conservation conversation
so if you read some bit of anything below you'll know something about David Foster Wallace, and how i read Infinite Jest this summer and then he (DFW) committed suicide on September 13th and how for a long while after than his life and death and works and words were all so... embalmed/in motion in my mind and spirit.... kind of like a thought project but i won't call it that because it involves so much more than just thinking.... more like a "being" project..... anyways.
so i get home from the semester approximately five hours ago and i am so wiped ("i'm coming home from my hardest year, i'm making plans not to make plans while i'm here" - the lights and buzz). i am crashing. i don't have a temperature, in fact, in am 97.1 degrees fahrenheit (contrary to the 100.3 degrees fahrenheit i spent most of the semester thinking i was) (i have been so excited to take my temperature with a thermometer since we don't have one in the dorms and i always always always think i am sick and dying and overheating, but now that i realize i am not, in fact, sick, this is kind of a let down.... so much for my reliance on medical technology to give my life variety and vigor...) (a whole lot of that was hyperbolic). i'm going to bed right after this. anyways, but as my body crashes, my spirit settles, and suddenly, everything that got stirred up in the busied, muddled sediments of the last months again became lucid. and it's so encouraging, to see the constancy here. matter is neither created nor destroyed (law of conservation of mass) (does this go for untangible matter, too?) (can you have untangible matter?) (what do you call it if it's untangible?) (does it matter?) (ha-ha. couldn't resist)
so the point is, i am about to lend Derek (my dearly beloved brother) my most prized literary possession (okay second only to the whole book cabinet): Infinite Jest. i flip through it (difficult to do given the monstrous size). i actually flip to the back where i wrote down two page numbers: one with the reference to help keep track of dates in the book, and another in reference to the most personally moving passage in the book.
i wanted to publicize this passage, since it still rings as true. it still brought me to my knees (pretty literally) like it did the first time i read it. so i think that there is something to be said for the law of conservation of mass as far as applying to things that don't have mass, but still seem to matter (excuse the pun, the idea might be worthwhile)... the fact is, truth is constant. and when you run into it (Megan Gularte read me an incredible passage on truth today from Thomas Merton, i can't quote it verbatim but something along the lines of not just seeking it but (holding? i forget the word that goes here? shoot thats the whole point) it...sorry anyways), something true in you knows it. and that connection.... truth meeting truth? i think of spots of raindrops turning into puddles and whole oceans forming for us to sail in.
the character and situation context here is really difficult to explain. just go with it, you can pick out what is important regardless of knowing that (and i think it's because of that that the book is so much more than just a story... and that stories are so much more than just fictional tales...). enjoy.
"Marathe's chair squeaked slightly as his weight shifted. 'Always with you this freedom! For your walled-up country, always to shout, "Freedom! Freedom!" as if it were obvious to all peole what it wants to mean, this word. But look: it is not so simple as that. Your freedom is the freedom-from: no one tells your precious individual U.S.A. selves what they must do. It is this meaning only, this freedom from constraint and forced duress... But what of the freedom-to? Not just free-from. Not all compulsion comes from without. You pretend you do not see this. What of freedom-to. How for the person to freely choose? How to choose any but a child's greedy choices if there is no loving-filled father to guide, inform, teach the person how to choose? How is there freedom to choose if one does not learn how to choose? ... The rich father who can afford the cost of candy as well as food for his children: but if he crieds out "Freedom!" and allows his child to choose only what is sweet, eating only candy, not pea soup and bread and eggs, so his child becomes weak and sick: is the rich man who cries "Freedom!" the good father?'
mmmm. the eternal words of David Foster Wallace.
he voices what was always there, and now that he is gone, the voice remains.... it is neither created nor destroyed... and it matters.
John 1:1-3
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.
so the integration today is the parallel between literary voice, scientific law, and biblical truth.
going. to. bed. now. thank. you. God. for. most. everything.
so i get home from the semester approximately five hours ago and i am so wiped ("i'm coming home from my hardest year, i'm making plans not to make plans while i'm here" - the lights and buzz). i am crashing. i don't have a temperature, in fact, in am 97.1 degrees fahrenheit (contrary to the 100.3 degrees fahrenheit i spent most of the semester thinking i was) (i have been so excited to take my temperature with a thermometer since we don't have one in the dorms and i always always always think i am sick and dying and overheating, but now that i realize i am not, in fact, sick, this is kind of a let down.... so much for my reliance on medical technology to give my life variety and vigor...) (a whole lot of that was hyperbolic). i'm going to bed right after this. anyways, but as my body crashes, my spirit settles, and suddenly, everything that got stirred up in the busied, muddled sediments of the last months again became lucid. and it's so encouraging, to see the constancy here. matter is neither created nor destroyed (law of conservation of mass) (does this go for untangible matter, too?) (can you have untangible matter?) (what do you call it if it's untangible?) (does it matter?) (ha-ha. couldn't resist)
so the point is, i am about to lend Derek (my dearly beloved brother) my most prized literary possession (okay second only to the whole book cabinet): Infinite Jest. i flip through it (difficult to do given the monstrous size). i actually flip to the back where i wrote down two page numbers: one with the reference to help keep track of dates in the book, and another in reference to the most personally moving passage in the book.
i wanted to publicize this passage, since it still rings as true. it still brought me to my knees (pretty literally) like it did the first time i read it. so i think that there is something to be said for the law of conservation of mass as far as applying to things that don't have mass, but still seem to matter (excuse the pun, the idea might be worthwhile)... the fact is, truth is constant. and when you run into it (Megan Gularte read me an incredible passage on truth today from Thomas Merton, i can't quote it verbatim but something along the lines of not just seeking it but (holding? i forget the word that goes here? shoot thats the whole point) it...sorry anyways), something true in you knows it. and that connection.... truth meeting truth? i think of spots of raindrops turning into puddles and whole oceans forming for us to sail in.
the character and situation context here is really difficult to explain. just go with it, you can pick out what is important regardless of knowing that (and i think it's because of that that the book is so much more than just a story... and that stories are so much more than just fictional tales...). enjoy.
"Marathe's chair squeaked slightly as his weight shifted. 'Always with you this freedom! For your walled-up country, always to shout, "Freedom! Freedom!" as if it were obvious to all peole what it wants to mean, this word. But look: it is not so simple as that. Your freedom is the freedom-from: no one tells your precious individual U.S.A. selves what they must do. It is this meaning only, this freedom from constraint and forced duress... But what of the freedom-to? Not just free-from. Not all compulsion comes from without. You pretend you do not see this. What of freedom-to. How for the person to freely choose? How to choose any but a child's greedy choices if there is no loving-filled father to guide, inform, teach the person how to choose? How is there freedom to choose if one does not learn how to choose? ... The rich father who can afford the cost of candy as well as food for his children: but if he crieds out "Freedom!" and allows his child to choose only what is sweet, eating only candy, not pea soup and bread and eggs, so his child becomes weak and sick: is the rich man who cries "Freedom!" the good father?'
mmmm. the eternal words of David Foster Wallace.
he voices what was always there, and now that he is gone, the voice remains.... it is neither created nor destroyed... and it matters.
John 1:1-3
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.
so the integration today is the parallel between literary voice, scientific law, and biblical truth.
going. to. bed. now. thank. you. God. for. most. everything.
Comments