Buddha described suffering as coming from a human desire to constantly grab onto things, the best translation I've heard is "Thirst". We are always thirsting after things and filled with desire, and this is our problem.
St. Benedict the father of Monasticism agreed with him in a way. He talked about the distractions of the world, and how only when we separated ourselves from it could we be free. I don't know if St. Bendict actually said those things, but I know that's what monasticism taught.
So in a sense, Buddhist and Christian monks agree with the greek philosophers as well, that we need to stop thirsting after what Plato called "Shadow pleasures" which were the vices, reflections of the virtues.
This draws me to monasticism.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Van Gogh, Happiness, and Work
You (dan, the only guy who reads this blog) will notice that my new profile picture is Vincent Van Gogh's Red Vineyard. I've had a thing for vineyards recently and I've appreciated Van Gogh alot ever since I learned about his life.
He was a clergyman who tried to cheer people up who were destitute coal miners. But he couldn't help them there (he thought). So he began to paint pictures of their toil and sadness so that others would be motivated to help them. But then he succumbed to depression and madness himself.
That is my oversimplified and probably wrong summary of Van Gogh's life. It is what I remember learning about Van Gogh, which teaches me something about myself. It is a warning not to allow yourself to be completely immersed in trying to bring about complete temporal/earthly happiness
Going to my gurus, St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine I read on this issue:
"A certain participation of Happiness can be had in this life: but perfect and true Happiness cannot be had in this life. This may be seen from a twofold consideration.
First, from the general notion of happiness. For since happiness is a "perfect and sufficient good," it excludes every evil, and fulfils every desire. But in this life every evil cannot be excluded. For this present life is subject to many unavoidable evils; to ignorance on the part of the intellect; to inordinate affection on the part of the appetite, and to many penalties on the part of the body; as Augustine sets forth in De Civ. Dei xix, 4. Likewise neither can the desire for good be satiated in this life. For man naturally desires the good, which he has, to be abiding. Now the goods of the present life pass away; since life itself passes away, which we naturally desire to have, and would wish to hold abidingly, for man naturally shrinks from death. Wherefore it is impossible to have true Happiness in this life.
Secondly, from a consideration of the specific nature of Happiness, viz. the vision of the Divine Essence, which man cannot obtain in this life" - St. Thomas Aquinas "Summa Theologiae" First Part of the Second Part, Question 5, Article 3
To translate as best I can Sts Thomas and Augustine say that basically while we can be happy in this life, we can't have complete happiness for 2 reasons: evil in the world (our ignorance, unhealthy appetites, bodily problems/sickness) and because true happiness is seeing God/ The Divine Essence.
For their vision of Heaven is the concept of "The Beatific Vision" that is, seeing God's essence 'face to face'. It's like looking at a beautiful landscape or a sunset or a piece of art that is so beautiful you completely forget about yourself.
I agree with those two, that sounds like heaven. I suck at art, but I'd like to say I appreciate some art, because it makes you do that (lose yourself, the literal meaning of extasy).
Today I have to go to work (in 20 min) and I'm nervous and despairing as usual, but I woke up today like everyday, seeking happiness. And the biggest part of today's work will be avoiding the error of Van Gogh and the error of myself. Trying to find complete happiness in temporal things. I need to align my understanding of happiness not with my ignorance and lust and inordinate bodily desires, but with the summum bonum, the greatest good, the divine essence, and the virtuous life.
If I can get through today by seeking happiness there, and not in the places I naturally (or rather unnaturally go), i'll be one step closer to Eudaimonea, that is fullfillment and happiness.
He was a clergyman who tried to cheer people up who were destitute coal miners. But he couldn't help them there (he thought). So he began to paint pictures of their toil and sadness so that others would be motivated to help them. But then he succumbed to depression and madness himself.
That is my oversimplified and probably wrong summary of Van Gogh's life. It is what I remember learning about Van Gogh, which teaches me something about myself. It is a warning not to allow yourself to be completely immersed in trying to bring about complete temporal/earthly happiness
Going to my gurus, St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine I read on this issue:
"A certain participation of Happiness can be had in this life: but perfect and true Happiness cannot be had in this life. This may be seen from a twofold consideration.
