Melancholia and arousal

I’m slowly pulling my roots from the ground, inch by inch. Packing my life away. Terminating my commitments and ending my engagements. Saying goodbye to the place that has been my home for the last two years - the streets, houses and the night sky. Getting ready to part from the people and habits that has been my life. It’s painful and scary but at the same time exhilarating.

I’ve done this before. In fact this is what I do. This is what I have been doing for the last six years. Starting new lives, just to leave them after one or two years. I feel a bit like a broken mirror, every piece reflecting a bit of the world but they aren’t combined to depict a uniform representation. As do I feel shattered and scattered all over the place, with no apparent place to call home and multiple, often contradictory, stories constituting my life. This chapter will soon be closed and I will start a new radically different one on the other side of the world. The mirror will break into yet another piece.

If all goes according to plan I’ll be gone by September.

The shock of conclusive success

I’ve been in a state of stunned astonishment for the last month. I accomplished what I set out to do one and a half years ago. No unresolved rests or lingering remnant issues. An actual ending. A plan fully achieved. That’s rare. So rare that it made me sit in quiet confusion for weeks. In addition I also received the cancellation of my plans for the next two years.

The absence and emptiness has been fiercely evident.

The road ahead has been cleared and I’ve turned my gaze towards new horizons, planning for great adventures elsewhere. Nothing is what it was and nothing will ever be the same again.

Premonitions – the possibility of knowing the unknowable?

Holding my breath.

It feels like the world has been cramping up, waiting for something big and bad to happen. I myself have also been on my toes, awaiting a catastrophe of some sort. For some reason I’ve been thinking for the last two weeks that it will occur today.

For the last few hours the panic has been slowly rising within. I feel like crawling out of my skin, I have goose bumps and a hole in my stomach. I can’t read, the silence is ear-splitting, the emptiness inside me is consuming me from the inside out and the letters in the book are floating from the pages.

I keep telling myself to keep calm. You can’t possibly know that something is wrong, that something terrible has happened. I’m debating the feeling in my head, trying to persuade myself of the irrationality of my thoughts, that I’m just imagining things, overreacting. And I come to the conclusion that I can’t know, so nothing has happened.

But still I can’t shake the feeling of unease.

Is the concept of intuition only a descriptive term referring to the ability to piece fragments and clues together and accomplish – on the surface – astonishing premonitions? Or is there more to it, a part that science has yet to explain? I honestly don’t know what to believe.

For now I wait and see…... hopefully I can dismiss this feeling as paranoid thoughts by tomorrow.

In the head of Camenes – Wednesday apathy

I spent most of my time in school looking out a window. I even think I spent most of my time as a kid and teenager doing the same thing.

It wasn’t the scenery outside that absorbed my attention, I probably didn’t see much of the view or the events outside, instead I fixed my eyes on sky and sunk deep into thoughts, hiding in my head. My body was still stationed to their pleasing, but in my mind I wasn’t present at all. A silent resistance. A refusal to participate in enforced activities.

I never really wanted anything but to be left alone, to my own thoughts and to make my own choices. So I spent most of my time avoiding doing what I was told, getting some agency from the act of opposition.

In my early twenties I stated to formulate a goal, something to strive towards instead of just doing the opposite of what I was told. Moving towards something instead of just running in the reverse direction out of spite. I felt free, and in at least somewhat in control over my own life.

Now for some reason I’m back in that classroom, it feels like whatever decision I make I’m somehow ending up serving an authority, like somebody is forcing my hand. And I fall back into being a stubborn child.

Today I’m lying on my sofa, once more staring through window at the grey cloudy sky. Feeling trapped again. Apathetically staring. This time I don’t even have the urge to go outside to play, getting drunk, kiss someone or to smoke a cigarette. Whatever I would do it feels like enabling them, serving the state, following the wishes of the society. So I lie still, staring with unseeing eyes. The only change in my state of being is when I see a plane go by, then I feel a sting in my heart and a longing to change places with one of those passengers. A short while I’m dreaming of a one-way ticket to new adventures. Then, back to apathy.

