If I told you, you had a destiny, what would you say? If I showed you, you had a path, would you see the way?
Can you hear the song of the raindrops in the streetlight’s sun? They cry out.
Symphonies are practiced cacophonies. What listener has poisoned their ears against the bass of precision. There is no question. Lingering on the page in black and white, their notes are a haunting memory. Messages were never bottled. Joys are their own ode. Noise begets noise begets noise. The wreckage is salvaged sensibility. The early fog is muted math. Everything is untitled. Salvation.
Can you smell the lingering of liquid dreams in the morning? They drift alone.
Garbage is a familiar bouquet. Where those subtle platforms take us, we leap. Gasping for the last of meaningful breath, signatures remain to distract. Cages of surrender are made by stifling scents. The rose has no more deadly thorn. Smoke follows fire. Perfume is never natural. Masks always smell the same. Heaven is a dreamless night. Hell is a sleepless one. Daydreams exist.
Can you taste the flavour of the afternoon wind? It feeds heartily.
Intoxication is a natural state. How ripe with contradiction, the krafted cuisine. Pesticides, the natural construction of organic matter bent on mass destruction. Health lay between the delicate balance of a habit and a hand grenade. Banquets are served on bodies. Minds are the hottest ovens. Nothing burns at the right temperature. Grass is a delicacy of open palms. Good sex fills you up. Souls are inebriated by finger foods.
Can you be moved by the expression of my soul?
Expression wants you. Existence wafts around the corner, to the tune of a turning world. Look to the reflection of transparent windows. The road not taken tastes sublime. When will you feel your arms stretch out? In the moments between here and there is eternity. The gods sit powerless. Happiness waits.
Mercury is the world’s tear. Do not weep.
- Z
Friday, January 29, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Fallen One
Have you ever read about someone in a book, had a favourite protagonist or antagonist that you envisioned a certain way, which did not look at all as you thought when it went to movie? My experience was kind of like that.
When I was elementary school age – grade 4 or 5 – I met a man who changed my life forever. He was hidden, not inside a book, but inside a game cartridge. One of those old plug and play ones that people make Facebook groups about. You know the ones that say “When I was your age, I had to blow on my video games to make them work”? I blew on this cartridge about a zillion times.
My brother and I bought it when it was new – it was called Final Fantasy 3 (well before the global markets chimed in and reminded us that it was an import from Japan, and was actually the 6th game in the series). As I recall, we split the cost 70/30, and it was my aunt who originally found the game in the big city and purchased it for us.
It was, what is now understood as, a stereotypical RPG. The lines were cheesy and on top of that, the translations didn’t always perfectly line up. The pixels were small and terrible causing an image that may have resembled, at some point in someone’s mind, a human being. And the music... the music had about 64 bits between the songs – it’s where I learned what a “midi file” sounded like, if that means anything to you.
But I fell in love. And all the beatitudes of love applied their rosey hue. I invented lines and hidden jokes when translation failed. I imagined the characters looking each other in the eye when they spoke, and none of them ever laughed at how stupid the other sounded. Each line was meaningful magic. The pixelated world-savers and villains re-moulded themselves in my brain, and transformed into elaborate magnificence. Each three-picture action was a movie in my mind. All the while, orchestras set the perfect moods.
There were lots of themes that, as a growing boy, I found endearing. The theme of love – platonic love, maternal and paternal love, romantic love. The theme of good vs evil, and the greyness therein. The corruption of man and a metaphor for nuclear weapons. And, of course, the vision of the self – 14 different characters with different lives, different passions, and different reasons to live. They all united, and they all saved the world. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was my first encounter with philosophy.
My main interlocutor was also the primary antagonist. Or as the kids say, the villain. His name was Kefka, and he was a power hungry nihilist. And since the beginning, I knew that he had a winning perspective. An outlook that questioned the very nature of “valuable existence.” He also had a cool laugh. While other children pretended they were Spiderman or Lex Luthor, I was him. I even made a shirt once with this glow-in-the-dark goop of the icon of his power and his name.
I still love him to this day. I love the questions he raised. I love the struggle to answer them. If C.S Lewis’ “Chronicles of Narnia” is the reason why I started to enjoy Christianity, Squaresoft’s Final Fantasy 3 was the reason I started to enjoy philosophy. I still don’t know if I’ve got what it takes to take him on. Every time I rally up a team, XP build (what the kids these days call “grinding”), and take them into the catastrophe of a tower that houses him, I read his words and feel unprepared. Like I’m fighting against truth.
Violence is a great way to solve disagreements, it’s true. No doubt about it, it gets things done. In this case, it saved the world. But it never solved the questions he asked.
In the remake, they redid the world in a few extra, beautiful, CG scenes. In those scenes, they made him a clown.
A fucking clown.
