What I fear most, I think, is the death of the imagination. When the sky outside is merely pink, and the rooftops merely black: that photographic mind which paradoxically tells the truth, but the worthless truth, about the world. It is that synthesizing spirit, that "shaping" force, which prolifically sprouts and makes up its own worlds with more inventiveness than God which I desire. If I sit still and don't do anything, the world goes on beating like a slack drum, without meaning. We must be moving, working, making dreams to run toward, the poverty of life without dreams is too horrible to imagine: it is that kind of madness which is worst: the kind with fancies and hallucinations would be a Bosch-ish relief. I listen always for footsteps coming up the stairs and hate them if they are not for me. Why, why, can I not be an ascetic for a while, instead of always teetering on the edge of wanting complete solitude for work and reading, and, so much, so much, the gestures of hands and words of other human beings. Well, after this Racine paper, this Ronsard purgatory, this Sophocles, I shall write: letters and prose and poetry, toward the end of the week; I must be stoic till then.
(published in "Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams")
how do you find out or search for specific works by other people that absolutely describe what you're feeling? i've been having a hard time constructing something too original that describes what i'm really feeling... :)
ReplyDeletei think i write like shit...(for a lack of better words) :P
i'm getting bored of just talking...
This is exactly what I feel. Haha! Slyvia Plath is great. You know I've been trying to get a hold of Virginia Woolf's diaries. Do you know where to find such? Have you heard of Indigo Girls' song called Virginia Woolf? Ganda noon.
ReplyDeleteI think it's cuz she reads a lot Megs. Haha! I wish I had more time to read like her.
ReplyDeletei haven't actually read That many books, haha. i actually own more than 3 books i haven't read until now. but i read a lot online too, and usually i find quotes and excerpts, and if i like it, i go out and get the book. so my little collection here at home is really select and i wouldn't be able to let go of any of them. the sad thing is, a lot of the stuff i find online, i can't in the bookstores :(
ReplyDeletein the big online world it's not that difficult to find work that hits me, because we're all human and we pretty much feel the same thing. the same things hit that spot, and people share them.
what do you mean getting bored of "just talking" ? you mean a la "constantly talking isn't necessarily communicating" (eternal sunshine heh heh) ? because i don't know. another reason why i write is because i want to talk to people. i think of my audience too.
oui, i love sylvia plath! though i haven't read the bell jar... hahaha. AHHHH i have been looking for Virginia Woolf's diaries ever since i read michael cunningham's "the hours" (which was so beautiful). it's one of the books i hope to find at the oh so magnificent sounding 5-floor Fully Booked. same goes for the unabridged journals of sylvia plath. and a whole long list more.
ReplyDeletei've heard Of the song, but i haven't heard it. i think it was when i looked up virginia woolf on wikipedia. heh. if you have it, do send :D
ur still ol??? ur invi ba?
ReplyDeletei sneaked online, haha. only for a while. i have exams today and only have to be in school at noon.
ReplyDeleteoh yeah, i saw the movie "everything is illuminated" on hbo yesterday. it's pretty cool. i love the shots. i remember you have a blog entry of an excerpt from that book.
ReplyDeleteyeah...that's what i meant, you answered my question. i kinda figured you get them online coz you can't be serious typing directly from the book all the time. like what? you google it? :)
what i meant is that i want to be able to quote someone that says exactly what i'm feeling. i've searched online, but haven't really found exactly what i'm looking for. they just don't really fit exactly. but then again, i'm a pretty tough customer meaning if there's one single (even small) detail that doesn't fit, off to the next until i get frustrated and "just talk" like the use of conversational english in my blogs. when i try to construct something, it just frustrates me on how it sounds like crap, so if it came from someone else talking about something about them that i could relate to, then i don't have to blame myself on how i can be such a failure in some things in life.
Everything Is Illuminated <3
ReplyDeletethough the film really left out SO much. if you thought it was cool, you should READ. THE. BOOK. it will fucking blowwww you awayyy.
oh, whatever i post up here is from a book i own! or at least already read. hahaha. i try not to post it unless i've already read the whole book, so i can answer questions if ever i am faced with them.
my favorite places for excerpts here and here. maybe you're just not looking in the right places. i hope you find something from those two sites there. go wild. :)
sounding like crap doesn't depend on whether you use conversational english or not. bill gates' commencement speech at harvard was said in perfectly simple english, yet the impact is a thousand fold. it all boils down to wordplay, meggie!
though i do know how you feel. right now i can't construct anything that i'm remotely happy with. sigh.
yeah, the movie did seem to miss out. i looked at your blog entry and don't remember hearing it in the movie. i'll check out powerbooks when exam week is over.
ReplyDeletethanks for the links. i love in one of them where you could open the book. it would make it easier for me to book shop coz i have a hard time just browsing through a bookstore. at that moment while i look around and read a few pages, it seems like a good read but when i get home, it's nothing really exciting or the other way around: boring but given time and attention...pretty good.
i have sooo much reading for medical school i can't even explain it. there's always so much and i don't really get to use it in conversations with friends. i end up sounding like a nerd or whatever or people shut me down by saying things like: why are we talking about this? i'm the only one who seems to be interested.
i read his speech. he brought up one of my major concerns and what i want to do with my career. i want to do research for either cancer or AIDS. i think instead of treating one patient and ending there...by doing medical research, there is a bigger and more significant impact in society. it would have a ripple effect kind of thing that will last generations even after i'm gone.
yeah...try writing something original. genuinely from the heart. i think that would be interesting. :)
i was really, really disappointed when i realized the film didn't cover much of the book. le sigh. but i guess covering Everything in that masterpiece would be near impossible under a typical movie time frame, because there's sooo much going on in the book. i hope you get the book and find the time to read it! it will be worth (procrastinating for [pretend you didn't read this]) it, trust me. :D
ReplyDeleteand, the translator's character is a lot funnier in the book. hahaha.
aww that sucks about your bookstore time. i spend hourrrsss at bookstores, just browsing through everything. usually until my neck starts to hurt. haha. but yeah i usually already have authors in mind because of looking things up online, so that helps too. there is A LOT of stuff on the two sites i gave you, and if you go to their tag list they arrange everything by author, and title.
i think medical stuff is actually pretty interesting. though i'm pretty sure i'll never take it up, i like hearing about it. right now i'm trying to remember the author i've read that makes a lot of medical and scientific inferences... give me until the end of this reply :D
gates' speech really hit me. it was so ironic, because only a few days before i read it, i had to write an essay based on the theme "a better world" for school. and i had THE HARDEST time writing it, because i had so much to say and didn't know where to start. and then came The Speech and my jaw just dropped. everything was there. at first i was a bit bummed i couldn't come up with it, but felt better afterwards because even though it didn't come from me, at least it got out. someone had already said it.
while we're on the topic of commencement speeches - this might interest you as well :)
author i mentioned earlier - chuck palahniuk (brain child of "Fight Club" - loved the movie? read the book), although i think it varies with the books. i think medical terms were used in "Choke". chemistry thingers in "Fight Club". haha.
yeah i keep hearing people having "Fight Club" as their favorite books. i'll check it out. it seems like something i would read.
ReplyDeletei loved that commencement speech. it's even better than gates' even if it's much simpler and uses conversational english that's much simpler than what gates used. i think that thoughts reinforced with actual life experience is much stronger than thoughts on things never experienced before. and, i guess i'm a little bit biased too since i'm using a mac now and i absolutely think it's sensational! i don't think i'm going back to a pc after this.
if you were to be "foolish" like what stern was saying, what would you do? :)