Wow, such coincidence

Writing about Nabokov is seriously warping my mind--not that it wasn't severely warped to begin with. I have SO MUCH referential mania right now.

Evidence: I was talking to my young man yesterday, and he was annoyed at how many people in the world don't have goals in life. I think his exact wording was "they take paths that lead nowhere." It was at this point that I had this jolt of recognition; there's a Breaking Benjamin song that has the lyrics "take the path that leads to nowhere." In fact, it was this song that inspired the title for my little poorly-executed "art" post awhile back. I must have had a weird look on my face, because he stopped and asked what was going on, so I explained, and I'm pretty sure I confused him even more. Then I told him it was related to this class and apparently that magically made everything clear to him, so there's that.

Nabokov, what have you done to me?

Chickens and eggs or something like that

As I was reading a spot of Eliade today, I came across this line on page 43 in reference to creation myths and Paradise and so forth: "The savages, for their own part, were also aware of having lost a primitive Paradise." This, coupled with the discussions we've been having in class, got me thinking (as if that's unusual). Which came first? Did the entirety of humanity just assume that things must have been better at some point, and so made up stories to support this idea, or were things actually better at some point, but all we have now is mythologies? I don't pretend to have the answer to this. I was just turning it over in my head and wondered what you all thought.

And now for something completely different.

I was reading Matt Schwager's blog about dreams, which also sort of had to do with Eliade, and realized that I actually had a really weird dream last night too. Basically, something really bad had happened for some reason--I think it was like Indiana Jones, and someone in my family found a talisman (or whatever) and somebody else wanted it because I don't know why and they were nasty people so they started chasing my family around. It wasn't the nice sort of game chase, like a lot of people apparently have in dreams, and it wasn't monsters, either, not in the strict sense of the term. It was just people, which I think are in many ways the most horrible monsters ever created. Anyway, it somehow fell to me to keep my family safe, but I didn't have weapons or anything, and I barely knew who was following us. All I could do was move them to different places, like chess. Somehow we ended up in a refugee camp (at least I think that's what it was), and the people found us, and I'd failed. Unfortunately, it wasn't one of those dreams in which you wake up just when something bad is about to happen. Nope, I got to see everything, but I don't think I quite remember that section.

The weird thing about that dream isn't its content; that's about par for the course for me, though I usually wake up part of the way through the chasing bits. There are actually two things about it: first (which is really kind of two things), that I was physically there, insofar as I can be in a dream, and ended up failing; and second, more importantly, that I remember it. Perhaps it's significant, though I doubt it. It's probably just indicative of the severely messed-up state of my subconscious mind. (Freud would have a ball snooping through my head.) Incidentally, I was, like Matt, sick yesterday, so I'm sure that's another contributing factor. It just seemed really coincidental to me that I would have that dream last night and then today read about Matt's weird dream and also about losing Paradise. The paradise of my own dreams is lost to me, apparently. Regardless, I'm keeping my eyes peeled for shamans now, per Matt's blog.

Anyway, for what it's worth, there you go. Overshare? Probably. Also, I think I've labeled almost every post I've made so far in this class as "weird."

A Certifiable Fruitcake

In class tonight, I had this thought right in the middle but didn't want to give voice to it because I hadn't refined it enough yet. What if the way forward and back, up and down, is the same because there is no way? What if we are stationary bits of cipher in the midst of an infinite and incomprehensible Reality that whirls around us, adding to and taking away from our little nothings? Then there's only one direction to go--nowhere, because everywhere and everything and everytime are coming at us all at once.

In an apparently unrelated turn of events, I had my iPod on shuffle on my way home tonight. The second song that came on was this song by Foo Fighters. I actually hadn't thought about this song as being particularly deeply philosophical before, since I always thought it was about either rioting or some backstabbing/fickle friend/lover. Now I can't figure out if it's that or solipsist or inspired by Finnegans Wake. "I'm finished making sense / Done pleading ignorance." WHAT. I thought about it for a while and then I realized I was still driving so I should probably think about that.

And then, about three songs later--possibly more because I skipped some stuff in between--this other song by Seether came on (warning: PG-13 content, just saying). I feel like it's significant but I don't totally know why yet. Maybe it has to do with reality spinning all around and nobody feels like they belong so we're all faking. That's really cynical. "Who's to know if your soul will fade at all / The one you sold to fool the world / You lost your self esteem along the way, yeah / Good God, you're coming up with reasons / Good God, you're dragging it out / Good God, it's the changing of the seasons..." If anyone has other ideas about why that's of great import, please tell me. Or perhaps it's merely referential mania kicking in; thus in part the title of this post.

AND THEN. This song came on immediately after (another warning: semi-chauvinistic innuendo in two languages). There are two things about it that struck me. First is one of the lyrics: "...back like a crawfish in the name of progress." Bit of a stretch, but I almost backed my car into my garage door when I heard it, mostly because I'm now fairly certain I'm getting a Nabokov-worthy case of referential mania. Second was the fact that it's in English and Hebrew. I speak Arabic, which is a cousin of Hebrew, so every time I hear this song, I hear all these cognate Arabic/Hebrew words amid an ocean of kshhkkki kvisi faelsdlguasdgj that makes zero sense to me. It's again a little like Finnegans Wake--the same sense of "I should know what's going on" coupled with "hey that sounds really cool and I don't necessarily care that I don't know what's going on."

(Yes, I do have very weird taste in music. Fun factoid: via those songs, you just went to at least three different countries. You're welcome for the cultural experience.)

Last thing, I promise. This is more of an epistle than I thought it would be, though hopefully I haven't pulled too many comma-ridden Saint Paul sentences on you all yet. Anyway, as I was settling myself in for a nice, relaxing, popcorn-for-the-brain read in the form of a Clive Cussler novel (don't judge), I came to the last part of the novel. Part V: Ashes, Ashes, All Fall Down. Again, WHAT. I nearly threw the book. Incidentally, that part of the book is about flushing Hitler's ashes down the White House toilet, but as far as I'm concerned, such niggling details are immaterial. We had just finished discussing Ring Around the Rosy and then I find a reference to it in a completely unrelated, semi-lowbrow book. I don't even know.

It's at this point that I realize I will go certifiably insane if I keep thinking about this because Reality is trying to knock a hole in my brain and I can't handle it. So I guess I'll just leave this here and you all can kick it around if you like.