Wednesday, June 08, 2011

Almost Falling

This is another one of those post post-modern posts that appears from time to time when I have too many fragments running in discord through my being.

There is meaning in some of what is symbolized below but it is also a load of ...

This morning I was driving to work as torrents of rain turned the freeway into an accident battlefield.  I started thinking that yesterday the same freeway was so much different in view.

The buckets of unseasonable rain and the resultant increase in Mzansi idiocy rearranged my view.  But did it really?

So much of what we see is a construction filtered through manipulated perceptions of what is and what is not real.  We are so subjective (and sadly subjected) and fragile in existential terms that even reality is not real and the other way around.

Satre and Camus and the rest of the "life is an absurdity" thinkers came close to how I feel this June morning and the other 563 months of life previous to this cold moment.

Over the weekend I had enough time to think about what it means to get older in Peter Pan mode and I came to some unreal and real observations.

I like being older.  It allows a certain distance from what is constructed as reality around me.  So, it is not that stuff does not mean too much or that I have grown patient over the years.

Nope.  A brutha just don't give a sh*t about stuff the way I did in my early twenties.  I have come to appreciate that life is mostly a f*cking farce with no real meaning other than the meaning you attach to it.

It is the quintessential absurdity.  Right can be left and black can be white.  And it can change to up or down and green and red too.

No constants.  Just waves in front of you and behind you.  The wave you catch is not meant for you or even a wave.

But it helps if you can tell yourself it was predetermined.  A manner of constructing meaning even while life lays bare most pretenses with every beat of your heart.

I like the images sent to me today (well yesterday and it was not sent to me since it was forwarded and the forwarder very rarely appears in my life other than being attached to the (un)reality of someone I once knew).


Like the woman I refuse to just grow-up into being old.  Old is a state of mind not being.

One last thread.  Ummmm ... there are others but this one is a constant in most of our lives.  I have been thinking about love and the manner of constructing love and being wiser (see I did not say old but you may read it as you please). I have realized that the great philosopher, Michael Jackson, summed it all up for me in a cut from his "Off the Wall Album" (1979).

I like the notion of making yourself so available and open to falling in love and wanting to love someone forever but I also know that relationships of that kind are tenuous at best and the inevitable is almost always too inevitable.

These lyrics cut like a hot knife through butter (the low fat kind too):
You're not like anybody I ever knew
But that don't mean that I don't know where we are
And though I find myself attracted to you

This time I'm trying not to go too far, 'cause
No matter how it starts it ends the same
Someone's always doing someone more
Trading in the passion for that taste of pain
It's only gonna happen again

It's the fallin' in love that's makin' me high
It's the being in love that makes me cry, cry, cry



Yeah and so I am moving to Cleveland, Ohio.  Far away from the present entanglement of meaning or trying to understand the game of constructing and deconstructing meaning.

I bet I will almost fall in love in Cleveland too ... one just never learns huh?

If only life was this simple.  It is for a few lucky folks.  The rest, well you know the inevitable pathology.


I hear they eat a lot of cucumber sandwiches in Cleveland!  Wonder what that may mean for race relations?

Onward!

Image Credits: Dunno

8 comments:

desert demons said...

Hey bro, long time...I guess in many ways we do create our reality(and I don't mean in a matrix movie way)but more in the way that we're given the opportunity to see the world for what it really is and yet we see the inherent beauty of creation, we remain hopeful & we strive for change like all those on right panel of you blog :) The rest of it sounds like a freezing JHB day that can be fixed with chocolate cake, a good sound track & a hot drink :)

Ridwan said...

Hi there DD:

Yesterday a perennial reader here sent me a text saying she loved your blog.

I had to agree :0)

Thanks for your words sista.

Hot chocolate huh?

I'm getting on that right now by leaving work wayyyyyyyy early.

Peace to ya,
Ridwan

Dade Cariaga said...

Cleveland?!?

The life of an academician, eh?

What a fabulously nuanced and thought-provoking piece. I like this new realm into which you're forging, Ridwan, my brother. Keep it up!

Ridwan said...

My brother Dade you are one of the kindest people I know (I mean that sincerely).

Too kind to me but I heartily accept.

The Cleveland part is a lame overworked metaphor for being too far and bland.

I should have known better but you know that already.

I miss PDX a lot and need to be there for a visit.

Trust you and the Mrs are well brother.

Great to hear from you.

Peace brother,
ridwan

Anonymous said...

Hyum. 'Scuze me for point this out but....
Michael Jacksons eyebrows are decidely untrustworthy. That's all I'm saying. Don't trust someone with a fake arch.
(and for once, in his case, it's both black. right and left.)

(AND the man had a place called Neverland!)

Pserean

onwards :P

Ridwan said...

P. you crack me up.

There are a lot of MJ fans out there just clenching their fists.

Make sure you take your sidearm with you to the bakery.

:0)

Onward! gunslinga.

ridwan

Aasia said...

I expect to meet you at least twice, before you leave our dusty shores. Love is everything and nothing. If it's real it's there and uncomplicated, being *ahem* wiser now. I see that. when you love, love whole heartedly

Ridwan said...

SLM Aasia:

Just twice? :0)

I can't wait to meet you and bionic arm gurl.

Yeah I hear on the love front ... who knows huh?

So you should be paying more mind to that book ... I'm serious.

Will holla.

Peace,
ridwan