First, from the general notion of happiness. For since happiness is a "perfect and sufficient good," it excludes every evil, and fulfils every desire. But in this life every evil cannot be excluded. For this present life is subject to many unavoidable evils; to ignorance on the part of the intellect; to inordinate affection on the part of the appetite, and to many penalties on the part of the body; as Augustine sets forth in De Civ. Dei xix, 4. Likewise neither can the desire for good be satiated in this life. For man naturally desires the good, which he has, to be abiding. Now the goods of the present life pass away; since life itself passes away, which we naturally desire to have, and would wish to hold abidingly, for man naturally shrinks from death. Wherefore it is impossible to have true Happiness in this life.
Secondly, from a consideration of the specific nature of Happiness, viz. the vision of the Divine Essence, which man cannot obtain in this life" - St. Thomas Aquinas "Summa Theologiae" First Part of the Second Part, Question 5, Article 3
To translate as best I can Sts Thomas and Augustine say that basically while we can be happy in this life, we can't have complete happiness for 2 reasons: evil in the world (our ignorance, unhealthy appetites, bodily problems/sickness) and because true happiness is seeing God/ The Divine Essence.
For their vision of Heaven is the concept of "The Beatific Vision" that is, seeing God's essence 'face to face'. It's like looking at a beautiful landscape or a sunset or a piece of art that is so beautiful you completely forget about yourself.
I agree with those two, that sounds like heaven. I suck at art, but I'd like to say I appreciate some art, because it makes you do that (lose yourself, the literal meaning of extasy).
Today I have to go to work (in 20 min) and I'm nervous and despairing as usual, but I woke up today like everyday, seeking happiness. And the biggest part of today's work will be avoiding the error of Van Gogh and the error of myself. Trying to find complete happiness in temporal things. I need to align my understanding of happiness not with my ignorance and lust and inordinate bodily desires, but with the summum bonum, the greatest good, the divine essence, and the virtuous life.
If I can get through today by seeking happiness there, and not in the places I naturally (or rather unnaturally go), i'll be one step closer to Eudaimonea, that is fullfillment and happiness.
Monday, August 10, 2009
The Importance Of A Good Professor - Teaching Thomism
I'm looking forward to this year at Brock University for a few reasons. One of them is to be taught by a good professor. I get the 'religious status' of every professor I have. Most start off with a quote from Nietzsche and it's easy enough to figure them out. But I've had a few great exceptions.
One prof I had was Leonard Ferry, I don't know if I'm allowed to mention him on this blog - I doubt he'll ever read it - but through the course of the year I learned a great deal from him. He taught us "Ancient Political Philosophy" which was code for "Aristotelian Moral and Social Philosophy". He challenged all of our (myself included) modernist assumptions about ethics, he taught us from a Natural Law perspective (something I'd never encountered before Catholicism) and when I heard him quote Aquinas I got suspicious. Normally they don't let conservatives of any kind into liberal public universities, but Ferry had snuck in it seemed.
The problem was I had been beaten down by secularism at university. He was another philosophy professor, and I assumed a Nietzschean. So when we discussed the Republic, I used my modernist (or post-modernist) criticisms in the hope of scoring brownie points. He rebutted everything I said with Thomistic philosophy, and I knew then, that this was the smartest non-atheistic (I didn't know he was Catholic yet) philosopher I'd ever met. I soon learned through the grapevine (Mel) that he was indeed a Romanist. His teachings on Aristotle (and by continuation - smuggled in Aquinas/Christianized Aristotle) mixed with the scholastic epistemology I had learned from my Grade 12 philosophy prof made it so that I was ripe for conversion to Rome.
This good professor made us read 2 works of Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics, and The Politics) and I read both in a course of a few days. Aristotle hit me like a ton of bricks, he was a genius, and (best of all) he could prove the existence and value of virtues without resorting to God. I could use reason alone to prove the natural law.
