I was watching “Good Morning America” before I left for work this morning - I find the Diane Sawyer/Robin Roberts duo strangely soothing at 7:30 a.m. - when I caught several minutes of a piece about the Damanhur Temples of Humankind, thirty miles north of the city of Turin. The Temples were built beginning in 1978 and are a handcrafted place of worship. Amazingly enough, the Damanhur Temples were carved inside a mountain without the knowledge or permission of the Italian government (1).
While that’s quite a feat in and of itself, even more fascinating is the group of people that live there, the Damanhurians. The Damanhurians somehow still believe that humanity has the potential to live free of discord and at one with nature (their society is an eco-based one). The Damanhurians (about 800 people) live communally, have their own language and have managed, despite all odds, to retain faith in the goodness of humankind.
Wow. I want to join them. I can just see myself now, bathing in streams, sleeping under the stars, never to be bound by the pressure to wear foundation and eyeliner again. I’ll be able to read and to write, to hike and see the world from a new and more pure vantage point, to listen (and sing along to) Pavement and Patti Smith with impunity. I’ll pick out a new name - like Phoenix Renee - to symbolize my rise from the ashes. I’ll get over my addiction to caffeine and will never have to deal with the disapproving looks of other women as they give my shoes and handbag the once-over in department stores or subway platforms. Cry Freedom!
There is the little problem of my student loans. But if the Damanhurians can build a temple in a mountain without the government even realizing, surely they can handle a few less-than-scrupulous creditors, right?
(1) – Thanks to Good Morning America, Thursday January 31st, as soon as I figure out the proper way to do an internet citation (Blue Book WHERE ARE YOU?! ) I’ll edit this.
If you want to find out more about the Damanhurians, go to http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Story?id=4216350&page=1.
Title from the song “Right Me Up” by State Radio
IT'S HURRICANE SEASON...
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
About Seeing the Whole Chess Board
Recently I made a very bad decision. For months I have chastised myself about it, examined and re-examined just where I went wrong in my thinking, what part of my rationale was (so obviously) faulty, why I was so misguided. Was I desperate to escape something? Impulsive? Just overly confident that by making a change I could "make things right"? I think maybe I was, in my childish way, clinging onto the belief that there are sometimes easy solutions to things. I haven't grown up as much as I would have hoped, in fact maybe I haven't grown up at all.
Anyway, a friend sent me this quotation yesterday:
"The choice may have been mistaken, but the choosing was not."
- "Move On" lyrics, song covered by Barbra Streisand, 2006
Thank you for making me see that what I lacked at the time was not necessarily maturity or good sense, but peripheral vision. Why did I think I would have been exempt from myopia?
Anyway, a friend sent me this quotation yesterday:
"The choice may have been mistaken, but the choosing was not."
- "Move On" lyrics, song covered by Barbra Streisand, 2006
Thank you for making me see that what I lacked at the time was not necessarily maturity or good sense, but peripheral vision. Why did I think I would have been exempt from myopia?
On Music, or How a Little Red iPod Changed My Life
I was recently discussing music with someone, and when I told him how fanatical I was about it, his natural assumption was that I must be a musician of some sort. Sadly, no, I do not sing, nor do I play any instruments (aside from some truly dreadful attempts at a rendition of “Faith” by George Michael during karaoke, and several equally unfortunate years of wasted piano lessons). I have, in all honesty, no musical ability whatsoever (aside from a strange penchant for memorizing lyrics). But music is almost as basic to my existence as air or water.
It sounds counterintuitive, but music and lyrics written by others enable me to express myself in a way that would otherwise be impossible. I find that when I try to put thoughts, emotions and feelings into words, something is always lost in the translation. It’s almost as if I am trying to speak another language without knowing the vocabulary. So I rely on music to do that for me. Music is my interpreter. It enables me to make sense of my thoughts and emotions; it gives me the tools to reconcile myself to my circumstances, whatever they may be. It gives me a connection to my past – memories that are often so transient and ephemeral that they are in danger of being lost forever in the impenetrable web of neurons and neurotransmitters that comprises my cerebrum.
Because of my obsession with music, people are often surprised to hear that I rarely go to concerts. In thinking about this, I guess it’s because music is a kind of solitary exercise for me, much like meditation or even prayer. I think music may be the closest I will ever come to any sort of true spirituality. Concerts are, in my reality, too often about pleasing crowds. Which is not to say that there aren’t occasions on which music raises a group of otherwise disconnected individuals to a newer level of awareness and understanding, - as those lucky enough to attend Woodstock or those whose religiosity makes a choir something holy can surely attest to. But I’m not a religious person and watersheds like Woodstock happen once in a lifetime, if we are that lucky.
