context

context: any number of relationships that surround, inform, and ultimately include the self. these relationships are material (our physical surroundings, e.g. whether a space is urban or rural, our physical possessions and homely dwellings), idealistic (our value systems, e.g. the ideas we have inherited as “truth,” how we understand the social/material world, anything that influences our perceptions), historical (our past personal experiences, e.g. memories), and social (the people around us, e.g. friends, lovers, yet also, how the dominant society classifies us on the basis of gender, race, or any number of other categories) in their nature.

if a given context persists with any semblance of regularity (e.g. a work schedule or set of social relationships with interactions going more or less as expected), the more likely our sense of self will become unconsciously welded to it. an identity forms around the context and ossifies. when discrete elements of a given context shift (e.g. a sudden change in the rhythms of our everyday lives, a sudden change in relationship with another person), the more likely our sense of identity will shift.

contexts are infinite equations, limitlessly diverse in permutation.

darts, sweethearts, and modern guilt

Modern Guilt

A Dart for My Sweetheart

forgive

from the oxford english dictionary:

1. trans. To give, grant.Obs.

2. To give up, cease to harbour (resentment, wrath). Also, to give up one’s resolve (to do something). Obs. …..

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to say “I forgive you” is in a sense, redundant. it is essentially communicating a choice that we have already made, deep from within ourselves, and then shared with another — perhaps that other who we have forgiven and ceased to harbor resentment toward.

yet forgiveness takes on a quotidian character, mentioned offhand and casually, often to cover up by acts that are based on holding on, to resent, to hurt, to pain. i saw the absurd film ‘what the bleep do we know’ and at one point of the film a person talked about positive thinking often means a small amount of positive thoughts on a sea of negativity. that’s how it seems…

“yes, yes, i forgive you already…” you will say, almost exhausted by me raising this topic. yet, do you?

i think forgiveness is the most radical compassion that we can offer to another living being. because it is not required or obligated. in fact, to do those things would negate the very purpose that forgiveness exists. forgiveness is given.

derrick jensen once wrote the following of his choice to become a writer:

I recognized in my mid-twenties that because of this abuse, I would have the best excuse to not follow my dreams of becoming a writer. Who could blame me after what I’d been through? Mere emotional survival was triumph enough. The choice quickly became this: I could go the rest of my life with an airtight excuse for not doing what I wanted; or I could go the rest of my life doing what I wanted. (Endgame, 176).

so it goes for forgiveness. we might have “the best excuse” not to forgive. the question is, do we want “an airtight excuse” or do we want to forgive? i think this question might be instrinsically wrapped up in the future of healing this planet. can we challenge our boundaries of imagination? what is unforgiveable? why? are you sure? where can we forgive? where  must we stick with our airtight excuses not to?

it is not for me to tell you.

scraps of love, radical or not

“Loving someone and being loved means so much to me. I always make fun of it and stuff. but isn’t everything we’re doing in life a way to be loved a little more?” —Celine, “Before Sunrise”

i just rewatched “Before Sunrise” tonight. i suppose it sort of inspired me to put up a bunch of scraps about love, so here they are.

i wrote the following passages last year for a friend’s project that never really got going.  i sort of purposefully wrote with the ‘we’ pronoun to imply a plurality of voices, because i expected others might add or revise:

How might we write about love yet simultaneously remain both fluid and reflexive to the politics of our life experiences? Quite obviously, we change, along with our lovers and friends. Life is impermanent. We live and learn lessons later in life that we did not have earlier on. What we think is solid and secure might suddenly or unexpectedly become groundless and insecure. For reasons such as these, we do not wish to provide rigid “theories” or “rules” about love or suggest there is a “right” or “ultimate” form of social relationship that others must conform to. Rigidity denies the growth, change and evolution of humans as social beings.