I remember how much this changed my life when I was at a "Focus on the Family" event at my parents Baptist church, before I had entered the Catholic Communion. It was called "The Truth Project" and was basically teaching presuppositional apologetics - apologetics that take for granted that God exists, and that the Bible is true. As everyone looked around the room satisfied with the state of things I was trying to stop myself from laughing. "If someone believes God exists and that the Bible is true, aren't they already a Christian? and isn't the only purpose of apologetics, conversion?" No one got it. We were on different frameworks. They were on divine command ethics, I was in virtue ethics. They had "Answers in Genesis" to 'prove' God, I had the Summa and St. Thomas' Five ways (and at that point Descartes).
Speaking of Descartes, Dr. Ferry also ripped apart all my Cartesian theism which had got me through 1st year, and after the course was done and I'd read through G.K. Chesterton's "Orthodoxy" I had safely executed the Cogito, as well as a completely uncritical acceptance of Reason alone.
Aquinas, Scotus, and other scholastics always warned about a trust in reason alone, something the Reformers reacted to, but that's another issue. Anyway, that is how I got a Thomistic (Or possibly just Catholic) basis for what I believed.
I've found Aristotelian Thomism to be the most ingenius thing. Although my catechesis has made me pretty Molinist (Catholicism is obsessed with foreknowledge...), I'm really hoping to figure out some more Thomism, and hopefully read some Etienne Gilson and Jacques Maritain.
Professor Ferry also taught me that those Thomistic philosophers helped pioneer the UN Declaration on Human Rights. pretty cool.
One prof I had was Leonard Ferry, I don't know if I'm allowed to mention him on this blog - I doubt he'll ever read it - but through the course of the year I learned a great deal from him. He taught us "Ancient Political Philosophy" which was code for "Aristotelian Moral and Social Philosophy". He challenged all of our (myself included) modernist assumptions about ethics, he taught us from a Natural Law perspective (something I'd never encountered before Catholicism) and when I heard him quote Aquinas I got suspicious. Normally they don't let conservatives of any kind into liberal public universities, but Ferry had snuck in it seemed.
The problem was I had been beaten down by secularism at university. He was another philosophy professor, and I assumed a Nietzschean. So when we discussed the Republic, I used my modernist (or post-modernist) criticisms in the hope of scoring brownie points. He rebutted everything I said with Thomistic philosophy, and I knew then, that this was the smartest non-atheistic (I didn't know he was Catholic yet) philosopher I'd ever met. I soon learned through the grapevine (Mel) that he was indeed a Romanist. His teachings on Aristotle (and by continuation - smuggled in Aquinas/Christianized Aristotle) mixed with the scholastic epistemology I had learned from my Grade 12 philosophy prof made it so that I was ripe for conversion to Rome.
This good professor made us read 2 works of Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics, and The Politics) and I read both in a course of a few days. Aristotle hit me like a ton of bricks, he was a genius, and (best of all) he could prove the existence and value of virtues without resorting to God. I could use reason alone to prove the natural law.
I remember how much this changed my life when I was at a "Focus on the Family" event at my parents Baptist church, before I had entered the Catholic Communion. It was called "The Truth Project" and was basically teaching presuppositional apologetics - apologetics that take for granted that God exists, and that the Bible is true. As everyone looked around the room satisfied with the state of things I was trying to stop myself from laughing. "If someone believes God exists and that the Bible is true, aren't they already a Christian? and isn't the only purpose of apologetics, conversion?" No one got it. We were on different frameworks. They were on divine command ethics, I was in virtue ethics. They had "Answers in Genesis" to 'prove' God, I had the Summa and St. Thomas' Five ways (and at that point Descartes).
Speaking of Descartes, Dr. Ferry also ripped apart all my Cartesian theism which had got me through 1st year, and after the course was done and I'd read through G.K. Chesterton's "Orthodoxy" I had safely executed the Cogito, as well as a completely uncritical acceptance of Reason alone.
