visualization experiential.

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*discalimer: This is the only appropriate forum for the statements I'm about to make, since they are not only broad, generalizing, and completely out of context, but they are life-specific, targeted, and certainly off-color.

*caution: Proceed carefully. If you are easily offended, paranoid, conceited enough to think that the things written here are about you, or close-minded, save yourself the trouble and read a different blog.

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Life is filled with two sorts of people; those who choose to experience their lives, and those who don't. And the majority of people fall into the second of the two aforementioned categories. A third category of person, perhaps the most frustrating of all, is so far removed from his or her own life, constricted by definitions and characterized by a lack of mental flexibility, that they truly believe themselves to be Experiencers. They are not. And they are dangerous.

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Coming to realizations doesn't always have to be difficult, time consuming, or fraught with adversity. Of course, the road to realization is often strewn with a lack of foresight or insight and [hopefully] followed by hindsight, but there are those moments when it just occurs to you. When your brain is in sleep mode, coasting, and from deep within the river of your subconscious of non-knowledge, realization ripples to just below the surface, breaking the tension of the moving water.

In a moment of quiet realization I came to the conclusion that if given the choice between experience and non-experience, I would choose to experience. All of it.

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In one of my favorite movies this concept of experiencing your life is played out between characters who have the capacity to have their minds wiped clean, rebooted, restarted, and selectively erased. Erased of past relationships, current ones, people who hurt them, changed them, effected them in serious and profound ways. Sure, upon a cursory glance, this seems like an easy and painless solution to concepts like remorse, regret, and pain, but it is an erasure that leaves the potential for growth crumpled at the side of the road, tossed out the window of a moving car, like a fast food wrapper.

Easily forgotten, easily wasted.

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Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind revolves around two quotes. The first, in which Alexander Pope takes on the voice of a young woman, torn between mind and heart, between feelings of love and the confines of [organized] religiosity.

How happy is the blameless Vestal's lot!

The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!

Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd.y

The second quote, from Nietsche's Beyond Good and Evil; "Blessed are the forgetful; for they shall have done with their stupidities too." Both speak to an idea of bliss as well as a blueprint for morality and identity--the question raised the extent to which experience and memory feed not only our personality but also, our emotions.

It's love as predestination [for doom or ecstasy, it makes no difference], and a moment in which the character's remembered self asks his dream lover what to do when their illusory time is so limited, cuts deep to either the despair of love lost or the anticipation of its inevitability.

["enjoy it" is the answer]

And in our darkest moments, the truth that I'd do [it] all over again in a heartbeat [despite the pain of those moments] is an emotional verity examined by Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. With the poetry of a train station its departure point, the film is fascinating and powerfully affecting--haunted by its ability to formulate the impossible complexity of the will to love to the screen.
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Katie Interviews Herself

kc1: So, this music thing, huh? What's up with that?
kc2: Katie, I totally hear you. It's a fad. And feel free to quote me on that. A fad, truely.

kc1: But in all seriousness, you've written before about music and its ability to transform the human condition, can you explain what it is about music that you think is so transformative?
kc2: To answer this question I think I'm going to have to delve a little into my historical encounters with music; my initial exposure, continued and sustained interest, and coming to the point where music and its definition parted ways.

My dad, and now both brothers, play guitar, amidst a miriad of other instruments; flute, trumpet, saxophone, piano, drums, enough to start a fully fledged Canavan family band. I can throw into the mix clarinet, alto and tenor saxophone, but where my musical talent really lies, is in movement. For as long as I can remember, dad and his guitar have been a staple every evening after coming home from work, at all family functions, neighborhood cookouts, boy scout events, church, graduation, and it was from this close contact, the familiarization with it, that music lost its definition. And that's the best thing that could have ever happened.

kc1: What do you mean when you say "music lost its definition"?
kc2: I've often found that in defining a thing you lose or diminish its most wonderful qualities. Words are assigned dully and without the finesse necessary to describe for another person what something like music imparts upon us. For instance, defining or describing a concept such as love deadens the emotional intricacies associated therewith, reducing it to a series of words that fall short of what it feels like to experience love, or for that matter, music.

kc1: So how can we describe music, or the way we experience it, to someone else? Doesn't your arguement somehow let you off the hook in terms of writing about music?
kc2: Everyone experiences phenomenal constructs, such as love or music, in very different, distinct, and highly personal ways, so for me to describe to you what music is like for me, is only one small fraction of the entire experience of music. I can use words, which amount to a common denominator, to convey the blunted details of how a particular piece has affected me, and while they converge towards a point of reference, words fall flat of the overall experience.

I think that it makes the challenge I've given myself, to write about music, an exercise in both self-reflection [in terms of particularly analyzing the way a piece of music makes me feel] and poetic self-expression [in terms of translating the bodily sensation into a series of descriptive and highly selective words or phrases]. I certainly do not presume to be an authority on music, I know only how it resonates within me, and I hope that maybe I can provide a bit of insight into just that.

kc1: How does music make you feel? In a few words.
kc2: As you may have guessed, it certainly depends on the piece of music, but I can try to make a few generalizations for the sake of interest.

A welling of intensity, heat, energy, or whatever you'd like to call it, in the area just below the heart, your solar plexus perhaps, your gut if you prefer. It pulses from underneath my wing bones, pulling me up and out, like a string attached to the inside of my bellybutton, only slightly higher. It comes out from within my ears, the opposite of what you might expect, and materializes itself in a shit-eating-grin across my face. I never noticed the grin until someone else pointed it out to me, but I guess I always sort of wondered why my face hurts after a long night of dancing.

One of my favorite expressions for this feeling is "Tripping my face off with B-J-Joy" [as opposed to little-j-joy, the more commonly accepted definition of joy, being extreme happiness]. Big-J-Joy is a more graceful and undulating joy, that is a continuum rather than a destination. It is a circle that encompasses an entire range of emotional intensities, and can be sad and mournful as well as joyous and soulful, but it is still there, in an underlying current, the joy.

kc1: Have you ever come across a piece of music you didn't like?
kc2: There are certainly pieces of music that I prefer less, but even those can be appreciated as they are. I think that a piece that is initally jarring, abusive, inconsistent, or lacking emotion may need to be listened to more closely, understood or appreciated in a different light. At first, I found Stravinsky incredibly difficult to understand, but found that once I threw out my preconcieved notions, my definitions, as to what music is, or should be, that I grew to love any and all.

kc1: What are you listening to right now?
kc2: Right now I am listening to the central air conditioning unit blasting over my desk. It's a little cold for my taste, but has the nice effect of drowning out the rest of the "office music."