Homesick.

Virtual sex and cultural fucks

I wish for a virtual reality.
In a virtual world the notion of its construction would be no matter for debate. The preferential right of interpretation would not be seen as something natural, but rather as a constructed frame of agency.

Natural. I hate that word. The word “natural” implies that there are things that aren’t natural, and not in the sense of supernatural (another retarded word) but unnatural, something of lesser dignity than the “righteous” and “natural” way of doing things.

The dichotomy of natural/unnatural disguise the fact that everything that happens already is natural since it’s actually happening. It implies a right way of doing things but misses the fact that there is no given way of understanding things or actions. Not even eating, sleeping or having sex are distinct natural features of humanity in the sense that it holds a natural or homogenous set of practices tied to it. We don’t have any consensus about even these most basic of human dealings. It varies vastly over time and between cultures, and still people are claiming that there’s a natural way of having or understanding sex. It makes me tired, and ultimately sexually frustrated.

I wish for virtual sex.
Then we could negotiate and discuss the terms of bodily interaction without all the discursive understandings about “natural sex”, morality and all the other bullcrap that’s sabotaging and complicating our sex lives. and maybe, maybe we could then actually have sex with our partners in a more understanding and mutual way, without being simultaneously fucked by culture.

Phoenix

Cycles.

We all have them.

Linearity is a hoax and not a very useful concept, I might add, if you’re trying to make sense of events, you’re life and surroundings.

The processes move ahead in circles or spirals rather than forward along a linear axis

Thus life circles along in different cycles between success and despair. over and over again.

I’ve hit rock bottom innumerable times - that’s the most visible part of the cycle, because it hurts. But also because the top of the circle is obscured by our expectation about a linear progress of accomplishment and happiness, as something that should and can be constant.

But then the pendulum swings again and you crash and burn.

This time the desolation was widespread, but the depth of the decline also indicates a higher pinnacle.

I still grovel in the ashes

But a new cycle, aeon, has started.

Like the Phoenix I will soon rise again, be reborn and grow new feathers – this time even more magnificent than my previous plumage.

Release

I finally managed to pick through the thick wall of glass that has been surrounding me for some time now. I’ve been like a fish in a bowl, swimming around in circles in my own shit, unable to escape or communicate with the outside world.

And like the thick glass of reality, my bell jar distorted all the audiovisuals, blurring them in both directions. seriously impairing my perception and cognitive capacities. obstructing my ability to mediate myself to my surroundings, but also their ability to reach me.

The ground almost swallowed me

But yesterday I had help. Someone actually looked through the glass meticulously enough to discern me, and see that I was trapped. I’ve been hammering away at the solid glass trying to escape without luck for some while now, she noticed my hammering and started to bang the glass from the other side, and together we managed to pick a hole in the bell jar. I cannot even begin to express the relief and gratitude I feel. Through the hole I can both look out and breathe again. Some days she is a primordial goddess, shining with light and wisdom.

I’m finally out of the labyrinth, staring at the road in front of me, squinting towards the sun, observing the small embryo of a possible future. But I need to really watch my step this time, so I don’t fall into abyss of craziness again.

Now exile. A pilgrimage. Confronting my past, creating my present, searching for my future. The tigress will multiply, so I make this excursion to behold the omen of the eighth wonder that soon is to manifest itself in this world. Then, nothing will be the same ever again.

Isolation, hyper-connection, mental decay

I feel isolated, completely. Cut off from the rest of the world. No one to talk to about this. I don’t have the words to formulate my trajectory anyway. No possibility to reach out or to mediate my thought.

Trapped in my own head.


At the same time I’m not left alone, I’m haunted by the history, discourses, insights, reinventing the wheel, redefining concepts, replacing one understanding with another, constantly having new revelations. Hyper-connected, like my mind is tapped into an immense database of human knowledge.

Tortured by my own brain.


I have long periods when I can’t sleep. I’m so tired I feel dizzy, still I can’t sleep. And then I go into another period when I do nothing but sleep, for endless hours, and then I can’t wake up instead. But not even in my sleep I’m left alone; the brain is processing concepts and I dream about epistemological issues, understanding them better when I awake.