So for me, right now, I’ll take my music from the earphones of the little red iPod nano my sister got me for Christmas. (Thanks H). Unless Tom Waits or Springsteen want to come over and give me a private concert; if you see them, let them know I’ll be waiting.
It sounds counterintuitive, but music and lyrics written by others enable me to express myself in a way that would otherwise be impossible. I find that when I try to put thoughts, emotions and feelings into words, something is always lost in the translation. It’s almost as if I am trying to speak another language without knowing the vocabulary. So I rely on music to do that for me. Music is my interpreter. It enables me to make sense of my thoughts and emotions; it gives me the tools to reconcile myself to my circumstances, whatever they may be. It gives me a connection to my past – memories that are often so transient and ephemeral that they are in danger of being lost forever in the impenetrable web of neurons and neurotransmitters that comprises my cerebrum.
Because of my obsession with music, people are often surprised to hear that I rarely go to concerts. In thinking about this, I guess it’s because music is a kind of solitary exercise for me, much like meditation or even prayer. I think music may be the closest I will ever come to any sort of true spirituality. Concerts are, in my reality, too often about pleasing crowds. Which is not to say that there aren’t occasions on which music raises a group of otherwise disconnected individuals to a newer level of awareness and understanding, - as those lucky enough to attend Woodstock or those whose religiosity makes a choir something holy can surely attest to. But I’m not a religious person and watersheds like Woodstock happen once in a lifetime, if we are that lucky.
So for me, right now, I’ll take my music from the earphones of the little red iPod nano my sister got me for Christmas. (Thanks H). Unless Tom Waits or Springsteen want to come over and give me a private concert; if you see them, let them know I’ll be waiting.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
On Questions
The mathematician Johann von Neumann once said, “In mathematics you don’t understand things. You just get used to them.”
It’s obvious to me that von Neumann appreciated something very fundamental about life. That being said, I kind of wonder if he was ever truly able to reconcile himself to an existence of acceptance without understanding. If so, I wish I could ask him how.
I now have to make my confession – by most people’s standards, I think too much. Yes, it’s kind of annoying to some (especially my close friends and my sister, who is tiring of my incessant attempts at analysis), but it’s always been in my nature. I am, to be quite honest, more of an observer of life than a participant. The background has always felt more comfortable to me than it’s more glamorous and highly coveted counterpart. Popularity, although I aspired to it at some point, has in truth never suited me at all. I think – I hope – that I have finally reached the point where I am able to accept that it’s just as legitimate to be a watcher as it is to be a doer.
This tendency sentences me to the endless task of trying to reach an illusory goal. I know it’s futile, but it’s as addictive to me as shoes or espresso. I simply can’t exist without it. Growing up, the most consistent thing people said to me in the way of unsolicited advice is that I was “too intense”. It’s off-putting to many. If I separate myself from myself, I can see how my ceaseless rumination and scrutiny can be truly tiresome. (Certainly my ex-boyfriend found it so; I think I simply exhausted his patience). As one friend recently told me, I am “too much in my own head”. Maybe it’s narcissism. I prefer to label it sensitivity to the hundredth power.
This begs the question: what has all of this taught me? The answer, of course, is absolutely nothing. This makes it sound like it has been a supreme waste of time and energy. And maybe it has. But it’s the single lesson I am most grateful for in this life.
I have been able to create a sort of rough outline, an ever-evolving philosophy applicable to my own life and experience, and it is this: chaos theory reigns supreme. Things don’t happen for “a reason”. That statement is, to me, an attempt to create order in a world where there simply is none. (A caveat: I am speaking only for myself here. I would never presume to make a generalization about anyone else’s life, beliefs or value system). Believing that there is some master plan behind things may make for a more palatable reality, but as it applies to my own life, I think it’s an extended exercise in self-delusion. I cannot see things as “meant to be”, because that statement necessarily assumes that something higher has made that value judgment. And that’s simply not a concept I can live with. Objectivity may be a lofty goal, but it’s one that does not exist in the realm of humanity as I have experienced it.
This isn’t to say that we should not try to structure the chaos. As much as I personally believe that it is impossible, I also know on a visceral level that as people we could not survive without earnestly continuing the attempt. So we assign meaning to the things that happen. We create some purpose for our struggles. We have to do so in order to survive. The cerebrum demands it of us. And I think it’s as beautiful as it is useless. I am not a religious person, but that is the only God I know of.
