Indecision

The other day I met up with a professor and we spoke about T. S. Eliot's notion of the "objective correlative", which holds that ideas must arise from some solid substance out there. That notions like love needed gestures to express them, not just words and thoughts. Eliot did not make much of Hamlet's indulgent thoughts of the "To be or not to be" nature, and said that all that contemplation was really to use Shakespeare's own words, 'much ado about nothing'. The melancholia was superfluous, all mind, no matter.

To be, or not to be - that is the question:-
Well written, no doubt.

The above is 'objective correlative' to my (re)current contemplation of 'to be' and more precisely, 'what to be'. That is the question, again.

Would a role model be an 'objective correlative' to that question?

So what this chi(ck) has been doing more recently, besides playing with words on Literati Yahoo! Games, is reading up here and there, bits of a very thick career guidebook "Do What You Are", bits of Richard Feynman's "The Meaning of It All" (I like to say that in a mouthy sort of way, the meaning awf itt awl), and Kay Redfield Jamison's "An Unquiet Mind" (which I'm reading in an unusually front-to-back fashion, as has been known to happen before).

My sarcasm doesn't even spare me. It creates the 'much ado' in my life that Hamlet could do without.

The books that I have been reading bring me back again and again to the question, of 'why am i here?' and repeatedly I have the compelling need to answer, to just give any answer, as a parent may feel often when answering children's queries. I suppose you don't tell them, 'there is no answer'. I suppose you tell them, "you'll find out". The more honest ones perhaps go, "I don't know". That's what Feynman says in the book very attractively titled "The Meaning of it All". "I don't know". But there is hope, he says, to be derived from knowing that we don't know, because then we are open to revision. We are open to new directions, unlike those stubbornly attached to an idea, which may sometimes as history has shown, he says, lead to "monstrosities". Why does that sound like a euphemism? Lead to monstrosities. Its not really euphemistic.

Back to point at hand, I'm really good at those 'bla be not bla' asides/interior monologues/soliloquys (then again, what is a blog?). And there we go again.

Back to point. So I really can't see the 'meaning of it awl' anyhow, not yet. And being at this point of indecision, is not a very comforting place to be. "You have so many options" makes me agoraphobic. I want two options. I want one, and I want it to be the *right* option.

Now I've tried writing. And I was very happy. More than anything, I think I needed to know that I could do it. That I could have a career at writing if I so chose. Well, its not like I succeeded at having a career and its not like I made a lot of money, but I know it can be done, and I know I can do it. That was what was needed. Now that I know that, suddenly I'm not as enthusiastic about doing it anymore. Or more precisely, I want another challenge. I want depth. I want to write about something meaningful to me. I want to write about depression, precisely. And Hamlet is such a good example. No wonder I think, that Herr Sigmund Freud turned to literature for inspiration. Hamlet and Oedipus. The language of psychology. I wonder if there is a therapy that revolves around words, since Freud and Lacan specifically believed that words, and languages were essential to the workings of the mind.

Options that arise are:
- Study: Psychology and Literature would be a good area of study.
- Work: I'm still waiting to hear from the AUC Writing Instructor position. Then again, I still hve to submit my transcripts from UIUC.

Maybe both can be one, thanks to the hyphen that unites work-study.
And writing, I wouldn't call it an option. Where would I be (with all the hamletian overtone) without it?

Love, Chitra

Its funny how I rarely sign off with that, anywhere. There was a time when that was the only sign-off one used. :)

So I get an anonymous entry to 'write'. I guess i know who it may be. :)

I applied to the AUC Writing Program today and asked 3 former professors for references. Two of them replied the same day - today - and said of course they'd be happy to. I am so thankful - these are times when I feel blessed to know the people that I do. Sometimes, I feel so poor in not being able to give enough, to these people, to the world for being so, so wonderful. I guess I can only give back by striving to be the qualities that these people embody in my life. Compassion, warmth, inspiration.

and Love.

I want to end right here, because it would be such a poetic sign-off, and I love moving in circles, but I really want something off my chest.

Maggie's been missing. Well, she's not gone missing, but I kinda miss her. I had a stupid fight with her, but I did feel I had some reason to begin it. I just hope we get back to normal soon. (if you're reading this know that i love you).

cheers,
chi (that's how i normally sign off)

sadness today....gone tomorrow?

I just shouldn't have had the wine and the punch at the party last night. Nothing very embarrassing happened except me spilling wine (twice) and breaking glass (once) at the table, and I'm clumsy enough to do that without drink.

Its just that I realised how incredible drunkenness makes you look. in-credible as in unreliable, as in dumb. Anything you say is suspect, anything you do looks ridiculous.

I am being harsh with myself - it wasn't too bad. I was just too loud for my own liking. Next time, I don't go beyond one glass. Driving, not driving, in company, without company. I like respect my non-drunk self *much* better.