Aquinas, Scotus, and other scholastics always warned about a trust in reason alone, something the Reformers reacted to, but that's another issue. Anyway, that is how I got a Thomistic (Or possibly just Catholic) basis for what I believed.
I've found Aristotelian Thomism to be the most ingenius thing. Although my catechesis has made me pretty Molinist (Catholicism is obsessed with foreknowledge...), I'm really hoping to figure out some more Thomism, and hopefully read some Etienne Gilson and Jacques Maritain.
Professor Ferry also taught me that those Thomistic philosophers helped pioneer the UN Declaration on Human Rights. pretty cool.
Bulimia, Melodrama, and the new Talisman
You know your life is fucked up (to use the Anglo-Saxon tongue) when the thought comes to you "I wish I were bulimic". My carnal life is fed by two fires of overconsumption: lust and gluttony. Or what I like to call, the "uncool" sins. Drunkenness and Pride would probably be alot more fashionable. But by the grace of God I am what I am, to rip St. Paul's words out of context.
I know I'm doing better with lust when I am filled with self-loathing because of gluttony (by this I basically mean that I'm obese, I don't think I commit the sin in the manner of the Romans). So today I was thinking about 'trying' bulimia. But I didn't. Mainly because a friend of mine used to be, and she coughs up blood now. And secondly because I pictured myself sitting at the doctors , fat as ever, and having him tell me I have a stomach disorder because of it, and that strangely enough I was the only fat bulimic person on earth. By this I mean: even in my vices I cannot seem to suceed. I'd find something else to hate myself for, it would just go on and on.
So I didn't throw up, as usual, it was all talk. I'm a classic academic, melodramatic, overeducated, and self-centred. I never do anything, because by God's grace if I was a "doer" (or an American) I probably would've blown my brains out long ago.
I have to go to work now. I always get scared before work. It reminds me of George Orwell describing bording school where he wet the bed and was punished. He said that he had never achieved such fervancy in his prayer life as when he prayed before he went to bed those nights. I have a similar fervancy before work. Yesterday I put my rosary Lance gave me in my pocket, it actually made me feel safer. I'm going to do it again tonight. I guess I am a superstitious romanist now. oh well, as John Lennon said 'whatever helps you through the night' and/or deli shift.
I know I'm doing better with lust when I am filled with self-loathing because of gluttony (by this I basically mean that I'm obese, I don't think I commit the sin in the manner of the Romans). So today I was thinking about 'trying' bulimia. But I didn't. Mainly because a friend of mine used to be, and she coughs up blood now. And secondly because I pictured myself sitting at the doctors , fat as ever, and having him tell me I have a stomach disorder because of it, and that strangely enough I was the only fat bulimic person on earth. By this I mean: even in my vices I cannot seem to suceed. I'd find something else to hate myself for, it would just go on and on.
So I didn't throw up, as usual, it was all talk. I'm a classic academic, melodramatic, overeducated, and self-centred. I never do anything, because by God's grace if I was a "doer" (or an American) I probably would've blown my brains out long ago.
I have to go to work now. I always get scared before work. It reminds me of George Orwell describing bording school where he wet the bed and was punished. He said that he had never achieved such fervancy in his prayer life as when he prayed before he went to bed those nights. I have a similar fervancy before work. Yesterday I put my rosary Lance gave me in my pocket, it actually made me feel safer. I'm going to do it again tonight. I guess I am a superstitious romanist now. oh well, as John Lennon said 'whatever helps you through the night' and/or deli shift.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Sadness, The Chartists, and Isaiah
Since last night, things have been going terrible. I feel like my breath was. Last night I ate cheddar flavoured chips and orange juice, and a hot dog, when I woke up, my breath was so terrible I could taste it. That’s how life feels right now. So what could I do? I tried reading some Christian books but it felt hypocritical because I was in sin. I had very little sleep (I was up till 4am) and so I decided to lay down and watch Simon Schama.
Simon Schama is like a father figure to me. He’s a famous historian, very well read in the bible (he alludes to it every few minutes), and his modern liberalism makes me envious of his beliefs which I cannot share but in some ways admire, as a Conservative Pre-Modernist living in the modern liberal world.
