Virginia Woolf

“Is the true self this which stands on the pavement in January, or that which bends over the balcony in June? Am I here, or am I there? Or is the true self neither this nor that, neither here nor there, but something so varied and wandering that it is only when we give the rein to its wishes and let it take its way unimpeded that we are indeed ourselves?” — Virginia Woolf, Street Haunting: A London Adventure.

Emily Dickinson

Color - Caste - Denomination - These - are Time's Affair - Death's diviner Classifying Does not know they are - As in sleep - all Hue forgotten - Tenets - put behind - Death's large - Democratic fingers Rub away the Brand - If Circassian - He is careless - If He put away Chrysalis of Blonde - or Umber - Equal Butterfly - They emerge from His Obscuring - What Death - knows so well - Our minuter intuitions - Deem unplausible

Rest in Peace, Ye Maker of Worlds.

“If you want to write, if you want to create, you must be the most sublime fool that God ever turned out and sent rambling. You must write every single day of your life. You must read dreadful dumb books and glorious books, and let them wrestle in beautiful fights inside your head, vulgar one moment, brilliant the next. You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads. I wish you a wrestling match with your Creative Muse that will last a lifetime. I wish craziness and foolishness and madness upon you. May you live with hysteria, and out of it make fine stories — science fiction or otherwise. Which finally means, may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world.” ― Ray Bradbury

Is a star which brilliantly burns any less beautiful for its failing to be perceived by human eyes? And I, the most paltry of things. So too, this moment passes. So too, this moment fades. (I love you, I love you, and fear your passing gaze.) Though life leads unto death, this 'I', for now remains. As when seeking to comprehend, sight is lost, and sight is gained.

[Measure yourself against these words, for pride is cast and love now reigns.]

Perception

To hone awareness as one does a prized and oft-used knife yields a weapon far subtler than the finest of blades. For through it the woods speak and the mountains groan, the sky dances and the sun sings. But awareness, as the sharpest knife, often slips from the hands of its bearer and deeply cuts. Its weight, though finely balanced, bears greatly on the mind which comprehends, and the bridge which separates One from All seems arduous and not easily tread.

Gregory Currie, "Narrative Desire"

I. In “Narrative Desire”, Gregory Currie hypothesizes that an agent who desires some X in the imagination might be inclined to desire X in reality. This includes, but is not limited to, the imagination required to engage in film, literature and other fictions. And although we typically conceive of fictional desires as being both healthy and aesthetically sophisticated, we often regard fictional desires as being undesirable in relation to the ‘real world’. So, fictional desires may prove harmful insofar as they might lead to directly harmful desires.

This hypothesis relies on a distinction which Currie draws between character desires and narrative desires. I will begin by outlining this distinction and will thereafter explicate the important role which it plays in Currie’s argument as a whole.

II. Currie begins “Narrative Desire” by distinguishing between two classes of fictional desire: character desires and narrative desires. We might classify character desires as the desires which an agent holds in relation to a particular character or set there of. Narrative desires, on the other hand, are the desires which an agent holds in relation to a fiction’s over-arching narrative. On the first interpretation, I desire that Rick and Ilsa continue their romance (character desire); on the second, I desire that Casablanca be a narrative in which Rick and Ilsa continue their romance (narrative desire). But we also hold many desires which are not constrained by the realm of the imagination. Currie thus distinguishes between fictional desires and the desires we hold in relation to family and friends, ourselves and the world in which we live.

Desires concerning friends (or family, or one’s career, etc.) and those concerning fictional characters differ not only in that they pertain to different focus-groups; they differ in that one hesitates to call desires concerning fictional characters desires at all. The problem may be summed up as follows: broadly construed, desires are based upon a belief, the relevant sort of which is lacking in the case of fictional characters. I do not believe that Anna Karenina exists out there, ‘in the real world’, so I don’t believe that she can be harmed. How can I be concerned about some character Y in situation X if I don’t believe that Y was ever in X? Currie thus distinguishes between desires which exist in the scope of an imagining, and desires which are not so restricted. My desire that Anna Karenina be happy is within the scope of an imagining; my desire that my parents be happy is not.

However, we often desire particular outcomes in relation to narratives which we construct about ourselves and others. Consider, for example, day dreams. Interestingly, these desires often conflict with the desires we hold in relation to ourselves and others. This further complicates the interplay between character desires and narrative desires, for we might hold both outside of the realm of fiction.

III. Now that we understand the distinction which Currie draws between character desires and narrative desires, we are in a position to examine Currie’s larger claim (that being, an agent who desires some X in the imagination might be inclined to desire X in reality). So how might fiction influence the desires which I hold in relation to real people and events? According to Currie, fiction might influence an agent’s desires concerning real people and events insofar as fiction a.) makes available thought-contents which were previously unavailable to the subject, b.) vividly depicts scenarios which lend specificity to previously underdeveloped desires, and c.) depicts a certain state of affairs that elicits a pleasurable response and, in turn, causes the viewer to desire a state of affairs which is relevantly similar to that depicted.

Although we lack solid empirical evidence, these three conditions provide us with sufficient reason to believe that an agent’s desiring some X in the imagination inclines her to desire X in reality. And if this is plausible, then works of fiction that encourage individuals to imaginatively desire a ‘bad’ thing B (say, the desire that someone suffer humiliation) may strengthen B to the point at which B becomes a real desire on which an agent is prepared to act.

