so, while i have been consistently "practice-writing" per natalie goldberg (yes, i'm on that track again), as before, i find that sort of writing is not fit for any sort of publication or even re-reading by myself.  it is mostly stream-of-consciousness stuff.  it rarely gets deeper than any momentary and fragmentary thought that passes into my head.  this always inspires frustration in me, and reflects a general problem in my life: this idea that there IS no story "existent" within me, that there is no shape or landscape that i can "express."  this means that any narrative that i construct would be wholly contrived, and what i've found is that i am not a good "contriver."  as it is, writing stories is an artificial process, and produces an artificial construct; how then, if there is no skeleton, no core, upon which to hang these rags and curtains?

ANYWAY, i figure that blogging is a good intermediary step.  while probably NO ONE reads this, there is this idea that someone does, or that potentially someone could.  and with the introduction of even the possibility of another, there is an immediate imposition of structure to my words.  i used to write about this sort of thing back in college.  i always wondered about the "ordering" of the world, not just the real world, but also the world of consciousness.  i (like many philosophers) primarily were motivated to understand this point because of their frustration with the world-as-ordered, especially because it came with a lot of existential guilt.  understanding how the conscious world-as-ordered formed would, they believed, help to free them from this guilt.

ANYWAY (as i have a tendency here to go off on large tangents)...  that's what i'm trying to do here.

***

i watched a great movie yesterday.  it was called "a monster calls."  it's about a young, imaginative, artistic boy (or should i say adolescent, not a boy, not a man) with a mother dying of cancer.  it deals with a lot of the anger and frustration and grief and, most importantly, guilt, that lies festering within him.  he calls out to a "monster", a giant humanoid that springs out of a yew tree that the boy can see atop a high field (graveyard, actually).  the monster visits him at 12:07 (i still almost come up with reasons for that particular number) and tells him paradoxical, ambiguous stories that have muddled (and multi-layered) interpretations.

it was a great, wise, touching movie.  most notably, i loved the use of the stories, which the boy (and the viewers) interpret on the surface; various interpretations, including how to deal with an imposing grandmother, or a "good start bad finish" father.  ultimately, though, the monster, like a zen master, is using the stories to point to the boy's own unresolved issues, particularly his guilt.  this guilt comes out when the boy is forced by the monster to tell the fourth story: his own particular nightmare.

***

i often wonder if there is a secret wound within me.  i seek it out.  i debase myself continually (because i do think that there is a lot of hate within me).  but there is a point where i lose focus.  and nothing comes up.  that is the key: that the "answer" wells up something within you, something forgotten, perhaps, or denied.  i don't think (or know) if i deny much of anything.  there are things i've realized about myself that i won't even disclose here, to this "fictional audience."  things that i was at first ashamed of, but slowly started to understand were just necessary parts of my being.

humans are complicated creatures, after all.  (this is something the monster says).  we are not all good or all evil, but mostly something in between.  i am so.  there are evils within me too.  but, (and this is something that the monster also says) what is important is what we do.

NEVERTHELESS, even though it is important what we do, we still need to face and confront and set free all of the contradictions within us.  if we don't, it's as though we are tethered to the ground, with a hefty knot holding us back from everything.

i have always felt confined.  i want liberation.  writing, drawing, everything are means to that end.  THIS is a means to that end.