Anyway, he was talking about Victorian England and the Chartists, they were middle-class and poor people who sought to make England a Democracy, and to go back to the rural world of medieval england. MP Fergus O’Conner was a leader of them, who after being turned down by the British Government decided that they would compile their money to buy plots of farmland and to move out of the cities into the countryside.
So they moved to Great Dodford, and farmed even though they had no experience. Their motto was “do or die” and some of them managed it. Schama says summing up this movement:
“what seemed to count for most was making a home not a revolution”
It was about taking back a proper life, not necessarily changing the world. There’s a verse in Revelation that tells us to “come out” of Babylon (the world). The Chartists remind me of that. Their dream to quit being ‘machines’ in industrial Manchester is something I understand after seeing Manchester. My Cottrill ancestors moved from Manchester in the mid 19th century as well to Hamilton (which I think is about the same if not worse). But it’s funny to think as I wait to go to work, that this same dream seems to reappear over and over again in us Anglo-Saxons. The desire to farm the land, to get away from the cities and machines. It’s a dream I see in every page of Tolkien. And come to think about it, it’s the image of the perfect New Earth in Isaiah, and it’s something that maybe one day I’ll get to partake in, if God has mercy on my soul...
“For I am about to create new heavens
and a new earth;
the former things shall not be remembered
or come to mind.
But be glad and rejoice for ever
in what I am creating;
...
no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it,
or the cry of distress.
No more shall there be in it
an infant that lives but a few days,
or an old person who does not live out a lifetime;
...
They shall build houses and inhabit them;
they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
They shall not build and another inhabit;
they shall not plant and another eat;
for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be,
and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
They shall not labour in vain,
or bear children for calamity;
for they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord—
and their descendants as well.
Before they call I will answer,
while they are yet speaking I will hear.
The wolf and the lamb shall feed together,
the lion shall eat straw like the ox;
but the serpent—its food shall be dust!
They shall not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain,
says the Lord.” – Isaiah 65: 17-25
I'd really like to have my own vineyard where I enjoy the work, and where God answers before we ask questions.
I still feel sad today, and I'm sure tonight will be terrible at work, but maybe I'm a bit more hopeful now. Maybe one day that vain hope will materialize into a New Zealand adventure, I was looking at schools and jobs and religious vocations there last week...
This is a New Zealand Vineyard, perhaps I may have one on the New Earth...
Simon Schama is like a father figure to me. He’s a famous historian, very well read in the bible (he alludes to it every few minutes), and his modern liberalism makes me envious of his beliefs which I cannot share but in some ways admire, as a Conservative Pre-Modernist living in the modern liberal world.
Anyway, he was talking about Victorian England and the Chartists, they were middle-class and poor people who sought to make England a Democracy, and to go back to the rural world of medieval england. MP Fergus O’Conner was a leader of them, who after being turned down by the British Government decided that they would compile their money to buy plots of farmland and to move out of the cities into the countryside.
So they moved to Great Dodford, and farmed even though they had no experience. Their motto was “do or die” and some of them managed it. Schama says summing up this movement:
“what seemed to count for most was making a home not a revolution”
It was about taking back a proper life, not necessarily changing the world. There’s a verse in Revelation that tells us to “come out” of Babylon (the world). The Chartists remind me of that. Their dream to quit being ‘machines’ in industrial Manchester is something I understand after seeing Manchester. My Cottrill ancestors moved from Manchester in the mid 19th century as well to Hamilton (which I think is about the same if not worse). But it’s funny to think as I wait to go to work, that this same dream seems to reappear over and over again in us Anglo-Saxons. The desire to farm the land, to get away from the cities and machines. It’s a dream I see in every page of Tolkien. And come to think about it, it’s the image of the perfect New Earth in Isaiah, and it’s something that maybe one day I’ll get to partake in, if God has mercy on my soul...
“For I am about to create new heavens
and a new earth;
the former things shall not be remembered
or come to mind.
