Anais Nin Top 10 Quotes: Diary Vol.1

    Just finished rereading volume one of Anais Nin's diaries...such awesome insight into the artistic human soul. This volume of her diary primarily focuses around her affair with Henry Miller (and his wife June), and her psychoanalysis with Dr.'s Allendy and Otto Rank. The way she questions her own nature as well as plumbs the depths of artistically inclined people (along with their neurosis) is incredibly insightful - especially to one like myself who share's many of these characteristics...and is completely neurotic:)

Here are my favorite quotes from this volume:

1. For this is the moment when I relive my life in terms of a dream, a myth, an endless story... (in reference to her writing in her diary).

2. When a higher moment comes, all details recede into the background. I never lost sight of the whole. An impeccable dress is made to be lived in, to be torn, wet, stained, crumpled.

3. Literature is an exaggeration, a dramatization, & those who are nourished on it are in great danger of trying to approximate an impossible rhythm.

4. I assimilate such a draught of sensations, wonder at the beauty of women, the magnetism of men.

5. A big enough artist, I say, can eat anything, must eat everything and then alchemize it. Only the feeble writer is afraid of expansion.

6. A writer is the duelest who never fights at the stated hour, who gathers up an insult, like another curious object, a collector's item, spreads it out on his desk later, and then engages in a duel with it verbally.

7. That is why the writer is the loneliest man in the world: because he lives, fights, dies, is reborn always alone; all his roles are played behind a curtain.

8. Poetic vision is not the outcome of blindness but of a force which can transcend the ugliest face of reality, swallow and dissolve it by it's strength, not evasion.

9. He (Dr. Rank) considered neurosis a failed work of art, the neurotic a failed artist. Neurosis, was a manifestation of imagination and energy gone wrong. Instead of a fruit or flower, I had borne obsessions and anxieties.

10. The neurotic feels his next statement is expected to fit into a logical continuity whose pressure he finally succumbs to. The more this process becomes clear to him, the more he experiences a kind of discouragement with the banality of it and deprives him of that very illusion and creative halo which is necessary to the recreation of a human being. Instead of discovering the poetic, imaginative, creative potentialities of his disease (since every neurotic fantasy is really a twisted aborted work of art), he discovers the de-poetization of it, which makes him a cripple instead of a potential artist.

Where have all the idiots come from?

     In our attempt to "simplify" our lives we have resorted to all forms of shortcuts, including in our modes of communication. A recent episode of the TV show Bones (yes I love Bones! But if Booth and Bones don't hook up this season I'm over it, 6 seasons is just to long to wait) the Jersey shore-esque kids (suspects) were being questioned in regards to several text messages sent. I can't even remember the inane sequences of letters and numbers, but it made me realize we really do have people spelling out entire sentences with the first letters only: RUFRTIFR! Yeah don't even try...

     Eek! I have to admit I have become a perpetrator of the modern text language but that is getting ridiculous.

     We all have ADD so bad now we can't even say Attention Deficit Disorder!

     When we resort to such sort cuts it's true we get our point or meaning across quicker, but it's also more likely to be misunderstood (how many relationships have problems because people read into the intonation of text messages incorrectly?), and the beauty and nuance of language is becoming lost - something I love and miss coming from sources other than myself. It's also lowering the general impression of intelligence out there...

     Of course this being said, I am a complete contradiction of my own tirade and absolute hypocrite (like most honest people) - being that I have horrible ADHD (yes I take adderall), text my mother YT (your turn) all the time to remind her of our WWFG (Words With Friends Game), and often have music playing while watching a movie, while playing games on my phone, while writing on my computer...but at least I strive for intelligence and the unusual, the beautiful moments in life...

Carpal-tunnel Texting fingers

     I guess you could say this particular reflection all started when my doctor told me I probably was developing carpal-tunnel in my fingers and wrists, from "texting" (or in my case playing solitaire) on my phone.

     I was at lunch with a friend recently which suffered from prolonged periods of silence. I am a talker and with most people can find some subject upon which to talk over reach other quite successfully, but I my attempts at various lines of thought was met with a kind of verbose vacancy. In other words the person was emitting a decent amount of words but they contained absolutely no meaning or point and definitely did not encourage further pontification. Those dreadful one word answers some people emit on a regular basis probably would have been preferable to trying to wade through streams of words trying to find a point.

