Love and Motion

Why does love seem to squelch ambition?

Anyone who knows me knows that I am the first one to run after something, obsess over it, grasp at it. I spend more time dreaming of the future than I spend in the present. Get me started, and I will tell you of all the careers I could aim for, all the things I could study, all the places I could live, all the people I could meet. I sometimes feel as if I am trying to punch my way out of my own skin to get somewhere bigger to contain me.

And then I spend an afternoon in love. The fight in me deflates, pleasantly, until there is enough room inside me for something more than striving. Too much room, perhaps. I often feel dumb and airy in the presence of too much affection. Nevertheless, I feel somehow home. There is simply inertia-- lovely inertia-- so sweet that it is likely dangerous to dwell in. I think that God might have invented being in love to take people out of their plans and outlines and into the bursting present. For there is nowhere else to go-- why leave joy?

Of course, one cannot support this kind of thing. The feelings fade and life cuts in. And then you want somewhere to go. But what I wonder is if the place we are all trying to go is just that lovely inertia, where we don't want to go anymore. I have a feeling that this is not a proper way to look at life, and that striving is a rewarding and essential part of the human experience. But perhaps many people do not feel the same way. Perhaps most people spend their days and their sweat in hopes of a day that they will not sweat, or want anything more than what they have. Perhaps all people want is to be in love forever.

How happy am I to belong to a faith based upon an eternal romance! However, it is not a faith based upon inertia. It moves forward forever. But I believe there is a place for moments of happy paralysis. It is there that we understand the incommunicable. Maybe life is supposed to be moments of paralysis-- happy, sad, angry, confused-- followed by action and choice. There is rest and motion.

Medieval people thought that God was unmoving at the center of the universe. The most real and complete thing in the world didn't need to be moving toward anything. But I believe that God moves toward us to bring us to rest. There is a place for both.

L'Heureuse Ecrivaine?

I used to think I wasn’t built for happiness. I was a melancholy junior higher of the highest order, and whenever I happened to wake up happy, a shiver of disconcert came over me. What is this feeling? It feels excessive, silly, girlish. I was under the impression that, for serious artists, happiness was more of a bother than it was worth. Good thing, too—it never stayed for long. And so I kept churning out my dark poems and diary entries with the melancholic energy of youth.

And then, around fifteen, happiness began to trickle into my life like a blood transfusion, until my veins were full of something wholly different. And I didn’t write so much anymore, because, for the first time, life itself was more exciting than commenting on it or manipulating it with words. This is best exemplified in the lazy summers spent by Lindsay’s side at the park. What words could make those experiences seem deep or illuminating? They are what they are: blissful, but best kept alive in memory, which can convey their beauty far better than grasping words. Nobody wants to read a love story about two perfectly happy lovers. (Perhaps this is why I fail so miserably at love letters. Rather than tokens of affection, I view them as literature that fails to provide “tension on every page”. How ridiculous!)

Sometimes I will feel that my intellectual energy is spent in discussion. I get such a high from the exchange of ideas that I feel writing about them is like a one-sided conversation, more illuminating for me than anyone else. I would rather keep my head buzzing with idea-bugs than go to the trouble to catch one and examine it and write down my findings. This is why I love school so much. The buzzing. It makes me feel like I’m getting somewhere.

But the writing is coming back to me. At least I talk like it is. And I want to keep it that way. So, I’m going to have to find the place for writing in the life of an un-tortured artist. But I suppose if I can find something to cry about every day (and you know I can), then I can find something to write about as well.

Soundtrack

When I was little, I used to think that my mother's Walkman was absolutely magical. I could just put in a tape, wear the headphones, and be transported to Hollywood. The best was to walk or bike around with a song playing in my ear. If I just imagined the headphones away, the song came from the sky, lighting up the world with a melody wherever I chose to walk. It was a giddy feeling, with some power to it. The movie, of course, was about me, and my bike ride, which was of course headed toward someplace thrilling. But listening to that Walkman, I owned those movie moments.

Today I took another walk (think), and decided to bring my iPod along. The first song to come on the shuffle was a beautiful trickling song with a heartbeat that was exactly the right walking pace. And I was in a movie again, just like when I was five. The whole bit-- smiling at the neighbors, smelling the flowers, looking up at the sky and laughing. It was like I had just had a moment of conviction, or something grand had happened to me, or I had let go of a long-guarded fear. But I hadn't. I had simply woken up and taken a walk.

Films and plays can show music as integrated into life. Not only is the soundtrack integrated into the action of a film-- it can illuminate, even elevate, the action. Why is this grace afforded only to the lives that we invent in scripts? Why can't we hear the ominous cello under our darkest decisions or the swell of strings at our first kiss?

Perhaps it is because we only understand what is really happening when we view it from above. It is then that we can pick the perfect song to bring the moment its truth. Maybe music is a necessarily reflective activity; we make music to express something we have experienced, not something we are experiencing. Maybe the music will come with the moment when all things are new.