But be glad and rejoice for ever
in what I am creating;
...
no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it,
or the cry of distress.
No more shall there be in it
an infant that lives but a few days,
or an old person who does not live out a lifetime;
...
They shall build houses and inhabit them;
they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
They shall not build and another inhabit;
they shall not plant and another eat;
for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be,
and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
They shall not labour in vain,
or bear children for calamity;
for they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord—
and their descendants as well.
Before they call I will answer,
while they are yet speaking I will hear.
The wolf and the lamb shall feed together,
the lion shall eat straw like the ox;
but the serpent—its food shall be dust!
They shall not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain,
says the Lord.” – Isaiah 65: 17-25
I'd really like to have my own vineyard where I enjoy the work, and where God answers before we ask questions.
I still feel sad today, and I'm sure tonight will be terrible at work, but maybe I'm a bit more hopeful now. Maybe one day that vain hope will materialize into a New Zealand adventure, I was looking at schools and jobs and religious vocations there last week...
This is a New Zealand Vineyard, perhaps I may have one on the New Earth...
Monday, July 27, 2009
All Too inHuman & The Story of a Girl
If you don't feel like reading all this post just skip to the "BUT"
We have our extended family visiting our house this week (all the Mennonite Brethren folks). I used to be able to talk with my uncles and aunts about theology and my future as a preacher. But now that I'm of the 'peculiar Roman Catholick religion' (as Rabbie Burns would've said - ), no one asks me about anything or talks hopefully about my future.
In that same Roman faith there is a philosophy that is popular among the Pontiffs. It's the idea of "the full human person" or "the intrinsic dignity of the human person". It's the idea(l) that everyone who is born has intrinsic worth and value just because they are in existence. It's what Seneca and St. Thomas Aquinas said when they gave us the choice between "Being a beast, or being a human". The modern neo-Darwinian socialist materialist positivist atheism of today seems to treat us like we're beasts rated on our ability to contribute to the world (by us I mean morbidly obese grocery store workers and other valueless people).
*******
*******
BUT
*******
*******
Tonight after a long shift at work I was about to walk out as usual without much hope to my house to sit alone in the slanted room (I'm making the story a little melodramatic). But then a girl I work with asked me to help with a recipe and supplies for a meal she was making for her boyfriend, and so we went around getting the groceries and talking and then we drove home (she followed me 'cause we live on the same street, and i drove crazily). I then realized, as I listened to Radiohead and waved goodbye, that I felt like a human being.
Obviously I'm not telling the story to predict a 'deeper' relationship (she's like 5 years younger than me and in a relationship, and I'm just a creepy deli guy). But the reason I wrote it was because it was an example of someone just treating me like a human being, like my opinion was at all important, and that I could contribute something.
Anyway, that's my pathetically boring post you've wasted your time reading. But sometimes I wonder what life would be like to always feel like a human. Gah, all this introspection - blame St. Augustine and his Confessions, he started this Western philosophical phenomenon. Blogs are totally a result of him.
We have our extended family visiting our house this week (all the Mennonite Brethren folks). I used to be able to talk with my uncles and aunts about theology and my future as a preacher. But now that I'm of the 'peculiar Roman Catholick religion' (as Rabbie Burns would've said - ), no one asks me about anything or talks hopefully about my future.
In that same Roman faith there is a philosophy that is popular among the Pontiffs. It's the idea of "the full human person" or "the intrinsic dignity of the human person". It's the idea(l) that everyone who is born has intrinsic worth and value just because they are in existence. It's what Seneca and St. Thomas Aquinas said when they gave us the choice between "Being a beast, or being a human". The modern neo-Darwinian socialist materialist positivist atheism of today seems to treat us like we're beasts rated on our ability to contribute to the world (by us I mean morbidly obese grocery store workers and other valueless people).
