jaye thinks...

This is a painting called 'The School of Athens' by Raphael.  That's the artist - not the teenage mutant ninja turtle.  It's all the philosophers of ancient Greece kind of hanging out and philosophising.  You can't really see it here but the two figures in the centre are Plato and Aristotle - Plato is pointing up to the sky because his philosophy was based on the idea of ideal forms, airy-fairy stuff... and Aristotle is pointing at the Earth because he was more grounded, into logic, classification, reality.


I thought of this because I have a philosophical monologue running through my head all the time really.  I'm just always thinking.


What's it all about?  How did I get to be here?   Do I just want attention?  That's what some people think, I know, but I don't think it can be true.  Why do I try to blend in and be ignored as much as possible if I just want attention?


I think some people confuse GETTING attention (not always the good kind) with WANTING attention.  Very different.


I am certainly very interested in things anyway.  I was saying to someone today that the walls of my house are stuffed with books on a wide range of different subjects.  Just above me now there is Shakespeare, Samuel Pepys, Monty Python, a book about unusual sexual practices, Tintin, Beryl Cook, 1950s advertising, modern art, Edward D Wood Jr...


So it goes on.  I am just very interested in... everything.


Some people are.  Some people just read the odd book, listen to the latest song on the radio, maybe wander dully round an art gallery when they're on holiday.   That's not enough for me.  The right painting or piece of music and I find myself sharply taking in breath, prickly all over, eyes damp with tears...


What makes you passionate?   What makes you grasp and cling to the surface of the world?


And don't say anything unimaginative like 'my family' - no one else can be with you in the moment of revelation.  Just like the moment of death.  


I think Art prepares us for death somehow - because we are not there in the face of it.  But also, somehow, we are more there then ever.  It's strange - the dichotomy between lightness and weight.  Milan Kundera wrote a very good novel about that very thing.  A good writer for thinkers.


Anyway, the monologue crashes on in my mind :  how can we be happy?  Am I happy?  Would I go mad without my personal demons - does chasing Moby Dick keep me sane?   I wonder if Ahab needed Moby Dick, really?  A reason to keep going.  


With my last breath I spit at thee... at least he had breath. 


So what makes you passionate?  What makes you think and think and spiral away?   


Some people live on the surface of life don't they.  They don't carry that little piece of death with them - but I need it.  They look at the painting of a storm and say it's gloomy.  But look at the little glimmer of light behind that cloud... that's everything.  


Now I've let some (just some) of the monologue trip out through my fingers into this blog.  I'll let it continue in its own sweet way - like a river on it's way down to the endless sea of sleep. 


ooooooooooooh