"When gods and goddesses are at play and magic is afoot..."
I received a new journal for my Birthday this year. Blank pages, small, and regular black binding; this particular present demanded that its pages be filled with mature, pensive and of course extremely PG sentiments in it. With Final's drawing near, and my own ability to effectively time-manage drifting far away, the journal/day planner's appearance signified to me a fresh start. "Open the journal", I thought to myself… "Its fresh white pages, and new book smell will revitalize you". I sincerely hoped that opening the books clean pages would in some way symbolically counter the chaos and tumultuousness of my own life. The journal would become my new solstice. I would write assignment due dates in it, and work schedules, and appointments. It would be my bible to the new, super effective, super organized, non-procrastinating Katy. I got a serious Black pen out of the drawer also, and turned the journal over in anticipation.
This is what I found:
Beautifully written in scrawling Calligraphy, upon gold fabric, decorated with hand-painted Hibiscus flowers were the words:
"When gods and goddesses are at play and magic is afoot..."
Shocked, I reread the intriguing sentiments and concluded that it was definitely not an outlook encouraging a serious, studious writer to fill these pages. But, more than that, these sentiments were personal. They were engraved onto the seriousness of the small black book, with regular black binding, juxtaposing these two sides of my personality.
My journal sort of epitomized this struggle between power and love for me. The outside of the journal is decorated with pretty lettering, and encouraging sentiments. It appeals to the fun in life, and things like innocent play time, and magic. The things that people want to embrace. Who didn’t grow up loving the magic show, or wanting to go outside and play on the swings? But, eventually, things like “responsibility, money, jobs, due dates, homework” start to fill our vocabulary. At this pivotal moment, when people ask us what we want to be when we grow up, we no longer say an actress or an astronaut because it seems like it would be fun, but we respond with a doctor or a lawyer because these choices ensure monetary wealth.
The outside of the journal, the “packaging” represents the ideals that people wish to have. The journal appeals to this metaphysical mentality, highlighting play and magic as key elements in our lives. The Gold and Flowers that decorate it appeals to our creative senses, and because it is beautiful, we feel that writing out own emotions in it will somehow validate them as truly deep. But essentially, this journal enforces the Hobbsian viewpoint. You see, this journal was purchased by a consumer who merely bought into this certain ideal. The journal is “nothing but” a decorated, over priced, banded stack of paper. Whoever created it was aware of the nature of people, and their desire to believe in the values of love and all that accompanies it, and so created it with this in mind. But in its rawest form it cannot encompass what it seeks to stand for, and so we see that the journal is an expression of increased attainment of power for some designer in California who mass markets thousands of these a year to places all across the world for twenty bucks a pop. Even the written expressions that I put into the book enforce the Hobbsian ideal.
If I write something personal, that I do not want people to read, it is because I am embarrassed. When we do not want people to know certain things about us, it is because we know it would be damaging to our image. Preservation of image, relates to power. We uphold a certain image of ourselves, and want others to see us in a certain way in an attempt to ensure that we maintain the power or increase our power. But, perhaps I am keeping this journal to hone my writing skills, and thus I want people to read it. I only want people to read it if I believe that what I write will increase the respect that people have for me, and thus increase my power in their eyes. Nothing that is written in the journal is actually representative of the true ideals of love that the metaphysical ideal seeks.
This is what I found:
Beautifully written in scrawling Calligraphy, upon gold fabric, decorated with hand-painted Hibiscus flowers were the words:
"When gods and goddesses are at play and magic is afoot..."
Shocked, I reread the intriguing sentiments and concluded that it was definitely not an outlook encouraging a serious, studious writer to fill these pages. But, more than that, these sentiments were personal. They were engraved onto the seriousness of the small black book, with regular black binding, juxtaposing these two sides of my personality.
My journal sort of epitomized this struggle between power and love for me. The outside of the journal is decorated with pretty lettering, and encouraging sentiments. It appeals to the fun in life, and things like innocent play time, and magic. The things that people want to embrace. Who didn’t grow up loving the magic show, or wanting to go outside and play on the swings? But, eventually, things like “responsibility, money, jobs, due dates, homework” start to fill our vocabulary. At this pivotal moment, when people ask us what we want to be when we grow up, we no longer say an actress or an astronaut because it seems like it would be fun, but we respond with a doctor or a lawyer because these choices ensure monetary wealth.
The outside of the journal, the “packaging” represents the ideals that people wish to have. The journal appeals to this metaphysical mentality, highlighting play and magic as key elements in our lives. The Gold and Flowers that decorate it appeals to our creative senses, and because it is beautiful, we feel that writing out own emotions in it will somehow validate them as truly deep. But essentially, this journal enforces the Hobbsian viewpoint. You see, this journal was purchased by a consumer who merely bought into this certain ideal. The journal is “nothing but” a decorated, over priced, banded stack of paper. Whoever created it was aware of the nature of people, and their desire to believe in the values of love and all that accompanies it, and so created it with this in mind. But in its rawest form it cannot encompass what it seeks to stand for, and so we see that the journal is an expression of increased attainment of power for some designer in California who mass markets thousands of these a year to places all across the world for twenty bucks a pop. Even the written expressions that I put into the book enforce the Hobbsian ideal.
If I write something personal, that I do not want people to read, it is because I am embarrassed. When we do not want people to know certain things about us, it is because we know it would be damaging to our image. Preservation of image, relates to power. We uphold a certain image of ourselves, and want others to see us in a certain way in an attempt to ensure that we maintain the power or increase our power. But, perhaps I am keeping this journal to hone my writing skills, and thus I want people to read it. I only want people to read it if I believe that what I write will increase the respect that people have for me, and thus increase my power in their eyes. Nothing that is written in the journal is actually representative of the true ideals of love that the metaphysical ideal seeks.
posted by Katy at 1:10 PM
1 Comments:
w.out knowing who anyone is, i simple say:
thanks. philosophy and theology both in my past, and future, your site was unexpected gift.
not meaning to trespass, just exploring this blog thing and finding there is, in the famous words of calvin and hobbes (of comic strip fame) "there's treasure everywhere!"
an appreciative stranger.
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