6.05.2011

'to keep our metaphysics warm'

i wrote this post. deleted this post,
rewrote it.

it's not poetry. ok?
i just got done with an remarkably fascinating conversation with pedro about life, God and the possible connections. pedro thinks i'm wrong; right to be doing what i'm doing, but wrong.

it's really earth-shaking to be called wrong. i'm going to savor this moment.


..


i love conversations. they can be a phenomenal way to have my worldviews shaken up. they are the best way to learn that i'm wrong. wrong.

we get to talk a lot, the world and me. mostly we are fumbling through the bare basics of affirmation of somebody or somebody else - patting backs and shaking hands; stepping on toes and apologizing.

it's hard to get through the formalities; and even when you do, there is always the possibility of a fatal incompatibility of core values. this can manifest in an equally deadly shallowness:

shallow in all the wrong ways, we talked gucci, light beers and mcdonald's menu items for half an hour. "life's a bitch!" she concluded, up to her ankles in the most carelessly polluted puddle of it.

sometimes i think, half serious: 'there goes our life together; into the need-driven self-affirming worship of personal preference.' or something....

but people like pedro have this liberating influence on my curiosity. it's very important that i'm able to work with thoughts in a social setting, my thoughts and other peoples'; i need to be told i'm wrong about things.

this might give you a sense of why i so intensely value intellectual debate.  i love it more than bob dylan. in a few very important ways, this blog is one such conversation. and here are a couple more:

life stories in sentences and symphonies. this blog is a trip. michael's prose is engaging, and his poetry is achingly visceral. personal tone pervades every second, as he attains fervently to vulnerability. the resulting beauty is resolutely human.

melody's postmodernist prose and textmessage poems (formally wonder/wander) is such a great triumph of conversational style. she's not explicitly assumptive, but she sure doesn't explain herself either. there are contained within her posts deep metaphysical mysteries that she thought of while riding her bike to the store or sipping wine out in the garden. melody doesn't even own an ivory tower, but if she did she would be sitting in the window, playing music for the birds.


this bike and i took shelter from the rain storm at the park.

2 comments:

  1. Seriously Joel, that made me want to cry a little bit lol. I cant say that I've ever received a more powerful compliment. I'm honored to know you, sir.

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  2. @michael: very honored to know you as well. vulnerability is out of fashion for some very good reasons, but i think it can be worthwhile.

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