, or James The Man, or James The Anything. We exist at the intersection of this myriad, a collage of our experiences and identities. Life does not bring use deeper into understanding ourselves; it ADDS to us, and we grow and evolve and change, just as our experiences will grow and evolve and change. Underneath these masks there is not one self; together the masks are the self, and to call them masks is to deny their importance to who and what we are BECAUSE THEY ARE ALL THAT WE ARE.

The strangest part of all of this is that this has some similarities with some nihilistic standpoints on life, but I find it oddly... hopefully. The journey to find ourselves is over, because it is pointless. We needn't find ourselves because we already are ourselves. The journey into life continues as it always does but we go into it knowing that are not digging deeper into ourselves but instead adding to the rich tapestry of our identity.

There is an ecstasy in all of this; in the setting of the sun, the ending of a war, the birth of a new day, a new life. But there is also ecstasy in the darkness; the buoyant grief of disappointment, the solitude of despair, of loneliness, of death. We test the waters of this sadness, of joy, dipping in only a few toes, then our foot, then we wallow, only to then discover that far beneath us are depths we could never have imagined. I hold your hand and we swim through them together, and maybe you'll let go and maybe you'll hold on, but I'll never truly know because, really, we're all just doing this alone anyway.

It is immersive, and immense.

There is bravery in leaving one's home, this vast ocean, to seek a new life on land, but isn't there also fortitude in returning to the cool depths; the land found too dry, too empty, absent of rest but also of true sadness. This is our Letting Go: the prodigal sons and daughters returning to Mother Ocean, her gentle arms softening our cracked skin, her cool breath calming our hot chests.

At last this freedom is real. At last hope, and hopelessness, will be real. And I'll swim deeper, master of my destiny but subject to it, the current pulling and pushing me, my arms digging into the icy liquid, pulling me to some dark, lonely place I can call home.

Do the consequences ever strike him?

He will meet me there, or he will leave me alone. And the song of my brothers and sisters, from the surface far above, will one day reach me, my eyes all but faded in the darkness. Is it a welcoming, asking me to surface, or a warning, imploring me further into the depths? And I will sing one lonely chorus, my voice lost in the cold.

And then I will sleep.

No Homo.

I love my cat. No homo.

I feel like going on a murderous rampage. No homo.

The scientific name of tea is camellia sinensis. No homo.

Add three tablespoons of flour and one teaspoon of baking powder. No homo.

Avocado. No homo.

Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie. No homo.

We all fall down. No homo.

Barcelona

I do not believe I will die, and this is one of the great peculiarities of life. It could happen anywhere and, more importantly, anywhen, and yet it is our final destination, so it feels that there should be some sort of build-up, that we should feel it coming, some sort of excitement or terror (really, they're the same thing). I feel I could very happily sit, drinking wine and trying to make art; would death be more real then?

When we have our 30 (40, 50, 60...) hour weeks, our 9 (8, 7...) to 5 (6, 7...), life has outlines, and you know what you must do and when (but never really why), and because of that, we never have time to prepare for death, to feel it approach, soon to overtake us. We know one day we will retire and perhaps, one day long after that, our mind or our body (and eventually both) will go and we will gently slide from obsolescence to expiration.

But if we had no structure, if I were to really walk from this life and maybe even be happy, would death seem all that more real, because I would have these thoughts as I'm having now, and the time to wonder but, more importantly, time to LIVE? To pursue great art, thoughts, time.

The bohemian dream is dead, but what reality has taken its place?

I sit here and write this, and I know I love Barcelona, and I love Berlin, and I know that I will return to Brisbane, to work that I love but a job that I hate, and then (really, not long after) I will die, and all of this will continue, and will I have contributed to that? It will go on regardless, but can I affect that course, and "make a difference", or will I pay bills and work to pay them, and then die, leaving more bills, bills producing bills, and then I will leave a trail of paper in my wake, littered with ticks and crosses (both of disapproval and meaningless martyrdom) and that will be all.

And maybe on my grave, they will write "He was a child, and a friend, and he lived and paid bills and taxes and then he died". Here lies the corpse of a taxpayer, a bill payer, a cog, someone who kept this machine (what?) running (why?). And his death is mourned by his family and friends but not many else, because a whole new generation has been born, and a whole other has begun paying bills and taxes, and so there will be no letter from us, for your loss is not our loss, thank you for choosing to shop with us today.

Even in these cities I love, I miss, there is this life of tedium, of obscure but omnipresent bureaucracy, always this clacking of numbers being counted, so I will never escape it, I will never be free. And no matter whether my headstone is in a German cemetery, or at the bottom of the Thames, or even back in Brisbane, it will read the same, and be read by none.

Inspired by Roni Horn's Still Water series (at Fundació Miro, Barcelona) & Tori Amos' Boys For Pele.