Monday July 21, 2008- 7:02pm my bedroom.
Wow. I sit here bemused at the abject wonder Alain De Botton has instilled in me for the desire to become a modern day thinker. His aptitude and seeming ease with which he lays the foundation to understanding many of the greats has me reeling back unable to decide whether to pop in one of the four kung-fu flicks or pick up one of the two Botton novels I just purchased. In Botton’s How Proust Can Change Your Life, he suggests that Proust identified a list of common ailments among “over reverent and over reliant” readers. Two of the maladies making the list are 1) making “oracles” of the authors and 2) being unable to write after finishing a good book. Astounding! Does he realize that was written for me? Have we met? Or is it possible that I am far more typical than I wish to admit? I have two of Alain’s books that just arrived in the mail. He is the only author I wish to read at this time… Have I turned an author into a shaman? Or his books into the “Katie equivalent” to the Dead Sea Scrolls? Feeling comfortable to address him by his first name might be a hint. Check “yes” next to symptom #1. The inability to write did certainly plague me after reading On Love, but that has certainly dissipated, and it has only been a week since I finished How Proust Can Change Your Life. This indicates a mild case of malady #2. Proust didn’t actually say for how long the symptom should last before you can call it a detriment… We had better keep an eye on this one.
Is it possible that I am far more typical than I wish to admit?
Being typical is a far different statement than being normal. Being typical suggests that I am in line with a particular set of standards for a type of person within a certain society, and that society may not be typical, allowing for my typification to be extraordinary. Where as, being “normal” is a much more ambiguous statement intent on wrapping humanity up in a pretty package ready for delivery to the main stream. To be a typical writer, worker, wife, and friend seems so much more palatable, than a mundane life of being a “normal” anything. Being normal seems to me to be limiting, where in there is so much more room for “bodacity” within the typical. So if being typical is perceived by me as less than extraordinary, but is more extraordinary than say being “normal”, and it allows for growth into something positively stellar- then what is it that I strive to become? How much of this is semantics? Furthermore do I strive to be misunderstood? I feel like I do. Am I that person? Right at this moment I feel like I am. Is perceiving that I am misunderstood really being misunderstood? Is being misunderstood really better than being understood? The mystery of being misunderstood captivates my imagination. I imagine that as I am writing this there is no one in the entire civilized world that can understand what it is that I am writing. I imagine that my dream of becoming a writer is the sort that is spawned from an intimate relationship with a pipe, and that I will post this on my blog and anyone that takes the time to read it will walk away with no return on their investment. No. Not misunderstood, but rather I want to be perfectly understood. I think.
Kung Fu… kung fu… Why kung fu? I have a statement that might help some of you understand- “If you don’t know about kung fu, don’t try to understand kung fu, cause you won’t get kung fu.”- Unless of course you can approach it with an open mind. Now for those of you that grasp what I just said then you are either familiar with the connotation associated with the phrase, or you understand the magic of kung fu flicks to titillate the imagination and inspire the mind to believe in the impossible. For those of you that understand neither let me try my best to explain. Kung Fu is an art, a skill, a marriage of body and mind, and a ritualistic dance between all components of the action sequence. Most who watch a Bruce Lee film will sit bewildered at the power and precision with which he operates. I am confident he could have controlled the beads of sweat cascading down his body if he had only felt it important to do so. Good or bad, how can there be a serious choice between a movie with bad dubbing versus an award winning author’s book you have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of? There is someone out there that understands… I just know it.
HA! There it is settled. I do not wish to be misunderstood, but rather perfectly understood. I want there to be another somebody out there whose tastes and interests align with my own. Is there anyone up for a philosophical discussion about Spirited Killer? Or could begin to understand the need for both philosophy and bad kung fu in life? Anyone? Hellooooooo…. I think I may be alone on this one….