This is one reason why I love the movies.

Ces Francaises Ne Grossissent Pas

I just got back from a walk. I knew that one is supposed to think on walks, but didn't know what to think about, so my mind automatically began counting my steps. Naturally, that got boring, and I began thinking. Presto!

I think, in order to trick myself, I am going to start referring to it as "going for a think". I want to begin walking because I detest aerobic exercise, but still want a way to get myself up and out. Aerobic exercise is not thoughtful by its very nature. It takes the mind from the mind and onto the body. One's thoughts are caught up in pure muscle movement. I do not begrudge anyone this experience. It is likely healthy to become completely preoccupied with one's physicality every so often. However, so far, I have not found myself built for such exertion.

You see, exercise happens in my life every few weeks; furious, fitful exercise. It comes from the moments when I look in the mirror one too many times and realize that I am not comfortable in my own skin, and not satisfied with the hollow disregard I have for my body. Thus begins the obsession (the project). I chronicle my calories, reducing them ever lower, and crunch my way into tears, all for a matter of days, until I let the project screw itself while I eat my Kettle Chips. It's not about a healthy lifestyle change. It's about pure vanity and envy, which dissolves into anger, frustration and name-calling that I heap on myself. See how sinful and negative a matter of a few pounds can be! It is such a trap for women.

I am reading French Women Don't Get Fat. I know-- trendy diet book, right? And, like, 7 years past the trend. But I think-- hope?-- it might change my life. It actually has somewhat of a spiritual significance, or at least reasonably drawn parallels. Most diet books are "plans", with direct instructions on what and how much to eat on which certain days before reaching this or that level, eliminating some food groups altogether. Then there is the exercise plan, where one must plough away for pledged hours at the gym. These plans are easy to see as legalism. Spiritually, legalism kills-- try to stick to the letter of the law, and you will find yourself either cheating it, becoming self-righteous, or falling off the wagon entirely. No one can thrive under it.

So, Mireille Guiliano's book does away with plans. In fact, it does away with lots of things. There are no diagrams, prescriptions, or pictures. Just stories, principles, and wisdom. Much like the way that Christ did not teach his followers exactly how to behave with rules for situations x, y, and z. He simply gave them parables and principles to live by.

It is a small miracle that I simply do not want to refer to myself with stinging epithets about my looks. Normally, that's how I motivate myself. Fatass. But this is a whole new world. A positive world. A world where I want to eat good food because it is good, and savor it in a smaller portion-- not scarf down fries and cry about it when it's over. Where I can go on a long walk and enjoy it for its own sake, not pound away my guilt on a machine. I can look at this "diet" as a new way of living, not a way to justify or escape from a guilt-ridden state-- just as a life in Christ is a way of living for His joy, and not of achieving self-righteousness.

No, I'm not saying that French Women Don't Get Fat is the gospel of diets. There are probably better plans, and maybe things won't work out for me. But I'm having a happy revelation for now. And now it's time to make some dinner.

Projects

Having just finished watching "Julie and Julia," I have been thinking about life in terms of projects. In the film, both Julie and Julia find themselves feeling restless and stifled by their lives, with loving husbands by their sides but no personally fulfilling goals. So, naturally, they get some, and a movie takes place. The plot follows the course of each of their projects-- the excitement at the start, the strain that sets in, wondering what was so important about the thing in the first place. The motivating undercurrent of purpose. The thrill of successes small and large. The film ends as their projects culminate in recognition and joy.

But what happens when the project is over? What do you do when you spend years working on something, and then it ends? There aren't a lot of "projects" that I've followed up to satisfying conclusion, but if you consider the culmination of a project as the ending of a a phase of life, then I can speak from some experience.

Rehearsing Les Miserables, for instance. That show (like nearly any) was made out of the tears, sweat, and blood of the cast. Initially thrilled to be cast as Fantine and to have a chance to bring the material to life, I was dismayed when rehearsals began to grow more and more stressful. But on opening night, when we sang the final notes of the show and the audience leapt to their feet, I was stunned with the sharp happiness I felt. It came again on closing night-- the hot, sweet tears of culmination, achievement, and finality. Both were moments that I will take with me forever.

But, as such, they probably constituted a few hours of euphoria amidst months of ups and downs. And the day after closing, I was listless and airy as a ghost. The project was over. The moments had passed. I would have to find something new to occupy myself.

And so I have. I have rediscovered the desire that I have within me to create. I have begun work on my musical. There is another project. There will always be another project.

My life can be positively measured in projects that I obsess over. Determining my religious denomination. Writing this or that novel. Getting the perfect college scholarship. There is no time when I am not engaged in some kind of quest.

There is a moment in Julie and Julia where Julia's husband is about to finish his last assignment for work. He sighs, "Then what do I do?" What do we do? What do any of us do? Is life just one project after another? And if it is, is it about that joyful terminus, or is it about being immersed in a goal? Is it about the goal or the journey? If it isn't about the goal, then what is the point?

