It's been a good half a week since I updated, so it's about time to fill in the spaces. I dunno if I'm just slowly losing my mind or if I'm waking up to something better than reality, but my life feels surreal--like a movie. The really cool thing has been various forms of art I've recently been exposed to that have made an impact on me. The first example is the movie Garden State. The watered-down gist of the movie is Largeman coming home, after escaping for years, and realizing that he is numb to the world, so he spends time with his friends and a girl that he meets and discovers life/what it is to be alive. Such a good movie (and amazing soundtrack). On the music front, I'm still in the process of ripping my CDs to my computer to rebuild my library, but I've gotten that surreal feeling from listening to a lot of choral works (primarily Eric Whitacre). So far, these elements have made me feel like my life is like a movie, but the most intense connection has been reading the graphic novel Blankets. The novel is autobiographical about the author's childhood and his first love and his struggles with religion, so naturally that's grounds for my interest. As I read through the book, I was weirded out by how similar what I was reading is to my life and who I am. There are definite portions of the novel that would be in my biography, practically word-for-word. It gave me the most surreal feeling, but not in a bad way, rather, it gave me a kind of reassurance that what I've experienced/am experiencing is life. Someone else I've never met has had essentially the same experience(s) that I have, and has felt the same way about it. There's just something about that that comforts me.

The other day was the first time in years that I sat down and drew something. I used to draw all the time when I was younger, but my art fell by the wayside as I picked up music. I guess my art just changed forms. Anyway, I had the strong urge to draw, so I grabbed a pencil and my notepad and mused about what I wanted to create. The idea came that I wanted to create a symbol (not too surprising, since I love symbols and meanings, so on). I wanted to create a self-defining philosophical symbol with an inherent religious meaning. For those who haven't read about/talked to me about my religious/philosophical debates with Dave and my own soul-searching whatnot, it'd take so long to bring you up to par, but a summary will suffice to let you understand. Out of a lot of debating and thinking and what have you, I really tried to decide/define/etc. my beliefs. There are still many things I have not defined, but I doubt I'll ever cover everything. Anyway, to summarize, I believe that "God" is both perfect and infinite. I also believe that, in essence, God is balance. I believe that the moments in life where we "feel God's presence"/"experience God"/etc. are moments where we experience balance--the surreal feeling of not being within the world, but also not detached from the world (i.e. suspended, or transcending "reality"). Those are the major ones, so I thought a lot about them, and about what symbols with which to associate them. I brainstormed for a while until I finally created my symbol. I started the drawing with a circle, with the circle representing perfection. Inside the circle I drew a pentacle with the five points touching the circle, then I drew a second, smaller pentacle in the opposite direction. The two intertwined, reciprocal pentacles/stars represent balance. To finish the symbol, in the space on the very center inside the circle and pentacles, I drew a moebius strip to represent infinity. I don't know that my description does the symbol justice, but I absolutely love how it turned out. I had forgotten how much I love that feeling of losing yourself in the creation of art. I'm fairly positive that this symbol is going to be my next tattoo.

This has def been a movie week. Arent you glad you have someone as awesome as me to turn you onto things so awesome as blankets and garden state. Funny how art imitates life.
» rmarino on 2004-09-15 05:41:29

Fo rill
» LimberFingers53 on 2004-09-15 06:25:08

you have to mail me the image
» bcmst3000 on 2004-09-15 06:56:46

holler at it
» rmarino on 2004-09-15 08:00:32

When I can play double bass I will have officially found God.
» flanger001 on 2004-09-15 08:47:53

You will have found that fragment of God's being that is double-bass. That ties back to the "(if you believe) God created everything, so everything that is real/exists reflects God in some fashion" idea.
» LimberFingers53 on 2004-09-16 09:03:34

hehe
I actually meant that once I free myself of the bounds that keep me from rocking on double bass awesomer than crap, I will have undergone radical transcendence and have found God through unity with the Godhead. QED, bitch!
» flanger001 on 2004-09-16 08:27:24

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