Held captive by my own body.


So I walk around, tormented, sad, ecstatic, exhilarated, involuntary pondering. Reading, having insights, thoughts processing, the brain constantly active, like a perpetual motion machine, becoming weirder everyday. Soon to reach the destination of mental breakdown or transcendence ... or both maybe…

Formulating the problem II: a more specific evaluation

This part more specifically deals with a problem of someone dear to me, but also extremely similar to a problem I faced myself. This is my proposed solution, and also how I handled my demon. The issue can be formulated as below:

How to define and deal with the atrocities and injustices of the past?

The problem here is to formulate the nature of the event that has taken place, to dress your understanding of the past in fitting words.

I shall take an quite spectacular event as example; the holocaust

There are (at least) two major narratives about this atrocious historical event: one secular understanding of the holocaust as the height of human cruelty, an evil deed and unnecessary loss of numerous human lives. The secular strand builds museums, and teaches the history to prevent that something similar from occurring in the future. And another you can find embedded in the orthodox and ultraorthodox Jewish communities, phrasing the holocaust as an intrinsic event occurring due to the sinful living of the Jewish people, a punishment from god. The Jewish strand builds communities, and teaches the scriptures to avert the reoccurrence of similar events in the future. The Jewish narrative, blaming the Jews for the holocaust, can be perceived as extremely provoking for someone with a secular understanding of the event, but the secular understanding is also unthinkable for many Jews as it would render the past a manifestation of pure misery and evil with no meaning and reason to it, and that would be truly difficult to handle.

I would say that the question is creating the answer in your case so think carefully about how you formulate it, or if you formulate it at all even. The latter would be my suggestion, leave it - don't let the past destroy the present as well. Depending on the question asked the answers can be pretty nasty, blame can rightfully be pointed in several directions towards others as well as towards you.

To be more specific about the problem I can say that it has to do with the question whether a period of time was wasted or not. Since we both like logic I’ll put my solution to the problem as a syllogism:

All wasted time are pointless.
No thing described as pointless has meaning
No period of time that contains any meaning can be classified as wasted

Now, conclude that it wasn’t meaningless, maybe it wasn’t the best spent time of your life, but was it wasted? I don’t think so, and also, does it matter now? Maybe, but only to the extent you allow it to matter. Don’t let the sour grapes of your past poison the air of the present, instead; lift your nose and realise that not only can you see beyond it, but also use it to scent the fresh breeze of the future.

Time is scarce, to use it to dwell on the wrongs of the past would truly be to waste it, and that my friend would, strictly speaking, be idiotic.

Formulating the problem I: General reflections

To define the problem, the question, defining the outlines of the appearance of reality can be a disturbingly efficient exertion of power.

I think that even people who aren’t in the slightest inclined to relativist thinking would agree to this. And they seem to do so since they usually tend to believe in the notion of true or false; in a certain (to me) repugnant, almost platonic sense. And thus believe that things can appear in false way, and that a quibbler can use sneaky sophistic ways to make the false ostensible appear to be true.

This is not what I’m referring to at all, I’m talking about the effects in a different, non-essentialist way. The definition of the problem actually shapes the way that the reality is perceived, and the course that the future will set out for us.

For example; is the problem the criminality and violence amongst immigrant youths?

Or is the problem sited within the structures of the homogenously biased nation state, rendering these youths outsiders acting in despair?

Or is there really a problem with the criminality and violence amongst immigrant kids, or is this a trait actually better understood as youth-problem rather than something connected to a certain culture?

Depending on the question you get very disparate battlegrounds and courses of action.

More specific on a more personal level we are all concerned by the way we formulate our problems and define our own reality. This is also one of the combat zones were power is imperceptibly exerted between lovers and friends, in the struggle over the right definition.

Yet again; To define the problem, the question, defining the outlines of the appearance of reality can be a disturbingly efficient exertion of power. But my main point here is not the power of definitions in relation to others,- but rather how you risk to put your self in mental shackles if you define your problems negligently, or carelessly accepts someone else’s definition of yourself or your problems.

