Eden

I lost my faith
Some time ago
Scattered by
An ill-thought word

And if I remember
What you said
I'll heed your call
And find a way

I'll find a way

Through this candor
And through the blame
My sunny heart
Will shine again

Eden will grow
In seven days
I'll take you there
When I find a way

I'll find a way

We only love
What we believe
But over stolen glances
We'll find a way
And in those stolen moments
We'll find a way

Love and Sociology

Hello there.

Philosophy is often rather draining for me. I just seem to struggle to understand how people are thinking when they write what they do. The other day, for example, I was reading something about the affective dimension of conscience; the way in which our conscience calls out to us via the emotions, and how the relationship between self and other is mediated by our emotional existence. But the writer in question decided to focus on the emotion of shame. Shame may be an important part of our lives, and our conscience. But I just couldn't get my head around why someone would choose to make it the defining characteristic of our moral involvement with those around us, when surely love and compassion are at least as important? It left me feeling rather alienated.

But more recently I have been reading the work of a Spanish sociologist called José Ortega y Gasset. He's a rather charming and intelligent writer. He has a lot of good ideas too (although he seems to have predicted that the English would be responsible for the disappearance of the handshake as a form of salutation, which as of yet hasn't transpired to the best of my knowledge). But what I enjoy most about reading his book, Man and People, is that he has a much more romantic soul than the majority of academic writers. The following passage, for example:

"There is no more superlatively human relation that that... between the man and the woman who love each other... This man is in love with this irreplaceable, incomparable, unique woman... Now, what the two lovers do most is to talk to each other... the love of lovers, which lives in looks, which lives in caresses, more than all lives in conversation, in an endless dialogue. Love is talkative, warbling; love is eloquent, and if anyone is silent in love, it is because he cannot help it, because he is abnormally taciturn... love is the attempt to exchange two solitudes, to mingle two secret inwardnesses - an attempt that, if it succeeded, would be like two streams mingling their waters, or two flames fusing into one."

Now, leaving aside the heteronormativity of this statement, I'm not even sure I agree with it. Silence seems a much more natural thing around someone you love than with anyone else. Perhaps he simply means that love cannot stay silent forever. Or that love calls out to be spoken. Even if this was the case, sometimes silence can be the greatest expression of the nobility of love (or it can be if you're Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, at least). I get the feeling that this isn't what he means though. I suspect that Ortega means that love requires and is based upon communication, and the desire to communicate. Which is true, but it overlooks how intimate silence can be; an intimacy of a sort that can only ever emerge when words are put to one side for a while. But, despite this, I take great comfort from the fact that this all exists, especially in an academic context.

Maybe all I need to do to find my place is move to Spain (half a century ago). Or maybe Ortega felt as out of place as I do now. Either way, I find the above rather beautiful, and all the more poetic for being philosophy (of a sort) as well as poetry.

All The Same

You choke on your thoughts
As you chain smoke cigarettes
Trying hard to forget
How he made you feel that way
Oh, boys are all the same
And maybe I am too

But honey, don't fret
I'll be there for you
The world's not such a lonely place
Or it doesn't have to be

And you would always laugh
At all those bitter jokes
A broken heart can be a funny thing
So maybe you see something we don't
But we'll crack a smile for you
And just be ready for the fall

So honey, don't fret
I'll be there for you
The world's not such a lonely place
Or it doesn't have to be

And if I may be so bold
All that glitters isn't always gold
He's telling lies you never told
So just remember that you deserve more
C'mon darling get involved
I promise that we'll beat them all

Daydreams

Have been spending a lot of time daydreaming lately. Mostly about my own future. Am reaching a junction in my life where I will have to make a fairly big decision. Or what feels like one anyway. So instead of confront that I prefer to fantasise.

The most common situation I dream of is the idea of having my own little farm. It'd be, preferably, a nice old stone building. I wouldn't be farming as a profession or anything. It'd just be a piece of land where I can grow my own food and grain. Maybe keep a few animals. Just enough to mean I could live off the land.

Maybe there'd be a bit of excess. Enough that I could perhaps sell a bit of veg. Would be able to use the money I make to buy a few essentials. Maybe everything I'd need so I could do plenty of baking. I might even be able to sell a bit of what I bake too.

I think that it'd be on a piece of land near Norwich, as Norwich feels like home for me right now. It'd be near enough that I could walk or cycle in (I'd have to get a lift in when I was bringing my produce in to sell at the farmer's market, of course). I'd come in a few times a week. Catch up with people I know. Maybe gatecrash the philosophy society at UEA, if my intellectual needs demand such things. Would be able to keep up with all the wonderful music and art that Norwich has to offer too.

I think, in the ideal version of my daydream, I'd have had some capital when I decided to set up my farm. Then, maybe, after I've settled into my rural lifestyle, I'd have enough money left over that I would be able to build a little recording studio. I'd be able to use it to noodle around in, recording silly little songs. I'd invite my friends and other musicians I admire to come stay on the farm and use the studio for free. Maybe I'd even be able to finance it all by renting it out now and then.

I'd be there, in the place I call home, with my animals and my land and my music and my thoughts. My friends would be nearby. And I'd feel content. Tranquil.

Occasionally, in my daydreams, there is someone there with me. I don't really know who, but someone. Someone to share my home, my land and my life with. Although at the moment that possibility seems the most remote of all, as I'm a bit of a mess. Maybe once I'm on my farm, at peace with myself, then it'll seem more real.

Until then I'll just dream.