Existential Crisis

there are reasons why i don’t particularly like talking to strangers.  1st of all you can’t trust people because they lie. it’s not necessarily that people intend on doing it, but if put in a situation where lying is advantageous; people will lie. more importantly, i don’t like strangers talking to me.  let me explain.

yesterday afternoon i was minding my own business and i received a phone call from a number that was not saved in my addressbook.  ordinarily, i do not even answer these calls because all sorts of crazy things can happen.  but, i did.  the woman on the other line asked me who i was.  had i not been totally engrossed in the Kardashian wedding episode i may have given her a witty response, but i needed to get back to the drama on tv (cuz that’s where the drama should be).  she claimed it was a wrong number and i went about my business.  three phone calls later i finally answer and crazy on the other end wants to know how i know a person she knows and this person is her baby daddy…

DRAMATIC PAUSE….deep breath…sigh

now, i could go on a tirade about how i end all conversations with men when i find out that they have children…it’s usually my 2nd or 3rd question on the list after where are you from and what do.  but i’m working on not being so compartmentalized (cuz Nessa makes fun of me).

after a 20 minute conversation she may have gotten the point.  maybe not, but i offered some advice.  if you have to go through some underhanded means to get a phone number out of someone’s phonebook–you probably have trust issues and are bound to ruin your relationship (whatever that may be).  if you call someone to find out how they know your “baby daddy” you should probably stop and think about where you are and where you want to be as a person AND what kind of example your decisions are providing your child.  if you think that acting like a psycho baby mama will help to bring your baby daddy closer pause for a moment and remind yourself that you are not on an episode of jerry springer.

i can’t wait to go on vacation

i once held firmly to the belief that we are all destined for greatness and the choices we made during our lifetimes would determine whether or not our destiny would be fulfilled.  at some point in my life i stopped believing in myself.  instead of seeking my own path-that which would lead to my fulfillment of dreams-i chose to become a facilitator of others dreams a catalyst towards their greatness.  sometimes i feel as though i should be satisfied with helping others.  for as long as i can remember i was taught that to helping someone else is infinitely better than being selfish and just doing for yourself.  i have to admit…i’m not happy.  and, worst of all, i feel guilty for not being happy about it.  i want to be happy with myself because without that i will never be happy with someone else.  i need to reevaluate my current road and reconfigure my GPS to lead me back onto my own path towards greatness

i am incomplete.  in fact many things i begin remain incomplete because i find the finite notion of completion problematic.  it is not that i do not want to finish things, but the experience of doing i believe to be of greater significance than the act of completion.  i focus on the means not the ends.  this is apparently one of many forms my existential crisis reveals itself in my life. philosophically, i want things to continue…to be.  perhaps this is just my justification for not completing things, but i happen to do that well.

anyway, one of the many things i’ve begun…if you happen to read my blog with any consistency you’ll have to wonder which of the many i’m referring to…is reading the bible.  i believe it to be one of the most influential pieces of literature (and that’s not even taking into account the religious significance).  i’m not sure that i am able to appreciate both aspects at the same time because often they are at odds with one another.  for instance, reflection on the beautiful and skillful composition of language the text reads as a complex collection of epic tales.  the poetry flows seamlessly like a symphony–your eyes dance upon the page to the heart beat of blissful syntax.  looking beyond the beautifully crafted language to find the meaning within which it represents separates you from “the sublime” or how god is generally represented in literature.  so, if the whole point of reading is to bring you closer why ruin that with trying to decipher meaning?  ohhh the complexities!

¹¹Discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee:¹²To deliver thee from the way of the evil man, from the man that speaketh froward things;

¹³Who leave the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness;

¹⁴Who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness of the wicked;

¹⁵Whose ways are crooked, and they froward in their paths:

this passage from Proverbs 2:11-15 in the King James Version is beautiful with the complex composition of language.  in comparison, the NIV text below is easier to understand and at the same time less appealing.

Discretion will protect you, and understanding will guard you. Wisdom will save you from the ways of wicked men, from men whose words are perverse, who leave the straight paths to walk in dark ways, who delight in doing wrong and rejoice in the perverseness of evil, whose paths are crooked and who are devious in their ways.

this is of course my humble and unenlightened opinion

Music: breathing of statues. Perhaps

silence of paintings. You language where all language

ends. You time

sanding vertically on the motion of mortal hearts.

Feelings for whom? O you the transformation

of feelings into what?–: into an audible landscape.

You stranger: music.  You heart-space

grown out of us.  The deepest space in us,

which, rising above us, forces its way out,–

holy departure:

when the innermost point in us stands

outside, as the most practiced distance, as the other

side of the air:

pure,

boundless,

no longer habitable.

TO MUSIC by Rainer Maria Rilke

I had this love affair with language.  It began as a crush–a fascination from afar.  Words made me smile.  Then I learned about syntax, grammar and how the use or intentional misuse could intensify meaning.  It was meaning I was after.  It is meaning I still long for.  The words themselves are but representation of a thought–an emotion, an attempt to solidify an abstract.  Every so often I go back to my first love.  We steal a moment to reminisce on what once was, but is no more.  Now that I’ve cheated on my true love the tainted memories of my past remind me of what I’ve lost and how good it was to have had it at all.  Experience has made it easier for me to understand the language–to feel the emotions evoked by the words, but in grasping the meaning the simple beauty of the words themselves begins to wane.

hi, my name is kendy.  i find intimacy problematic.  i have trouble connecting with people beyond the superficial.  i allow myself to get close to others without them getting close to me.  then, if you happen to get close i use my interesting skill-set to push you away and having you think you didn’t really want to be near me at all.  i do this knowingly, but it is more of an out of body experience because i see it happening in slow motion without being able to stop it.  recently it has become worse. hmmmmm.  my closest friends are scattered throughout the world and while technology has allowed us to keep in touch i am able to keep them at bay.  i won’t even begin to discuss relationships with men because i am starting to believe that i may very well be socially inept…