We are constantly looking for meaning, finding meaning, creating meaning, acceding our lives into the meaning created.

Hopefully we do it in a way that keeps us open-minded and happy instead of dense and unhappy, dwelling on the wrongs of the past while we’re harping on the same mistuned string.

A plead to Hermes

Hermes -You’re a biased fuck, you now that right?

You’re sloppy. You’re random. You’re immature. You’re disorderly and mischievous

But, you’re our only link to understanding, how arbitrary, temporary, defective that understanding might be; it’s also the best we can hope for.

And don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t want to be without you. While I’m struggling through the hash winds of reality over the barren and cracked surface of existence, you add the dimension of meaning and are the bringer of purpose.

Without you there would be no sunrays of hope, no sprouts of promising notions, no sprinkling drops of opportunities, and without you we wouldn’t know the joy the of sudden understanding and enlightenment, sparkling and glimmering in our minds. Moments of clarity and revision.

No anticipation of great things and ideas of improvement, nothing to look forward to.

I’m just asking you to transfer a little less misery and nuisance and a little more possibilities of prosperity

In short; give us less piss on our chips and more frosting on our cakes

Could you do that Hermes?

Connecting the dots

To know is to connect the dots- to create meaning
To believe is the same, connecting the dots to get a meaningful pattern - an explanation, exclamation, exaggeration…to achieve emancipation from the shackles of isolation and terror of not knowing.

We do it everyday, connect A with B to be able to anticipate C.

A hand on a hot surface equals pain. If we fuck without a condom there might be a child. Some words may cause someone to cry. A bullet trough a prime ministers head will probably put you in jail for a considerable amount of time, and generate a certain reputation nationwide.

We gain knowledge of virtually thousands of these causal relations during the course of our lives.

Connecting the dots to create meaning.

Some of these causal relations are simple and uncontroversial,
some are complex with a huge potion of modality to the causative,
some are problematic and uncertain,
some are "out there", still waiting to be discovered,
some are discovered but not perfected, thus in need of revision and modification

to connect the dots and create meaning.

Some causal relations deal with your relationships to other people, finding patterns and causatives in order to predict responses. These are tricky ones, varying dependent relative time, situation, matter, person, mood; a lot of different variables need to be accounted for in making predictions. It’s hard, and we often fail

to connect the dots and create a meaningful pattern.

Communication, a bridge between people, a bridge of words, carrying meaning from one person to another. Interpreting, conveying message, connecting. The science of friendship.

The really great thinkers of our time usually don’t contribute much of their own; they just look at what’s already been said and done; and then approach it from a different angle.
The really original thinkers take our pre-understanding and connect the dots in a new way – and then an entirely different pattern appears.

to connect the old dots in a way to create a new, hopefully better, meaning.

The same dots can be connected in different ways giving different causatives and answers to our questions, finding different patterns of meaning. I don’t think that one way is necessarily the only right option; I think there are a vast number of possible patterns, meanings, answers

Multiple ways to connect the dots to create meaning

And some of patterns can co-exist, not being more “right” or accurate than the others.

The important thing is to connect the dots in a way that creates possibilities instead of constraints. Finding the positive pattern, instead of the negative. Seeing the constructive causative instead of the harmful

or at least, to let them co-exist

Looking at a cluster of dots; you have the potential of finding both in any given situation… The one you choose determines the outcome: the features of your reality

if the pattern forms a window of opportunity or the bars of a prison cell.