It’s probably closer to a court jester. They don’t show him too much. But my imagination never saw the man as a fool. Goofy? A little, certainly. Every villain’s gotta have a bit of humour. And the way he saw the world, for what it really was, he honestly and earnestly thought it was funny. Insane? Sure. People of his world thought he was a lunatic. And what he saw certainly overwhelmed him.
But he was no joke. He was never a man who lived to be silly. He lived with open eyes to the world’s silliness – in all its struggling and suffering and incompatibility with eternity. A very important distinction. He was a man that honestly challenged the nature of things, by bringing them to their extremes. He said “LOOK AT THIS” and when we said “what?”, being blind to our own hypocrisies, he said “I’LL SHOW YOU.” He was the kind of guy that watched Rome burn, not for fun, but because it was inevitable. I imagine he was the kind of guy that would think this world was just as laughable.
I was devastated. This thing, on the screen, was not Kefka. He was not my Kefka. He was a mockery. A pop-culture’s write off, instead of an attempt to make him identifiable. Recently, we saw the remake of Batman and the Joker in “Dark Knight”. There, the Joker – an actual jester – gave a phrase “I’m like a dog chasing cars... I would know what to do if I actually caught one!” The difference is that Kefka caught one, and he knew exactly what to do. That made him human, not a clown. And that makes him scary.
In the very end of the game, when Kefka goes on a tirade, he reveals his true nature. We learn a lot about who he really is there, in the final moment. A special kind of nihilist, he demands from his opposition the presentation of genuine meaning in the face of natural conflict and inevitable suffering. The climax of the story, our fair protagonists provide their answers of self-discovery, and we learn about their core motivations. Their answers, while endearing, noticeably struggle to do the job. And, when it is all over, it is only with the accompaniment of a phenomenal ending sequence and beautiful music that I can be lulled into thinking they are enough. Just enough.
In the end, I’ll remember Kefka with his royal green robes over his shoulders, not with make-up on his face. And I’ll remember that his laugh is a symbol of our madness, not his.
- Z
When I was elementary school age – grade 4 or 5 – I met a man who changed my life forever. He was hidden, not inside a book, but inside a game cartridge. One of those old plug and play ones that people make Facebook groups about. You know the ones that say “When I was your age, I had to blow on my video games to make them work”? I blew on this cartridge about a zillion times.
My brother and I bought it when it was new – it was called Final Fantasy 3 (well before the global markets chimed in and reminded us that it was an import from Japan, and was actually the 6th game in the series). As I recall, we split the cost 70/30, and it was my aunt who originally found the game in the big city and purchased it for us.
It was, what is now understood as, a stereotypical RPG. The lines were cheesy and on top of that, the translations didn’t always perfectly line up. The pixels were small and terrible causing an image that may have resembled, at some point in someone’s mind, a human being. And the music... the music had about 64 bits between the songs – it’s where I learned what a “midi file” sounded like, if that means anything to you.
But I fell in love. And all the beatitudes of love applied their rosey hue. I invented lines and hidden jokes when translation failed. I imagined the characters looking each other in the eye when they spoke, and none of them ever laughed at how stupid the other sounded. Each line was meaningful magic. The pixelated world-savers and villains re-moulded themselves in my brain, and transformed into elaborate magnificence. Each three-picture action was a movie in my mind. All the while, orchestras set the perfect moods.
There were lots of themes that, as a growing boy, I found endearing. The theme of love – platonic love, maternal and paternal love, romantic love. The theme of good vs evil, and the greyness therein. The corruption of man and a metaphor for nuclear weapons. And, of course, the vision of the self – 14 different characters with different lives, different passions, and different reasons to live. They all united, and they all saved the world. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was my first encounter with philosophy.
My main interlocutor was also the primary antagonist. Or as the kids say, the villain. His name was Kefka, and he was a power hungry nihilist. And since the beginning, I knew that he had a winning perspective. An outlook that questioned the very nature of “valuable existence.” He also had a cool laugh. While other children pretended they were Spiderman or Lex Luthor, I was him. I even made a shirt once with this glow-in-the-dark goop of the icon of his power and his name.
I still love him to this day. I love the questions he raised. I love the struggle to answer them. If C.S Lewis’ “Chronicles of Narnia” is the reason why I started to enjoy Christianity, Squaresoft’s Final Fantasy 3 was the reason I started to enjoy philosophy. I still don’t know if I’ve got what it takes to take him on. Every time I rally up a team, XP build (what the kids these days call “grinding”), and take them into the catastrophe of a tower that houses him, I read his words and feel unprepared. Like I’m fighting against truth.
Violence is a great way to solve disagreements, it’s true. No doubt about it, it gets things done. In this case, it saved the world. But it never solved the questions he asked.
In the remake, they redid the world in a few extra, beautiful, CG scenes. In those scenes, they made him a clown.