Several years before my mother died, she sent me a card with a quotation from the poet Rainer Maria Rilke:
“..try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”
Well, I simply cannot help searching for the answers, Mom. But I’m growing to like living the questions a little better.
It’s obvious to me that von Neumann appreciated something very fundamental about life. That being said, I kind of wonder if he was ever truly able to reconcile himself to an existence of acceptance without understanding. If so, I wish I could ask him how.
I now have to make my confession – by most people’s standards, I think too much. Yes, it’s kind of annoying to some (especially my close friends and my sister, who is tiring of my incessant attempts at analysis), but it’s always been in my nature. I am, to be quite honest, more of an observer of life than a participant. The background has always felt more comfortable to me than it’s more glamorous and highly coveted counterpart. Popularity, although I aspired to it at some point, has in truth never suited me at all. I think – I hope – that I have finally reached the point where I am able to accept that it’s just as legitimate to be a watcher as it is to be a doer.
This tendency sentences me to the endless task of trying to reach an illusory goal. I know it’s futile, but it’s as addictive to me as shoes or espresso. I simply can’t exist without it. Growing up, the most consistent thing people said to me in the way of unsolicited advice is that I was “too intense”. It’s off-putting to many. If I separate myself from myself, I can see how my ceaseless rumination and scrutiny can be truly tiresome. (Certainly my ex-boyfriend found it so; I think I simply exhausted his patience). As one friend recently told me, I am “too much in my own head”. Maybe it’s narcissism. I prefer to label it sensitivity to the hundredth power.
This begs the question: what has all of this taught me? The answer, of course, is absolutely nothing. This makes it sound like it has been a supreme waste of time and energy. And maybe it has. But it’s the single lesson I am most grateful for in this life.
I have been able to create a sort of rough outline, an ever-evolving philosophy applicable to my own life and experience, and it is this: chaos theory reigns supreme. Things don’t happen for “a reason”. That statement is, to me, an attempt to create order in a world where there simply is none. (A caveat: I am speaking only for myself here. I would never presume to make a generalization about anyone else’s life, beliefs or value system). Believing that there is some master plan behind things may make for a more palatable reality, but as it applies to my own life, I think it’s an extended exercise in self-delusion. I cannot see things as “meant to be”, because that statement necessarily assumes that something higher has made that value judgment. And that’s simply not a concept I can live with. Objectivity may be a lofty goal, but it’s one that does not exist in the realm of humanity as I have experienced it.
This isn’t to say that we should not try to structure the chaos. As much as I personally believe that it is impossible, I also know on a visceral level that as people we could not survive without earnestly continuing the attempt. So we assign meaning to the things that happen. We create some purpose for our struggles. We have to do so in order to survive. The cerebrum demands it of us. And I think it’s as beautiful as it is useless. I am not a religious person, but that is the only God I know of.
Several years before my mother died, she sent me a card with a quotation from the poet Rainer Maria Rilke:
“..try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”
Well, I simply cannot help searching for the answers, Mom. But I’m growing to like living the questions a little better.
A Eulogy for 2007
So I wrote this on December 31st and it's a little out of date, but what the hell, I am posting it anyway...
Dear 2007,
I guess it’s time for me to see you off. Perhaps you think I should be doing some deep introspection now, thinking about what you taught me and how I’m going to start over in 2008. But in all honesty, that would actually be a disservice to you and your forebears.
2007, I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions any more than I believe that things happen for a reason. I don’t think people change in response to some arbitrary date on a calendar, and I don’t believe in clean slates or in some internal “reset” button. My own life has shown me that the human experience is necessarily cumulative. Separating one year from the next might be a comfortable classification system to help order the world, but I have found that it’s a pretty useless way in which to make sense of the psyche.
I hope you understand and won’t hold it against me. I’m grateful for you – what you gave to me, and even for what you took away. But no year exists in a vacuum. So I suppose what I’m saying is that I’m not really saying goodbye to you at all.
Let me tell you what I hope for in 2008, which is in all honesty the same thing I aspire to every day. I can’t find the words myself really, so I’ll let Eddie Vedder tell you because he put it better than I ever could.
Excerpt from "Rise", lyrics and music by Eddie Vedder, from the soundtrack to "Into the Wild"
Such is the way of the world
You can never know
Just where to put all your faithAnd how will it grow
Gonna rise upBurning back holes in dark memories
Gonna rise upTurning mistakes into gold
Hmmm, I guess the word for it is transcendence?
With love and appreciation (and admittedly a tad of resentment),
-M
Dear 2007,
I guess it’s time for me to see you off. Perhaps you think I should be doing some deep introspection now, thinking about what you taught me and how I’m going to start over in 2008. But in all honesty, that would actually be a disservice to you and your forebears.
