Existentially Angsting

[mallorys_camera]

Continuing in this low-grade panic attack mode. Everything feels so ephemeral; I can’t bear it. I was looking at some photographs of Key West in the 1960s yesterday, and they had exactly the same look to me now that photographs taken during the 1920s used to have to me as a girl: old, out-moded, a foreign country whose dialect nobody speaks anymore or would go to the bother of learning.

And I thought: But I was alive then. And not just alive. Animated. Making discoveries.

There’s the recent past – I suppose the 60s qualify – which people still reference for nostalgia reasons. And then there’s the ancient past – I suppose World War II is the cutoff – that nobody is interested in whatsoever.

I mean – I’m interested in it. But I think I’m peculiar in that regard.

And the present just keeps turning into the past. Bright flare turning to ashes. It never stops. It repeats itself over and over and over.

And I think: There’s gotta be something more to it than this.

But there isn’t.

Nothing bad is happening. My life is quite pleasant; my time is pretty much my own, which is an enviable position to be in really. I’m useful. I’m creative.

But I feel exactly as though I’m on a conveyor belt. In some really strange German Expressionist factory that makes no product.

There’s nothing really one can do with feelings like this since they’re not based in circumstances. Distractions take one’s mind off it, and numerous distractions are available. Nothing one thinks is real – all thoughts, sensations, reactions are mediated by brain chemicals and imperfect sensory apparatus that restrict one to seeing in variations of three colors. I know this.

But I want to be a vessel through which some sort of cosmological wind blows.

And I’m not.

I suppose this is the point at which Prince Andre, dying on the battlefield at Austerlitz, looks up at the blue sky and realizes how immense and beautiful that sky is.

Maybe I should reread War and Peace.

Comments

[old-cutter-john.livejournal.com]

"But I want to be a vessel through which some sort of cosmological wind blows.

"And I’m not."

It's much more likely that you are than that you're not; but you'll only be allowed a degree of understanding that won't interfere with the execution of your mission.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Allowed by whom? :-)

[bleodswean.livejournal.com]

I so get this. Have you read any bios of Simone de Beauvoir? She struggled to the point of full-blown hysteria with this form of existential angst. Terrible.

Wish we lived closer, hon.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

I have read bios of Simone de Beauvoir, but she had such terrible taste in men, it's difficult for me to have any sympathy for her.

I much prefer bios of Colette. :-)

[signorinakatina.livejournal.com]

I think you are a vessel through which the cosmological wind blows--we all are!

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

I wish I could believe that. Sigh... I think it's more like we're all tiny diaoms making up a vast and endless coral reef. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. But not reinforcing from an egoistic point of view. :-)

[immemor.livejournal.com]

Prince Andrei had the luxury of blue skies; you're experiencing winter in New York.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Yes, but the winter in New York has been really, really mild in these parts!

I think I'm just indulging in what the Brits describe as "whinging".

[immemor.livejournal.com]

It's only whining in July.

[christies-world.livejournal.com]

Oh man, I think this feeling, or some more benign form of it, is something we're always trying to recapture, in a museum. Sometimes I feel these works of art are just bottled up past emotions and if you do it just right, contextualize it just so while still staying relevant, you surprise everyone, including yourself. If you're successful in art you're successful for all time, not just a moment. One of my professors referred to works of art as time travel portals for this reason. To communicate across time--what a gift.

It is the same with writing, or any art form! That should give you hope, no?

PS belated, I know.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

these works of art are just bottled up past emotions

Ohhhh, I like that a lot!!!! :-)

I think your professor was absolutely right about that one. Perhaps that's the distinction between art as a commodity, and art as... well. Art.