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.

Arthur Miller - Take One's Life in One's Arms

I think it's a mistake to ever look for hope outside of one's self. One day the house smells of fresh bread, the next of smoke and blood. One day you faint because the gardener cuts his finger off, within a week you're climbing over corpses of children bombed in a subway. What hope can there be if that is so? I tried to die near the end of the war. The same dream returned each night until I dared not to go to sleep and grew quite ill. I dreamed I had a child, and even in the dream I saw it was my life, and it was an idiot, and I ran away. But it always crept onto my lap again, clutched at my clothes. Until I thought, if I could kiss it, whatever in it was my own, perhaps I could sleep. And I bent to its broken face, and it was horrible...but I kissed it. I think one must finally take one's life in one's arms.

Arthur Miller
from the play After the Fall

Pictures from the White Desert.

So upon reader-request (haha! imagine the pomposity of saying that) I've put up some pictures of the White Desert - past bahriyya. It was the most beautiful part of our trip - First we crossed these slopes made black by the presence of iron. Then the night was spent sleeping under the stars in the desert full of these 'mushroom' like limestone formations. Zeugens, indeed, they are called.

Already since, have been to the Dusshehra party where we did a lot of dancing! Have pictures to post up of that too!

being and time in bahriyyaa, the white desert

'twas fun, i say. Went with Nathalie and her friends from Ireland and Scotland, and Raoul. Stayed one night at a hotel in Bahriyya. Saw palms - plucked and ate dates, had fitaar outside after fasting time. But the topper was the second day when we went out into the White Desert and saw the place with 'zeugens' (i think), mushroom-shaped formations of limestone eroded by wind. Lurvely!

The girls were in love, or at least drooling after the taxi driver, who I must say was a great character, very giving and nice, and sober - not weird or perverted at all - such a refreshing change from the touristy scene in egypt. We met two italians, one of them had eyes to die for. I shared a taxi with him back home. He was so nice, but he didn't ask for my number - he might've wanted to, though (or that's what i tell myself).

One of the guys i have a crush on though hasn't called/written back to my text message, and I'm going to further anonymise this blog lol :) Cannot go on like zeees.

Am listening to Jack Johnson and its heavenly :) I'm going to download it onto my pc so i can listen in more :)

cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeers from the chi :) will post bahriyya pictures. Oh and I saw my first SHOOTING STAR! yay.. heavenly indeed it was! :)

reconnaissance..

..with the page (on the web).

Its been a long, long while. And I kind of worry that my neighbour clicking keys next to me will see the screen. I'm a very shy kind of a person. I really want to anonymise this blog now. Parading my words is exhibitionism enough.

Maggie's been writing so well on her blog, makes me feel ashamed for having stayed away so long, and she notices enough to know that I've been away, and she's always there encouraging. Maggie, the cheerleader. She knows what's important to me; somehow its so easy to see it when you're someone else looking into another life.

Talking about looking from the outside, I was looking at Zamalek going over the bridge, and then I realised that I was looking at a scene from the 'outside', a point that could be said to be objective. But even this objectivity - where you could see things in their surrounding - had a point of view. I could see the same island from another side, from on top from above like a map - it could have all these different angles, and different inclusions and exclusions. Even occlusions, things that it hid - its blind spots.

I took out this thick book from my brother's library on "Do What You Are". Some sort of career guidance book - and its so darn thick I could make a career reading it. I wish these things came in easy-to-read bullet-form pamphlets, titled so: "How to decide on your marriage partner". "Knowing the right career for you". "Knowing when to kick that person out of your life". "Saying NO" - although the latter should come in a three-step process. Breathe in. Say NO. Now smile, and feel accomplished my child.

I read The Little Prince recently. In fact, its in my bag and I am reading "Letter to a Hostage" by the same author. I feel like I haven't been reading many books, maybe I should keep track and that way I will know that I am reading, and doing things, even though it feels like I haven't been.

Also, I quit the job at the Egyptian Gazette. A lot of hum-hawing that ended up in Breathe in, say no, feel accomplished. I think I made the right decision though. I hope what's coming is better.