2007, I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions any more than I believe that things happen for a reason. I don’t think people change in response to some arbitrary date on a calendar, and I don’t believe in clean slates or in some internal “reset” button. My own life has shown me that the human experience is necessarily cumulative. Separating one year from the next might be a comfortable classification system to help order the world, but I have found that it’s a pretty useless way in which to make sense of the psyche.
I hope you understand and won’t hold it against me. I’m grateful for you – what you gave to me, and even for what you took away. But no year exists in a vacuum. So I suppose what I’m saying is that I’m not really saying goodbye to you at all.
Let me tell you what I hope for in 2008, which is in all honesty the same thing I aspire to every day. I can’t find the words myself really, so I’ll let Eddie Vedder tell you because he put it better than I ever could.
Excerpt from "Rise", lyrics and music by Eddie Vedder, from the soundtrack to "Into the Wild"
Such is the way of the world
You can never know
Just where to put all your faithAnd how will it grow
Gonna rise upBurning back holes in dark memories
Gonna rise upTurning mistakes into gold
Hmmm, I guess the word for it is transcendence?
With love and appreciation (and admittedly a tad of resentment),
-M
A Dedication
So I start with a brief tribute, because it seems appropriate...
When I was in college, I mentioned to a friend that I wanted to write a memoir one day. She looked at me, laughed and said “What do you have to say that anyone would want to read?” Well, to this day I still have no answer. Probably nothing. But I don’t write to interest or entertain other people – I’m frankly not capable of that ambitious an undertaking. I write for myself, and I do it simply because I have to. My writing is probably not particularly good and I don’t aspire to move or inspire anyone. It’s much more visceral than that, and to be honest, more selfish. So if anyone ever reads what I write with the expectation of being entertained, he or she is most likely to be pretty disappointed.
That being said, it’s taken me years to start writing on a (somewhat) regular basis. I lack discipline, I lack focus, and most of all, I am completely lacking in understanding. I think what enabled me to finally start doing it is the realization that I don’t have to understand in order to write – in fact, I write in order to try to understand.
So at the outset of this blog I am starting, I want to make a dedication. I’m not going to put it in my own words, because despite the fact that I sometimes talk incessantly, I’m often not very good at communicating my feelings to the people I care most about. I often want desperately to tell them how much they have meant to me, but the words get trapped inside my throat and the sentiments never see the light of day. So I’m going to use someone else’s words. But the feelings are my own, and even if the people I am dedicating this to never get to read it – and some surely won’t, because they have passed on – I at least am acknowledging, if even only to myself, the difference they made in my life.
So, to Betsy (RIP, dear angel), Susana, Sue (the Foster family!), Steve, Celeste, Sarah (the Thomas family!), Susan O, Bernadette, Connie, Chuck (all the Waciseks), Amy (The McGovern-Berkowitz family), Susan-Joan, Dee Dee, Julie, Ilissa, Jeanne, Esere, Christy, Rachel, Nancy, Silvana, Eneze, Quiana, Lucretia, Angela (RIP), Nellie (RIP), Deborah, and to my late grandmother, Concetta Colosi DiFabio(RIP), to my father, Barry Alan Gluck (1944 – 1992) , and most of all, to my mother, Marilyn Ann DiFabio Gluck (1948 – 2004) and my sister, Hillary Constance Gluck (the two best friends and most inspirational heroes a person could ever ask for ) – thank you for making me believe that something pure, honest and real still exists in this world. I love you.
Excerpt from “For Good”, from Wicked, lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, sung on the Wicked Cast Album by Idina Medezel and Kristin Chenoweth and copied from the website http://www.musicalschwartz.com/wicked-for-good.htm:
GLINDA
I've heard it said that people come into our lives for a reason bringing something we must learn and we are led to those whohelp us most to grow if we let them and we help them in return and we are led to those who help us most to grow if we letthem and we help them in return
Now I don't know if I believe that that is true but I know I'm who I am today because I knew you...
Like a comet pulled from orbit as it passes the sun, like a stream that meets a boulder halfway through the wood...who can say if I've been changed for the better? But because I knew you I have been changed for good
ELPHABA
It well may be that we will never meet again in this lifetime so let me say before we part: so much of me is what I have learned from you you'll be with me, like a handprint on my heart
now whatever way our stories may end I know you haverewritten mine by being my friend... Like a ship blown from it's mooring by a wind off the sea like a seed dropped by a skybird in a distant wood who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you... I have been changed for good
GLINDA
Because I knew you...