I'm not really despairing of questing. There's nothing that's going to stop me from it. But it just intrigues me to think that we are all hard-wired to be striving to finish a project-- but the projects never end. It is not as if, once we finish one particular goal, we will be able to put everything down and relax. We won't. We can't. It isn't that whoever dies with the most toys wins. If we could live forever, we would keep finding new tasks.

All of this leads me to the joyful conclusion that we were made to seek and to be satisfied-- eternally. What a joy it is, to know that our God supplies both for us. He is gracious enough to grant us joy and peace in the end, but he is big enough that we may run after him and plumb the depths of his truth and wisdom for all eternity. It is as C. S. Lewis wrote of the new kingdom in "The Last Battle"-- once they got there, they all had a great desire to run. But they never got tired.

P.S. --

I do recommend the film. It was refreshing to see a movie that espoused finding your own interests and what gives you a joie de vivre, and not giving up on those things. Most chick flicks will tell you that the solution to your problems is to find a man. This story showed that, even after finding a wonderful mate, there is more of life to be plumbed.

Infirmity

I have always imagined that I would one day contract a serious and obscure disease that would require much tending to and severely impede day-to-day life. Maybe I thought this was romantic in the style of Gothic novels where the heroine always contracted consumption. Why is that even romantic? Perhaps because of the idea of people weeping about you or being nursed by a noble, handsome man. It taps into the ideal of the fragile woman. I think most women want to be fragile sometimes, even if they won't admit it.

But of course I understand that chronic illness is not romantic and that it is on the whole quite horrible. I being it up because I have felt quite ill since I woke up with my European jetlag. I feel dizzy, too warm, stuffed up, and completely at the mercy of convulsive coughing fits. It is as if some gooey substance has infiltrated my head and left me with little will or intelligent thought. And so, I've excused myself of quite a lot. Of course nobody can expect anything of me, I think; I'm sick. It's only a few days. But what of those who feel the weight of sickness all the time? How must they live?

And a lot of me thinks that sickness is a legitimate excuse for a lot of things. But it also makes me think of how much we can excuse due to infirmity of some sort-- and what we call infirmity. I notice myself excusing my actions based upon the fact that I'm tired or PMSing or just having a bad day. Every day has its own infirmity, its own handicap. And if there isn't one readily available, there really is always something to fall back on: depravity. I'm only human, of course.

But that's exactly it. If we didn't have some kind of debilitation, then there would be no failings to excuse. Well, perhaps Adam and Eve are the exceptions to this principle. Because they were not fallen, their sin was entirely without rational excuse. But so is ours. We were given the gift of life and freedom by God, and we squandered it. There is no excuse for failing him daily.

These are just some thoughts that come to me about my own expectations for my behavior. Should I have different expectations for myself based upon circumstances? It would seem so. But one can see how far it can be taken. Today, I'm sick. But next week, I'm also sick-- just in a different sense. There is always infirmity. But Christ died to bridge that gap of weakness for us. So now, we can get out of bed.

(In a philosophical sense. In reality, I'm probably going back to bed right now.)

Je commence.

I almost always start journals with some kind of disclaimer (to myself?) about how I probably won't really write in it, leading to some kind of general self-depracation. From there, I move into some sweeping statements about the colour of my life at the moment, perhaps with a bit of back story to give context to "where I am" at the moment. Then, I identify some defining issues of my life that I inform the "reader" that I will be predominantly dealing with, including some relationships and some internal issue I am working out. Lastly, I put forth a few petitions to God to forgive me for my vast self-centeredness and other failings I have idenitified over the course of this, the initial entry of diary X.

So, in my disturbingly self-aware style, I am going to dispense with all that, simply for the reason that I would be aware of it while doing it.

The funny thing is that I have always written diaries as if someone other than myself were going to read them. Scratch that-- I have always written diaries as if everyone was going to read them, albiet after my death. You see, I was going to become a famous novelist, and they would posthumously compile my early writings into a volume that would inspire professors to write biographies about the vastness of my genius. I used to be obsessed with child prodigies. Strangely enough, I lost interest when I missed the deadline to be classified as one.

But one thing that I take away from that obsession is the interesting point that there is really no such thing as a writing prodigy. Certainly, children and teenagers can have an unusual level of astuteness and a knack for phrasing. But there is simply no such thing as a profound child poet as anything aside from an accident. Writing is an art that absolutely requires a depth of human experience. They say to write what you know, and how much can any eighteen-year-old know? It is a thought at once depressing and encouraging. No matter how hard I work, I can't acquire the profundity of someone much more mature and experienced. But it is wonderful to know that my writing will mature as I do.

If Jesus Christ is the incarnation of the Word, then we would do well to note how deeply words are tied to the experience of being human. So I will try to write some things, because I am alive.