A fucking clown.
It’s probably closer to a court jester. They don’t show him too much. But my imagination never saw the man as a fool. Goofy? A little, certainly. Every villain’s gotta have a bit of humour. And the way he saw the world, for what it really was, he honestly and earnestly thought it was funny. Insane? Sure. People of his world thought he was a lunatic. And what he saw certainly overwhelmed him.
But he was no joke. He was never a man who lived to be silly. He lived with open eyes to the world’s silliness – in all its struggling and suffering and incompatibility with eternity. A very important distinction. He was a man that honestly challenged the nature of things, by bringing them to their extremes. He said “LOOK AT THIS” and when we said “what?”, being blind to our own hypocrisies, he said “I’LL SHOW YOU.” He was the kind of guy that watched Rome burn, not for fun, but because it was inevitable. I imagine he was the kind of guy that would think this world was just as laughable.
I was devastated. This thing, on the screen, was not Kefka. He was not my Kefka. He was a mockery. A pop-culture’s write off, instead of an attempt to make him identifiable. Recently, we saw the remake of Batman and the Joker in “Dark Knight”. There, the Joker – an actual jester – gave a phrase “I’m like a dog chasing cars... I would know what to do if I actually caught one!” The difference is that Kefka caught one, and he knew exactly what to do. That made him human, not a clown. And that makes him scary.
In the very end of the game, when Kefka goes on a tirade, he reveals his true nature. We learn a lot about who he really is there, in the final moment. A special kind of nihilist, he demands from his opposition the presentation of genuine meaning in the face of natural conflict and inevitable suffering. The climax of the story, our fair protagonists provide their answers of self-discovery, and we learn about their core motivations. Their answers, while endearing, noticeably struggle to do the job. And, when it is all over, it is only with the accompaniment of a phenomenal ending sequence and beautiful music that I can be lulled into thinking they are enough. Just enough.
In the end, I’ll remember Kefka with his royal green robes over his shoulders, not with make-up on his face. And I’ll remember that his laugh is a symbol of our madness, not his.
- Z
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Dedication
“It takes a community to raise a child.” I believe it. But then I begin to wonder when we stop being a child. Is it when we move out? When we first have sex? How about when we turn 18 or when we get our first job? Maybe it’s when we have a child of our own. Christ says we should never stop being like a child. Perhaps we never do.
Something tells me it "takes a community" for a lot longer than we think.
Tomorrow morning I’m going to a Baby Dedication. My pants are hot out of the dryer, and while they’re a little ratty around the edges, they are the nicest “comfortable pants” I have. I’ve already fussed about the possible wrinkles in the shirt I would like to wear. I don’t know exactly what to expect, but as a general rule, I try to look nice when I go to a church. It’s not a fear of God thing, just politeness. You take off your hat when you enter a house, even if no one’s home.
A Baby Dedication. My mind wandered and wondered (as it usually does with ceremonies, traditions, and celebrations), and I realized how little I knew about the event. Are we dedicating the baby, like we’d dedicate a book or an award? Seems awfully objectifying. Upon re-reading the invitation I learned that it’s more of a dedication to the child, not of the child. The parents are dedicating themselves to raising the child with strong and proper Christian values, in front of the glory of God, and asking Him to dedicate His own watchful eye to the raising of the kid. That makes a lot more sense.
It’s also a lot more endearing. Any ceremony that calls forth a public display of unity for the sake of a person’s well-being is okay in my books. And I can’t think of a better reason to celebrate. What we dedicate our lives to is more than just a passing fancy: alongside ceremonious oaths, it is the very motivation of our being.
But then it seems to be a prickly thing; the very word “dedication” inspires a sense of drudgery and duty. Dedication is the thing that involves a lot of work and effort. Toil and trouble. On the surface, it sounds exactly like being trapped.
But I have a friend who has these goofy baby pictures... her child in oversized traveller’s hats and outrageous scholarly glasses. As I look at them, I’m reminded of the power that’s found (and expressed!) in dedication. When we dedicate ourselves to pursuits and passions, we empower ourselves to take on more than we did before. In doing so, we become more than we were.
We have the opportunity to dedicate ourselves to whatever we’d like: the moral or immoral, pleasure or prudence, the meaningful or the relative. We can become artists, dedicated to a pursuit of the aesthetic. We can become scholars, dedicated to a pursuit of some knowledge. And, in the case of my two friends tomorrow, we can be parents, dedicating ourselves to the raising of a child.
We do not become Christians by going to church, but by dedicating ourselves to the teachings, glory and leadership of Christ.
Living takes dedication. It’s sometimes easy to believe that, when we don’t dedicate ourselves to something with a grandiose label, we aren’t living at all. Recently, I have dedicated myself to playing through old video games. Not a world changing pastime. And as I see my friends buy houses and have children, I wonder if I have let myself slip. A friend, over breakfast, suggests the same about his life, using the opening words “I wish...” and I begin to hear the most common North American sonata in our tones.