BOTH
I have been changed for good
ELPHABA
And just to clear the air I ask forgiveness for what you blame me for...
GLINDA
Well I guess there is blame to share...
BOTH
And none of it seems to matter anymore
GLINDA (same time as Elphaba)
Like a comet pulled from orbit as it passes the sun, like a stream that meets a boulder halfway through the wood
ELPHABA (same time as Glinda)
Like a ship blown off it's mooring by a wind off the sea, like a seed dropped by a skybird in the wood
BOTH
Who's to say if I've been changed for the better?
GLINDA
Because I knew you
ELPHABAbecause I knew you
BOTH I have been changed for good
- January 29th, 2008.
When I was in college, I mentioned to a friend that I wanted to write a memoir one day. She looked at me, laughed and said “What do you have to say that anyone would want to read?” Well, to this day I still have no answer. Probably nothing. But I don’t write to interest or entertain other people – I’m frankly not capable of that ambitious an undertaking. I write for myself, and I do it simply because I have to. My writing is probably not particularly good and I don’t aspire to move or inspire anyone. It’s much more visceral than that, and to be honest, more selfish. So if anyone ever reads what I write with the expectation of being entertained, he or she is most likely to be pretty disappointed.
That being said, it’s taken me years to start writing on a (somewhat) regular basis. I lack discipline, I lack focus, and most of all, I am completely lacking in understanding. I think what enabled me to finally start doing it is the realization that I don’t have to understand in order to write – in fact, I write in order to try to understand.
So at the outset of this blog I am starting, I want to make a dedication. I’m not going to put it in my own words, because despite the fact that I sometimes talk incessantly, I’m often not very good at communicating my feelings to the people I care most about. I often want desperately to tell them how much they have meant to me, but the words get trapped inside my throat and the sentiments never see the light of day. So I’m going to use someone else’s words. But the feelings are my own, and even if the people I am dedicating this to never get to read it – and some surely won’t, because they have passed on – I at least am acknowledging, if even only to myself, the difference they made in my life.
So, to Betsy (RIP, dear angel), Susana, Sue (the Foster family!), Steve, Celeste, Sarah (the Thomas family!), Susan O, Bernadette, Connie, Chuck (all the Waciseks), Amy (The McGovern-Berkowitz family), Susan-Joan, Dee Dee, Julie, Ilissa, Jeanne, Esere, Christy, Rachel, Nancy, Silvana, Eneze, Quiana, Lucretia, Angela (RIP), Nellie (RIP), Deborah, and to my late grandmother, Concetta Colosi DiFabio(RIP), to my father, Barry Alan Gluck (1944 – 1992) , and most of all, to my mother, Marilyn Ann DiFabio Gluck (1948 – 2004) and my sister, Hillary Constance Gluck (the two best friends and most inspirational heroes a person could ever ask for ) – thank you for making me believe that something pure, honest and real still exists in this world. I love you.
Excerpt from “For Good”, from Wicked, lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, sung on the Wicked Cast Album by Idina Medezel and Kristin Chenoweth and copied from the website http://www.musicalschwartz.com/wicked-for-good.htm:
GLINDA
I've heard it said that people come into our lives for a reason bringing something we must learn and we are led to those whohelp us most to grow if we let them and we help them in return and we are led to those who help us most to grow if we letthem and we help them in return
Now I don't know if I believe that that is true but I know I'm who I am today because I knew you...
Like a comet pulled from orbit as it passes the sun, like a stream that meets a boulder halfway through the wood...who can say if I've been changed for the better? But because I knew you I have been changed for good
ELPHABA
It well may be that we will never meet again in this lifetime so let me say before we part: so much of me is what I have learned from you you'll be with me, like a handprint on my heart
now whatever way our stories may end I know you haverewritten mine by being my friend... Like a ship blown from it's mooring by a wind off the sea like a seed dropped by a skybird in a distant wood who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you... I have been changed for good
GLINDA
Because I knew you...
BOTH
I have been changed for good
ELPHABA
And just to clear the air I ask forgiveness for what you blame me for...
GLINDA
Well I guess there is blame to share...
BOTH
And none of it seems to matter anymore
GLINDA (same time as Elphaba)
Like a comet pulled from orbit as it passes the sun, like a stream that meets a boulder halfway through the wood
ELPHABA (same time as Glinda)
Like a ship blown off it's mooring by a wind off the sea, like a seed dropped by a skybird in the wood
BOTH
Who's to say if I've been changed for the better?
GLINDA
Because I knew you
ELPHABAbecause I knew you
BOTH I have been changed for good
- January 29th, 2008.
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