Mistress of Sleep

I want the Angel of Unconsciousness to come
to relief my body from this pain
I want the sleep to flood my mind
to release these strains of mine

I want the Fairy of Rest to whisper in my ear
Peacefully, to erase my fear
and let the drowsiness appear

I want the Seraph of Calm to sing for me
to let the song fill the room and enchant me,
Soothing my nerves and bringing the tranquillity

I want the Queen of Insentient to caress my cheek
until I sink into the oblivion of lovely dark sleep,
warm and safe slip in to the void so deep

I want the Empress of Dreams to invite me in
to show me the wonders of the world,
and all the places I’ve never been
to let me play in her emerald tower,
carefree like a child for an hour

Hiding from the dreary and grey,
from the harshness of the day,
unburdened for a few hours
seeking adventures and magic of a land so far away

Evolving - Acceptance, transition and catharsis

It’s a transitional phase right now, can you feel it? Every nerve in my body is responding to it, and I can also see it in the people around me. It’s affecting my mind, and my body, the brain is almost on overload processing things around me, things from my past, present and future. And when I'm able to shut down the brain to get some sleep, the body doesn’t wake up for at least ten hours; it’s like the body also is going through some kind of transition that requires a lot of sleep.

Even the plants in my apartment seem to respond to the change, growing new leafs, budding, bursting in to bloom.

The transition is not good, or bad, it’s a little bit of both. To be able to reach further, evolve, you are forced to leave some things behind; you can’t take them all into the future.

Some of the things that will slip into the past are bad thing, wounds that now are healed, problems solved, burdens and annoyances that will no longer trouble you. But some of the things you are leaving behind are good things, beloved friends, special relationships, security and certainty, and it hurts. It’s hard to let go. To let it happen. To accept.

Yesterday it dawned on me that one of the most precious things in my life is now nothing more than a cherished memory. She was the sun, the meaning of life, the pure essence of friendship, the embodiment of all good, my kin spirit, my guardian angel, the shoulder to cry on and the safe haven to rest in while the storm is raging.

This is not my place anymore; she is not my significant other in the same way anymore, I’ve known that for some time now. I made a choice two and a half years ago, I chose a different path, and the damage could not be undone. As I said; I’ve known this for some time now, but yesterday came the acceptance accompanied by pain.

Today I burst into tears, while reading, the text elucidates another loss to me. It was a beautiful text, about a beautiful person and a beautiful event. It made me happy, but also incredible sorrow-stricken. I recognized what the text was describing, and it took me back to those moments and feelings, concretized what I lost, what I chose to exclude. The tears weren’t just tears of sadness, they were also tears of joy, and ultimately they are the tears of my catharsis.

There’s yet another loss, but I don’t talk about it, because it doesn’t make sense to me - the unnecessary loss of a kin. It’s hard to accept or talk about something you don’t understand.

The past is unfolding behind me, claiming ownership of things dear to me but at the same time, clearing the way for my future.

It’s been a quarter of a century this year and I think the caterpillar which have been in a chrysalis stage for some time now will break out of the cocoon and finally transform in to a butterfly. But it’s painful and scary, and you don’t know what the future holds.

Fixing things that are broken

I just fixed two items in my home that broke during a house party. I usually don’t like stuff, objects -at lest not owning them, it makes me feel rooted, stuck, fixed. Owning material objects makes me inflexible, gives a feeling of (unwanted) responsibility and it also adds a bit of guilt.

But I find a strange consolidation in putting material objects back together – fixing them.

I can really understand why people choose to work in the repair business. It got this very attractive simplicity to it, the pleasant satisfaction you get from the process of putting thing right.

It’s not so easy with people – when they break its much more complicated to fix.

First of all it’s very hard to tell if someone is broken, it’s not always visible on the outside.

Secondly it’s not clear what “fixed” should look like, which are the characteristics of an undamaged person?

Aren’t the guiding principles for “undamaged” just a normative statement by the currently dominant view within a society? And what evidence do we have that these principles themselves aren’t responsible for our brokenness? The history reveals that the description of sound and sane isn’t static or universal in any way. It seems to me as a highly arbitrary construction….sane, healthy, sound, happy…

Third, How do you mend a broken person? Since we can’t with certainty discern the characteristics of an undamaged person, it’s hard to come up with a remedy for a broken one. Without a destination it’s hard to set the course of action…

But people still break. Everyday.
break them selves.
break others.
get broken….

It breaks my heart.

And we don’t know how to fix it.

The closest thing I found that even resembles some kind of remedy for a broken person is a hug and/or a friendly word.