*******
*******
BUT
*******
*******
Tonight after a long shift at work I was about to walk out as usual without much hope to my house to sit alone in the slanted room (I'm making the story a little melodramatic). But then a girl I work with asked me to help with a recipe and supplies for a meal she was making for her boyfriend, and so we went around getting the groceries and talking and then we drove home (she followed me 'cause we live on the same street, and i drove crazily). I then realized, as I listened to Radiohead and waved goodbye, that I felt like a human being.
Obviously I'm not telling the story to predict a 'deeper' relationship (she's like 5 years younger than me and in a relationship, and I'm just a creepy deli guy). But the reason I wrote it was because it was an example of someone just treating me like a human being, like my opinion was at all important, and that I could contribute something.
Anyway, that's my pathetically boring post you've wasted your time reading. But sometimes I wonder what life would be like to always feel like a human. Gah, all this introspection - blame St. Augustine and his Confessions, he started this Western philosophical phenomenon. Blogs are totally a result of him.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Music is a window
I've been inexplicably listening to the song called "Mondo 77" by Looper or "looper 77" by mondo or something here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yc57lu5GC90
It's kind of haunting to me. I listen to it and it remins me of the inverse of an experience I had in life.
so 2 years ago almost to the day my friend Jenn and I were dropping a friend off at Heathrow airport in London. We left our hotel in "little Mecca" and got on some subways and eventually a bus headed for heathrow airport. It seemed to take forever and I thought it might be the last time I saw one of my best friends. I remember the sickness to my stomach that I felt, I remember the ungodly hour (it was about 1am) and she had to sit alone all night in the airport waiting for her early morning flight. I remember Jenn and I taking buses and subways because we were too cheap for a cap, they ran about 50 quid and we were a bit poor. So eventually we got completely lost on the London bus and ended up in a bad neighbourhood at 3am and Jenn wasn't wanting to talk to me out of anger for something. Finally after sitting next to a guy with a prostitute and seeing a bunch of police who told us to get out of the area if we didn't want trouble, we sprang for a cab. I remember driving back to our hotel in the 3am streetlight and the total fear and lonliness I felt.
When I listen to this song I imagine the evening but if I had rather seen it as an adventure, if I had felt invincible and courageous as we explored parts of London most tourists never saw. I imagine Jenn and I looking out the cab windows singing songs and laughing and pointing at landmarks and the cab driver shaking his head in confusion.
Sometimes life looks better in retrospect.. I had everything to lose back then, and I've lost almost all of it, and I happily remember that scary night, and wonder at times what life would be like if I were an adenturer, fearless, if my life had a techno soundtrack and occured against the London Skyline in the dead of night..
It's kind of haunting to me. I listen to it and it remins me of the inverse of an experience I had in life.
so 2 years ago almost to the day my friend Jenn and I were dropping a friend off at Heathrow airport in London. We left our hotel in "little Mecca" and got on some subways and eventually a bus headed for heathrow airport. It seemed to take forever and I thought it might be the last time I saw one of my best friends. I remember the sickness to my stomach that I felt, I remember the ungodly hour (it was about 1am) and she had to sit alone all night in the airport waiting for her early morning flight. I remember Jenn and I taking buses and subways because we were too cheap for a cap, they ran about 50 quid and we were a bit poor. So eventually we got completely lost on the London bus and ended up in a bad neighbourhood at 3am and Jenn wasn't wanting to talk to me out of anger for something. Finally after sitting next to a guy with a prostitute and seeing a bunch of police who told us to get out of the area if we didn't want trouble, we sprang for a cab. I remember driving back to our hotel in the 3am streetlight and the total fear and lonliness I felt.
When I listen to this song I imagine the evening but if I had rather seen it as an adventure, if I had felt invincible and courageous as we explored parts of London most tourists never saw. I imagine Jenn and I looking out the cab windows singing songs and laughing and pointing at landmarks and the cab driver shaking his head in confusion.
Sometimes life looks better in retrospect.. I had everything to lose back then, and I've lost almost all of it, and I happily remember that scary night, and wonder at times what life would be like if I were an adenturer, fearless, if my life had a techno soundtrack and occured against the London Skyline in the dead of night..
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