Pictures from Japan
Actually on second thought, I do have something I can report. I finally loaded all of my pictures from Japan into a set on Flickr. ….go check them out because they are spectacular.
Add comment February 13th, 2006
Archive for February, 2006
Not a white flag exactly…but certainly a pitiful excuse…
So the reason I haven’t been writing much recently comes down to a combination of two very simple things:
1.) I didn’t want this blog to be a personal exposition
2.) Since its inception I have found myself dealing with an increasingly challenging illness which I have had to accept as depression and which leaves me with very little brain space to attack issues not directly related to what I’m going through.
I have alot to say right now about psychoanalytic theory. I’m full of insights about the hightened rates of depression among women (with respect to men). I’ve got a stronger argument against anti-depressants than I’ve ever had…..these are the ideas that are running through my head, but the passion I feel for them results from the fact that my entire life right now feels like …I feel like I’m standing (or curled up in a ball on the ground, depending on the day) at the centre of vortex, all of these ideas meshing into one-another weaving together and fraying apart–displayed one minute in passionate vibrant colours, the next in fading worn-out shades.
What to say of my theories on education? …still important to me, but I’m too tired to care.
What to say of my theories on religion? …still important to me, but it seems like entirely too overwhelming a topic to explore at the moment.
What about politics? There’s an easy one, I mean look at the man running your country at the moment. Surely you have something to say about that? …nope. not a word. don’t want to think about it. wake me up when his term is over.
So the upshot is I’m not sure what to do with this blog at the moment. I just don’t have the energy to write about the stuff I wanted to write about…
If anyone has any brilliant ideas, feel free to comment, or contact me…if not, stay-tuned, I’m bound to follow an intriguing train of thought through to the written stage someday soon.
2 comments February 13th, 2006
On Freud and Crumb
The mother, dissatisfied with her relationship with her husband turns for satisfaction to her son. Hateful of men in the world she quenches his male tendancies (exploration, courage, etc), guilting him into weakness–promising always to be there for him, with the dagger of an implication that he will never leave her.
…subconciously petrified of the power of his mother this man grows up intimidated by the gender in general and ends up mistreating any woman he comes into contact with. He grows up to be exactly the kind of husband to dissatisfy his wife and have her turn to her son. …
The tyranical father honours his daughter above all else. Sets up an excellent power struggle between the mother and daughter. The daughter grows up to do everything she can to try to impress her father, or make him happy, meaning that her entire world becomes like an inverted projection of his heirarchy of values.
…Father destroys daugther, mother destroys son, father challenges son, mother oppresses daughter.
My professors insight on Freud for the day?– “If you’re not offended by what Freud has to say, then you can be bloody well sure you don’t understand it”.
We’ll be watching a documentary on Robert Crumb over the next couple of days in my personality class. Should be frightening and disturbing and interesting. The gist we were given today is that he is the most well adjusted of the boys in his family. Oedipal complexes gone wild with unbridled intelligence is pretty damn scary.
4 comments February 6th, 2006
Freezing rain
It is Febuary 4th. By this time of year I am supposed to be sick of snow. When it snows I am supposed to cry out in vain, “when will the madness end?!”.
And yet, today when it began to snow I was like a young child in December with a brand new toboggan, heart light with the sensation of living in a snow globe…
Whose sick joke was it to turn up the heat and have it turn into cold yucky rain?
This winter sucks.
Add comment February 4th, 2006
From Zen Buddhism to Hip-hop in Under One Week
O.K., so I will be the first to admit it has been a bizarre couple of weeks in the life-of-padg.
A co-worker of mine said to me last week that there was something very powerful to be said philosophically for needing more light. And she was right. With me professing to be the mind-over-matter type, it was pretty silly of me to have resigned to counting on light therapy and not focusing on much else.
So last week was a bit of a shake-up for me…I was angry and frustrated and confused and lost trying to cling to some sense of an ability to get things done day-to-day. I thought about trying to get back to church. I thought about signing up for meditation classes at a Zen Buddhist temple. I thought about burying myself in religious and philosophical texts…but finally I just jumped off my little island of -ness to see what was in store. Stopped doing readings, didn’t really go to class, went out alot, …shut-down and relaxed basically. And what did I come out the other end realizing?
1. I do love what I’m learning
2. But that doesn’t mean I have to work on it all the time. I’m not going to be able to do everything at school perfectly, and trying is setting me up for failure.
3. Sometimes it’s O.K to be in a bad mood/not do well/feel tired.
4. I haven’t been doing enough art.
…I read alot of Jung this week. I signed up for an amazing acting workshop for the end of March (…which, Anne if you’re at all interested in you should totally come do with me! Revisit the us-doing-scenes thing 
). I tried signing up for some dance classes (all the ones at Hart House were full, probably for the best considering my knees). And I cut up magazines and put words up on my wall.
So at the end of my 3 week light-therapy trial how am I doing? I’m not feeling better, really. I’m feeling alive. I’m acknowledgling limitations (or working on learning to do so) and moving forward with school and research while trying to keep my creative faculties in mind.
Life is good.
4 comments February 1st, 2006