So I’ve started over just a little bit. My last blog was way too rigid and I was trying too hard. So I’m just going to write whatever comes to mind, since, well, that was the intent of starting a blog in the first place.
I changed my blog’s name. With the last name I was continuing a theme from my very first blog I had in high school which – as we all know – provides the utmost scintillating topics to look back on. There was something about Speechlessness I chose for the title: I guess I was trying to be clever in referencing that everything I expressed was text. But looking back, it’s best I’ve turned away from the word. I have a voice.
Also, I’m very deliberately turning away from the concept of “liminality” which I seemed to be so obsessed with in college. One wonderful set of weeks and all my classes were talking about the “in betweenness” of things; how societal and linguistic categories are in essence arbitrary and how the concept of liminality exploded what we knew of these structures. It became a portal through which I could explore the idea of having no identity…which at the time was – whether I registered it or not – very appealing to me. It’s something to move on from. It’s no doubt exciting, but so are airports. They’re wildly impersonal and constantly agitated.
I think there remain things to be said about categories that are somewhat ambiguous. I think if we analyze (“break down”) identities we come to see how complex they are. But it’s also important to have a certain confidence in whatever you ascribe to, even if it’s a little blind sighted. I guess, for our own sakes, we need to live with a certain degree of temerity.
So out I go. This is Idyll. I’m inspired by words. I am a nerd. This is old news. I won’t furnish this post with the word’s definitions. You make your own sense of it. But I will touch briefly on the word’s sounds and what meanings these sounds evoke when we hear them…
On Idylls
The pastoral, bucolic, Arcadian or however you want to call them are genres of poetry that regard simple, often Romantic scenes between some young boyish shepherd and an unattainable lass. The presence of Nature is expansive throughout the tale. It helps to know that “idyll” comes from a related Greek word that means “little picture:” it’s picturesque. I think as with most things I do, I try to be pleasing.
On Idols
Everyone loves to look up to someone. It’s a nice feeling. The feeling of admiration, is, well, indeed a form of love. And wonder. The Latin root literally means “to wonder at.” Russian uses a form from the root “to love.” Desiring to be like someone in a positive sense, or, having a cherished image in mind gives one a direction while impelling them towards their goal. Who wouldn’t want to have such pleasant feelings while simultaneously bettering themselves? When you get that feeling, hold onto it.
On Being Idle
So this is where I get some shit for this. Everyone needs a little downtime. It’s more productive to set aside time to unwind and let your mind wander than keep denying the time it needs to relax. So this is my allotted time to stall. In Latin, otium (Italian “ozio”) was the time set aside for contemplation and the arts. This was contrasted with negotium, business (Italian “negozio,” store). To the bad rep of otium, “ozio” eventually came to mean idleness, laziness, and generally doing nothing. Whoops. I suppose this idle time will be for me one of contemplation.
So there you have it. Stay tuned for updates on some brief albeit engaging episodes in my life.
A.N.