     It was only made worse by the fact that the person was intermittently distracted by a series of texts on their phone. Now this is one of my pet peeves. If I am taking time out of my day to hang out with someone for any reason I focus on that person - not my phone. A subtle check every once in awhile is fine. But carrying on rampant text-a-thons is just plain rude.

     As my dining companion picked up their phone only a second after having just set it back down, I heaved a little sigh looked around dreading my own boredom...and proceeded to play solitaire on my own phone. What a pair we must have made in the restaurant - a sad but true representation of my generation.
     ...ironically I was sort of in love with this person - just goes to show how off base "feelings" can be in comparison to logic or understanding.

Realizations

        Everytime I think I know myself so well and I've learned so much...life makes me aware of even more about myself and/or the world around me. It's kind of humbling. I think I've evolved so much and then someone/thing makes me aware that no, I have not, in fact evolved all that much and I still have plenty of learning to do.
       What's really amazing is that 5 or 6, even 10 years ago I thought I had things pretty well figured out. Hahaha...
        Two things in particular were brought to my attention in the last few days. The first, I am more then happy to contemplate, the second by it's very nature (an issue of avoidance) makes me not want to ponder it on the page, however, I will endeavor to do so - maybe.
        Firstly, There are certain tasks that most people perform because they know they have to and they are relatively successful at it: paying bills, cleaning your house, getting groceries, etc. I have always had the impression that these things get easier with age as you recognize responsibility and understand the importance of being organized or having good credit.
         I have struggled for years and years to try and fix this, but it is my very nature that makes me not successful and no matter how much I try and train myself I still live in a state of utter chaos (I have at least two years of unopened mail shoved away in bags and boxes...hmmmm).
         Someone told me today that I'm one of "those artsy people who's amazingly creative but who can't keep track of their life". Yes, yes that might be me. Trying to be this perfectly balanced "successful at it all" human being is a ridiculous undertaking.
         What really matters is that I am out there doing things and being creative and successful; not that it took me three weeks to mail a letter, or 17 threatening reminder calls to actually take the two minutes to pay the damn bill! So I am being responsible. I've hired someone to help me with the personal logistics of my life!! And I'm even learning how to delegate the little things off at work - that's why I have a support person - imagine that!

        Ahh as for that second thing well, I've realized there is a part of myself I've kept pretty closed off for a long time and I'm always preaching to everyone about being open, well I probably need to take a little of my own advice. What's strange is that I closed it off so far and for so long that I am no longer really aware that it started as something different. I just thought the way I am now is the way I've always been...but someone reminded me that is not so, which in turn made me aware of the fact that I made a more or less conscious decision at some point to change that about myself.
      

Heal You

I see your wound,
My heart already breaking,
Let me purge your pain,
Pluck it's last drop,
Refill you with vivid life,
Hold up a mirror,
Reflected beauty

Now I crawl across the floor,
Body racked with your foreigness,
Love you until you're mostly gone,

A tear stained face,
I can't breathe,
Who else came in the door when I let you in?

Now I feel the madness closing in

Movie Review: Repulsion

      Just finished watching Roman Polanski's Repulsion with Catherine Denueve about the quiet madness of a young woman. It primarily focused on her mixed attraction and repulsion of sexuality, and her eventual violent outbursts because of this.

      Even if it was obviously a man's take on this, I liked the subtlety with which it was done. And I only say it was from a man's point of view because the sense of sexual arousal was limited to the men, whereas her arousal only came through violence.
      Make no bones about it though, it was a very disturbing and frightening portrayal of feminine madness, sexuality, power, and her ability to take violent action. Unlike movie's now days it was done in a very subtle and somewhat artistic fashion, so that you went on this journey with her and felt a little unsure at times of what was actually going on - much as she was in the film.

      The only disappointing thing for me was that as a woman I wanted her to not only gain her power through violence but through the sexual side as well - we women can also have fantasies mingling the traditional masculine energies of sex and violence. He let her embrace only violent action and never sexual. Whereas I, watching it, wanted her to engage in the madness of both - something a woman would do: From a frightening male dominated repulsion to a pulverized mad bliss...