Little Ironies - 2/7/2002

You know, this OD thing is a strange place. I got left a strange note. Not that the content was strange or anything it's just that only the Author Code got left, not a hyper-link as is normal. So I followed it and came to this Diary with 2 entries. I'd heard of this Diary from a conversation with last year's Sec 4s - it's one that is really is very insulting and degrading to many people ... and very personal in its attacks as well. Anyway the irony is that in 2 entries it managed to accumulate 274 notes. Which is pretty amazing. I suppose you don't have to be very intelligent, interesting or articulate to provoke a response anymore. Rather people will response to what is on the surface, what is at the gut.

Anyway, that was my two cents worth regarding that rather horrendous diary ... heh heh ... didn't want to increase its note count also ... wonder when that diary will start slamming teachers ... hey maybe it should have a theme for every month ... First slam popular CCAs, then slam Unpopular CCAs, the slam each department one by one ... But I suppose the language of rudeness does take a toil on typing fingers.

Anyway - thoughts that struck me after reading it and some of the notes in reply? I wonder where's the limit. Where is that fine line between grousing and complaining about things and the way the system is (me i think) and being outrightly hurtful and personal (the other one ...) Is the line that clearly drawn or is what I write merely a prettified version of that which seems so immediately repulsive?

Along those lines I wondered today if I was really being an arrogant idiot about most things. Won't relate the incidents that sparked that off (as they seem labourious even to myself) but am wondering if I don't give other people enough credit for who they are. Perhaps it's this settling fear that I'll turn around and realise that the problem with everything is the nagging insecurity within me, rather than the immobility of the System and all that hold it up.

If I could live for simple things I would. Sips of coffee. Laughter. Dimpled smiles. Shakespeare. Hot Chicken Pie from Prima Deli. Aglio Olio. Doing sets. Playing guitar. Worshipping God. Singing alone. Silly jokes. Long hair. Long stories of school life. More laughter.

I feel very caught in unpleasant involvedness. Becoming irritated at silly little things. Need to regain a view of things "from a distance".

In memory of long coffee breaks:

A VALEDICTION FORBIDDING MOURNING
by John Donne

AS virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
"Now his breath goes," and some say, "No."

So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move ;
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears ;
Men reckon what it did, and meant ;
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love
¬óWhose soul is sense¬ócannot admit
Of absence, 'cause it doth remove
The thing which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined,
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assurèd of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two ;
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th' other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
Yet, when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th' other foot, obliquely run ;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.