Furthermore (and as has been shown), the narratives in which we imaginatively engage suggest to us narratives in which we play roles. And in such narratives, we often cast others into roles subsidiary to our imaginative wants. An agent who spins narratives involving coercion is thus more likely to engage in instances thereof than an agent who does not.

To conclude, the imagination is not a hermetically sealed inner world which lacks implications for behavior. Fictional desires may in fact prove harmful insofar as they might lead to directly harmful desires. In the words of Siddhartha Gautama: “All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.”

Aesthetic Merit

[...]On my view, an art piece (filmic or otherwise) largely gains aesthetic merit insofar as it provides intellectual or emotional stimulation which aids in the expression and communication of an overarching theme or set of ideas. There are many ways in which a non-fiction film might successfully fulfill this criterion. A non-fiction cinematic work might provide intellectual stimulation by challenging an audience’s previously held conceptions. Other works might illustrate or communicate an idea (or set thereof) in much the same way as does a philosophical argument; that is, by laying out premises which gradually (or quite suddenly) lead to an overarching conclusion. Such a film provides the viewer with intellectual stimulation insofar as the individual is invited to consider the work as a whole. For a viewer who is gradually led to accept an author’s conclusion might call into question one (or more) of the author’s premises or the method by which the conclusion was reached. And the conclusion need not be conceptual in nature; directors often intend to communicate (and manifest in the audience) a set of emotions or feelings. Even in such films, the manifestation of emotions or feelings is often developed over the course of the film[...]

Alan Watts

“A living body is not a fixed thing but a flowing event, like a flame or a whirlpool: the shape alone is stable, for the substance is a stream of energy going in at one end and out at the other. We are particularly and temporarily identifiable wiggles in a stream that enters us in the form of light, heat, air, water, milk, bread, fruit, beer, beef Stroganoff, caviar, and pate de foie gras. It goes out as gas and excrement — and also as semen, babies, talk, politics, commerce, war, poetry, and music. And philosophy.”

Cedar Mesa

Through a vast and empty echo, the ruins speak.

So stand remnants from another age, housed in red rock and crumbling faces, cliffs which bear the weight of time's slow pressure. Still, Earth's strong and steady back rises. And through each broken edifice, each husk underfoot, a past people speaks.

So ran the children, those taught the voice of water;

so flew Anasazi arrows
so too did deft fingers find sacred flora, sharp eyes marked tracks of fauna.
And as for their people...

A deep silence now permeates this place.

The land sighs and evening's cool blanket falls. Our Sun passing, all heat now leaking, my body weak and settling, and Mother Moon waiting in her celestial wing. My gazing eyes turn, seek and find,
repose in her brightly shining face. And I,


I wait.
I listen.


for such gentle moments all too swiftly pass.

Oh, silence,
grasp, ride home with me.

E.E. Cummings

"it is at moments after i have dreamed
of the rare entertainment of your eyes,
when(being fool to fancy)i have deemed

with your peculiar mouth my heart made wise;
at moments when the glassy darkness holds

the genuine apparition of your smile
(it was through tears always)and silence moulds
such strangeness as was mine a little while;

moments when my once more illustrious arms
are filled with fascination,when my breast
wears the intolerant brightness of your charms:

one pierced moment whiter than the rest

-turning from the tremendous lie of sleep
i watch the roses of the day grow deep."

Miacrocosm

The path which leads therein,

quite long and winding,

steep

Leads down to dark within,

quite long and winding,

deep



Without the path leads too,

so high and climbing,

bright

immense orbs move through skies,

locked in celestial flight.

Linguistic Restrictions

In attempting to describe a slice of toast, I might begin by breaking down it's immediately perceivable qualities. The following is a tentative list:

1.) texture
2.) flavor
3.) appearance
4.) aroma

The bread which I've toasted (and am using in this phenomenological 'experimentation' i.e. literary exercise) is of the whole wheat variety and I've spread a good layer of blueberry jam over its surface. Now, for the tasting!

1.) A bit rough, though softens upon dissolving, seemingly melts. I've apparently swallowed, though the whole process seems to have escaped my attention.
2.) Sweet. Lacks the acidity of many jams and the blueberry is blatantly steeped in sugar. This is followed by a cut of 'nuttiness', which is an interaction of the bread and jam. The 'melting' as described in (1) tastes almost buttery, though I've not buttered this toast.
3.) Well... I've eaten the toast. This experiment was not long-lived.


And that's what happens when your subject is toast.

Seasons

I was once in love with everything,

then, the moment passed.

Darkness swept over me.

Yet…

The night, as day,

will twist and fade,

into another dawning’s softly lighted morning rays.

A Multiplicity

While some paint, some sew, some sing and some pluck a bow,

others gaze and others see, there are those who write that they perceive.

Turn your eyes and thoughts that a way-toward the stars, the earth, the light of dawning days,

For through the filtering of leafed trees, each mind will find that which it seeks.

Transient

A sad little feeling,
All day's been creeping,
and now is tinting
my world in blue.

Oh sad little feeling,
I hope you're fleeting,
and will swiftly

pass on through,
bid 'adieu!'