But we should remember 2 facts. The first is that no dedication is without its value. Dedications are multi-faceted, and can span over years. They can become hidden, latent or docile. The same one can also take many different forms over different experiences. A father provides, for example, but will provide in many different ways over the course of his child’s life.
The second is that we, too, are children. We can always put on a goofy traveller’s hat.
And so, as I stand folding tomorrow’s shirt, thinking over what I have to offer in private dedication tomorrow to a child that won’t understand what I’m saying, before a God I don’t think exists... an old, familiar, personal dedication creeps into my brain and reminds me that it is still there.
Truth.
Let it sound however it might to your ears. To mine it has all the enchantment, foundation and excitement of real value. It is an anchor and an updraft. My rock and my cloud. It is something of ultimate importance to me, that helps me to define who I am and elevate my self into something more.
Tomorrow, parents and family and friends dedicate themselves to a young child who is of ultimate importance to them. And, as he grows, I cannot wait to see what he will dedicate himself to.
- Z
Something tells me it "takes a community" for a lot longer than we think.
Tomorrow morning I’m going to a Baby Dedication. My pants are hot out of the dryer, and while they’re a little ratty around the edges, they are the nicest “comfortable pants” I have. I’ve already fussed about the possible wrinkles in the shirt I would like to wear. I don’t know exactly what to expect, but as a general rule, I try to look nice when I go to a church. It’s not a fear of God thing, just politeness. You take off your hat when you enter a house, even if no one’s home.
A Baby Dedication. My mind wandered and wondered (as it usually does with ceremonies, traditions, and celebrations), and I realized how little I knew about the event. Are we dedicating the baby, like we’d dedicate a book or an award? Seems awfully objectifying. Upon re-reading the invitation I learned that it’s more of a dedication to the child, not of the child. The parents are dedicating themselves to raising the child with strong and proper Christian values, in front of the glory of God, and asking Him to dedicate His own watchful eye to the raising of the kid. That makes a lot more sense.
It’s also a lot more endearing. Any ceremony that calls forth a public display of unity for the sake of a person’s well-being is okay in my books. And I can’t think of a better reason to celebrate. What we dedicate our lives to is more than just a passing fancy: alongside ceremonious oaths, it is the very motivation of our being.
But then it seems to be a prickly thing; the very word “dedication” inspires a sense of drudgery and duty. Dedication is the thing that involves a lot of work and effort. Toil and trouble. On the surface, it sounds exactly like being trapped.
But I have a friend who has these goofy baby pictures... her child in oversized traveller’s hats and outrageous scholarly glasses. As I look at them, I’m reminded of the power that’s found (and expressed!) in dedication. When we dedicate ourselves to pursuits and passions, we empower ourselves to take on more than we did before. In doing so, we become more than we were.
We have the opportunity to dedicate ourselves to whatever we’d like: the moral or immoral, pleasure or prudence, the meaningful or the relative. We can become artists, dedicated to a pursuit of the aesthetic. We can become scholars, dedicated to a pursuit of some knowledge. And, in the case of my two friends tomorrow, we can be parents, dedicating ourselves to the raising of a child.
We do not become Christians by going to church, but by dedicating ourselves to the teachings, glory and leadership of Christ.
Living takes dedication. It’s sometimes easy to believe that, when we don’t dedicate ourselves to something with a grandiose label, we aren’t living at all. Recently, I have dedicated myself to playing through old video games. Not a world changing pastime. And as I see my friends buy houses and have children, I wonder if I have let myself slip. A friend, over breakfast, suggests the same about his life, using the opening words “I wish...” and I begin to hear the most common North American sonata in our tones.
But we should remember 2 facts. The first is that no dedication is without its value. Dedications are multi-faceted, and can span over years. They can become hidden, latent or docile. The same one can also take many different forms over different experiences. A father provides, for example, but will provide in many different ways over the course of his child’s life.
The second is that we, too, are children. We can always put on a goofy traveller’s hat.
And so, as I stand folding tomorrow’s shirt, thinking over what I have to offer in private dedication tomorrow to a child that won’t understand what I’m saying, before a God I don’t think exists... an old, familiar, personal dedication creeps into my brain and reminds me that it is still there.
Truth.
Let it sound however it might to your ears. To mine it has all the enchantment, foundation and excitement of real value. It is an anchor and an updraft. My rock and my cloud. It is something of ultimate importance to me, that helps me to define who I am and elevate my self into something more.
Tomorrow, parents and family and friends dedicate themselves to a young child who is of ultimate importance to them. And, as he grows, I cannot wait to see what he will dedicate himself to.
- Z
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