narrative
presence, absence, how am i who i am?
[note to self: still a rough bunch of ideas. iron them out further?]
--
thinking of calling a friend tonight... putting it off, procrastinating. distance "makes the heart fonder" but it also increases the separation between people. i like her just as much as i did when we first
hung out over the summer, but it is difficult to recall that threshold of comfortable closeness that we had reached when i disappeared from her life for the past few months.
for a sense of the "hi again" conversation, i turned mental images on and imagined a conversation. her face, her voice, both of us groping about for amiably short questions that opportune extended answers and witty stories. pre-visualization, in a sense...
she asks me where i've been, what i've been doing. three sentences later, my mind runs out of words. strange, just yesterday an hour passed in conversation about this and that before realizing where the time had gone. but of course, in that case the questions had been mostly mine, and the answers his.
narrative.
a story told from a particular perspective. consecutive events formed into a cohesive whole along a timeline.
question: do i have anything to talk about?
obvious answer: of course i do.
caveat: the more i
try, the less i remember.
why do i have to try to remember? in other words, why do i stop myself from simply telling my story?
one possible answer is self-censorship. trying to come up with acceptable thoughts that the other person won't feel are offensive or strange. this is more a matter of socialization than anything else -- putting on a public face, so to speak, and yet, it feels easier for me to do this with some people than with others.
what exactly is that "face" composed of, then?
like wrinkles and tics, a person's history, as they see it, reveals their self-image as well as their past. it would seem, then, that living "in the moment" is not enough; constant molding of one's sense of the past is necessary as well. during the course of my introspections, i tend to use experience not for it's own sake, but rather to extrapolate an understanding of human qualities as they might apply to other situations as well. for example, researching the reasons behind shyness when speaking to a girl that i know. that shyness is an example of a larger piece in the puzzle. in this way, my self-perception seems more a series of case studies rather than a running soap opera.
it seems that conversation can be used to display [deceptively or truthfully] of one's skill in self-analysis. speaking to others is generally a process of relating to them, seeing oneself in the abstract, telling one's own story as if from
without. this kind of interactive self-portrait can serve as a means to understanding a person's relationship to the world -- namely, whether they prefer to dominate or submit, to act or react. a strong person appears "self-possessed" ; with full understanding of the past, this individual is able to chart a relatively reliable course into the future. prediction, in a social environment, is as important as expression, if not more so. i approach mastery within an
oppositional context and a
holistic context.
the slave only exists by using external opposition as a mirror; competition and "us/them" distinction is the primary tool for understanding. a slave needs someone to fight, a war against other men, nature, or self-directed hatred. the masochistic drive to succeed defines the slave's sense of perfection, if only due to the impossibility of attaining that perfection. in an eternal struggle, the slave alternates between domination and submission, ecstasy and fear. he lives as close to the moment as possible, and therefore is a slave to his desires.
the master needs no external opposition to create an accurate sense of self. sees himself clearly, dealing with others as equals; no intrinsic part of himself is defeated should he "lose" or make a mistake. he lives on his own terms, using self-defined limitations through the interpretation of experience. he cannot be destroyed by failure, and so is not driven by fear of it. thus he can act independently, toward his own sense of truth.
the 'perfect' or enlightened man is normal, flawless, entirely ordinary; not "perfect" but without problems [therefore, in essence, perfect, but without condescension or pejorative comparison with others].
he uses his own mind as a mirror for his actions, living in the world but not a product of the world [see: takuan? zengetsu?]. self-knowledge, then, is not a process of accumulation, but of reduction -- the mirror is originally clear, but is clouded by dust. this mirror of the self must be polished day by day such that at some point, it spontaneously becomes clear; all flaws cease as part of the natural passing of time and habitual effort.
the goal is not the
annihilation of the self, but rather the perfection of the process of self-perfection. in the process of learning to see himself clearly, he also realizes [at some level] that the self is simply an image reflecting outward. the person who is perfecting that self is the actually the mirror rather than the subject of the mirror's transposition. the self reflects but has no reflection, because it is the thing doing the reflecting. given the realization of the subjectivist fallacy, he can then manipulate the reflection as needed.
hence the term "self-perfection" is contradictory -- how can one "perfect" oneself? if there is perfection, it must be perceived from a perfect mind, and yet, barring esoteric ideas [solving a mystery by
evoking a mystery], there is no perfect mind unless that mind is beyond the qualities that it judges.
to perfect oneself then means to find the emptiness of the self that strives, changing one's character in accordance with the mirror, rather than some endless
inferiority complex, analogous to the nietzschean "slave" mentality.
perfection is to see the balanced state within systems that are, from external view,
disequilibrious [sp?].
this "mirror-gaze" is distinct from narcissism in that the mirror is not a medium through which the self is adored; rather, the mirror itself is the true self, outside of the qualities that drive the narcissist to distraction. "self-love" is not loving the mirror-image, it is understanding the changeable nature of the attributes that a person accumulates in the
desperate search for self. finding the self is an implicit process of comprehension -- comprehension of "me" as entirely ordinary, realizing that "me" is a universal quality, regardless of social station or the trappings of a particular culture/power structure. it is to unconsciously find a place for all the pieces of the puzzle and accept them where they eventually fall.
the narrative, then, becomes a reflection of one's ability to move beyond his own perspective and to become one among many, able to reflect the aspects of his experience that are most amenable to his audience. he does not strive to "control" himself, but rather to apply effort to the situation at hand in accordance with the understanding of context derived from past experience.
i suppose that the key to avoiding self-censure is to engage in as broad a range of activities as possible. there are too many interesting people in the world to limit myself to those who already share experiences with me. of course, finding new people leads to new experiences, which makes me wonder whether this mirror of mine will ever be truly polished...
for now, sleep.
--
postscript: i called her. we talked for about an hour... go figure ;)