But it’s not a fix…it’s more like a temporary band-aid to stop the bleeding…

Material objects are sympathetic in that way - they are easy to fix.

Dirt talk- Thoughts on Language and Sex

Language. It’s mind-blowing just to think about it. And when you think about it you’re trapped in it, to think about the language is to already use the language. You can not position your self outside the language to observe it in any neutral way. The thoughts are always already contaminated.

You are the language, and the language is you, inside you. The language is the source of vast possibilities, the promises of communication, creation, connection, emancipation. But it’s also the straitjacket, limiting your thoughts, actions and the very horizon of your world.

The discourse is constantly ongoing, regenerating and changing, words running like water from mouth to mouth, at the centre of all relations, the hub in the wheel of human activity. We talk, to each other, about each other, of things, writing about talk, talking about writing, acting according to scripture preaching the scripture… it reminds me about the King Crimson song “Elephant talk” …. everywhere, everyday talk, talk…

“Talk, It's only talk , Babble, Burble, Banter, Bicker, bicker, bicker, Brouhaha , Boulderdash, Ballyhoo, It's only talk, Back talk

Talk talk talk, It's only talk, Comments, Clichés, Commentary, Controversy, Chatter,
Chit-chat, Chit-chat, Chit-chat , Conversation, Contradiction, Criticism, It's only talk , Cheap talk

Talk, Talk, It's only talk , Debates, Discussions, These are words with a D this time, Dialogue, Dualogue, Diatribe, Dissention, Declamation, Double talk, Double talk

Talk, Talk, It's all talk, Too much talk, Small talk, Talk that trash, Expressions, Editorials, Expugnations, Exclamations, Enfadulations, It's all talk, Elephant talk, Elephant talk, Elephant talk”

And I would like to add: Dirty talk.

I think sex is like speech in a way, it’s always there as a backdrop of our existence. It’s something many of us do almost compulsively, and we also speak compulsively about sex. But back to the subject dirty talk…

I usually hate when people speak during sex, the discourse of an intercourse is already there -shaping how our bodies penetrate each other. But can we at least have the silence, absence from words when we fuck, to let the moaning be the dialogue.

I love the moaning. It’s also functioning as a language, but it’s a simplistic way of transferring information about pleasure or displeasure, appreciation, to tell someone to continue or stop. It doesn’t contain all the imperative practises of the spoken language, no ambition of greatness, no pretence, no vanity, no judgemental crap, no oppressive statements… free from moral or ideological assessments.

Oh joy, sexual silence, a vacation from the retarded babble that’s usually the hallmark of human contacts…

I’m not saying that dirty talk is in any way wrong, or bad, or that other people shouldn’t do it or get turned on by it. I’m just saying that when you fuck with me: shut the fuck up or get out of my bed.

Stylized fucking and artificial kissing.

It was a nice fuck.

No sticky strings attached to it which could later complicate things

It was similar to a lot of other nights just like it, but this fuck distinguished itself in at least two ways;

1. the kissing felt artificial in some way, something that was there more to fit with the customs of sex rather than an actual desire to kiss your sexual partner…

2. the pure simplicity of it, just sex. No more, no less. No guilt, no love, no hate, no regrets, no complications, no obligations, no nothing. just sex.

In my youth, I used to fuck people who had the looks but an unpleasant personality, in those days I thought that it was a smart way of avoiding emotional involvement during my sexual escapades.

I gave up that strategy some years ago for a number of reasons; the point is that even those fucks still had the element of passion and kissing as innate characteristic.

This is what separates this fuck from the rest, the stylized simplicity of it.

It was a nice fuck.

Welcome to a blog about Power, Knowledge and Sex

In this blog I will put my views and observances about sexuality, relational power, epistemological issues and other thoughts in to words.

This is no place for conservatism, moralist judgments, misogyny or racism.

This is a place for sexual disclosure and discussions about sex and knowledge.

I am just one of the billions of people walking around pretending to be persons. You and me and our views alone will not prove or change anything. But, just as the black swan in the problem of induction, a divergent view will at least limit the scope of generalization and certainty.

Read and comment.

/Camenes