Tiramisu and the wellspring of content

I start out this post with no real purpose, vendetta, or soapbox - or even with anything to say, really. I am content today. Tomorrow and in the days that follow I imagine I will feel overwhelmed, oppressed, exhausted, stressed - but until then, I am cherishing this feeling of peace. I have been more involved in things than I have been since my early days of highschool, but instead of making me more stressed, it's actually added to my confidence and feeling of inner content. True, I have been racked with self-doubt as usual, but not nearly as much as I used to - or perhaps it is that I am better equipped to deal with it. Whichever it may be, I am happy to have some sort of feeling of self-worth. Perhaps my content is merely derived from the tiramisu I devoured this evening .... mmm, tiramisu....

Peace is a beautiful thing to feel. Tonight I feel at peace with the world. I have no sad stories to tell. I have been talking to some of my friends who have had miserable relationships or tense and stressful times in their lives, and I look back on my own life and see that all my childhood miseries are bedtime stories in comparison. I suppose, then, I should be thankful that the only thing I feel is loneliness and self-doubt - better that than regret, betrayal, or acute pain and loss. All I have to deal with is wondering why I have never been the object of anyone's affection. Somehow my problems aren't all that terrible after all.

Well, God, thank you for giving me perspective. Thank you for peace of mind, something all too fleeting in this life. Now I hope I can let it remain even when the little things, like the desparate need to clean my room, the paper due on Tuesday, the play in two weeks' time, and other bits and pieces threaten to take over my life and turn it into a frenzy. Help me keep howling life at bay, if only for a little while. I need the quiet moments.

Ah, the sheer cruel brilliance of it... *is slain by the irony*

Do not despair - many are happy much of the time; more eat than starve, more are healthy than sick, more curable than dying; not so many dying as dead; and one of the thieves was saved. Hell's bell's and all's well - half of the world is at peace with itself, and so is the other half; vast areas are unpolluted; millions of children grow up without suffering deprivation, and millions, while deprived, grow up without suffering cruelties, and millions, while deprived and cruelly treated, nonetheless grow up. No laughter is sad, and many tears are joyful. At the graveside the undertaker doffs his hat and impregnates the prettiest mourner.

Wham, bam, thank you Sam.

Archie, Jumpers by Tom Stoppard, coda.

Tom Stoppard is a genius - or at least insane enough to look like one. I hate this passage and yet I love it - it forces me to laugh at all the bitter irony, forces me to look at my own complacence in world that pretty much blows.

My Self in Song Titles

Choose a band/artist and answer ONLY IN SONG TITLES by that band:

Artist/Band: U2

Are you male or female: Original Of The Species

Describe yourself: I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

How do you feel about yourself: Some Days Are Better Than Others

Describe your ex girlfriend/boyfriend: Tomorrow

Describe your current girlfriend/boyfriend: Gone

Describe where you want to be: Where the Streets Have no Name

Describe what you want to be: Grace

Describe how you wish: Please

Describe what you wish for: Another Time, Another Place

Describe how you live: In a Little While

Describe how you love: With or Without You

Share a few words of wisdom: Wake Up Dead Man

I love this questionnaire thing - It's a brilliant idea. And it's uncanny how accurate some of these answers are. I love the references to my procrastination skills, penchant for daydreaming, and absentmindedness! Although I couldn't find one for the first question at all - I say women are the "original of the species" because everyone starts out in the womb with female chromosomes. Convoluted, I know.

The Darkness Between Stars

I have been itching to post one of these poems by R. S. Thomas for at least two weeks now, but i wanted to get the other stuff out of the way. So here I have finally satisfied my urge:

Via Negativa

Why no! I never thought other than
That God is that great absence
In our lives, the empty silence
Within, the place where we go
Seeking, not in hope to
Arrive or find. He keeps the interstices
In our knowledge, the darkness
Between stars. We are the echoes
We follow, the footprints he has just
Left. We put our hands in
His side hoping to find
It warm. We look at people
And places as though he had looked
At them too; but miss the reflection.


I wish I could post all of the ones I've been reading: The Gap, Apostrophe, The Answer, The Absence, Hebrews 12:39... They are all amazing. I have never had such a sense of the greatness and unfathomability of the idea of God. R.S. Thomas questions, fears, despairs, and informs us of our own futility and God's distance and enormity. I'm not sure how much of it I agree with, but his poems are certainly thought-provoking, and beautiful in their frankness. And this guy was a priest!

It's finally over, but I'm not a Shakespearean Actor yet...

I fell like I've let out a huge breath that I was holding for the past two weeks. The RADA Shakespeare Certificate ordeal is over. I don't know how I did yet, but at least I don't have to worry about it any more.

Oddly enough, it really only felt like another rehearsal the entire time we were doing it (despite the fact my partner, Daphne, accidentally lost her balance and fell at the wrong time - but we kept on going and I suppose that made it all the more exciting...) perhaps we were too relaxed - I feel like I did a job consistent with my practices, but I didn't scintillate. Also the room was also far too small, but I suppose we managed.

We will probably perform the pieces we had for Arts Week next week as well, but the big hurdle is cleared and the end is in sight. Now on to the new hurdle - Murder in the Cathedral is in THREE WEEKS and I've only memorized the first half of my lines. Not to mention all the stuff I'm helping with in the production. Hardly a moment's rest.

Are the Angels weeping?

So you must be the first that gives this sentence;
And he that suffers. O, it is excellent
To have a giant’s strength; but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant.

Could great men thunder
As Jove himself does, Jove would ne’er be quiet,
For every pelting petty officer
Would use his heaven for thunder: nothing but thunder.-
Merciful Heaven!
Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulfurous bolt,
Splits the unwedgeable and gnarled oak
Than the soft myrtle; but man, proud man!
Dress’d in a little brief authority, -
Most ignorant of what he’s most assured, -
His glassy essence, - like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As makes Angels weep; who, with our spleens,
Would all themselves laugh mortal.

- Isabella to Angelo, Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare, Act II, scene ii.

This is the speech I am doing for the upcoming RADA Shakespeare Certificate tryouts. I really like it; it resonates with me. Isabella is a strong, outspoken woman despite being a novice nun, and this speech employs all her eloquence and passion.

She sees that Angelo, who has sentenced her brother to death (for impregnating his fiancée before marriage) is so caught up in his ‘piety’ that he has abused his God-given power. She rails against this, invoking ‘merciful heaven’ as the only one that can strike those that are truly guilty. Man is just a mirror of God, whose self-importance is so ridiculous Angels weep at it.

- Interestingly, this last part is based on the tradition that Angels are unable to laugh. And also there was this belief that our spleens were where our sense of humor came from. In other words, the Angels would laugh themselves to death at man’s pompous actions if they could. (It took us a long time to figure out that part – our language and traditions have changed so much since Shakespeare’s time)

It’s so true. People all over the world think they have the right to dictate whether people live or die. No one has the right to take another person’s life. People in power who start wars, order troops to fight, suffer 'acceptable losses' – do you think they aren’t causing Angels to weep? Is there such thing as a 'noble cause'? Humans aren’t noble. They’re just the ‘glassy essences’ of the only noble Being that exists. And yet, people say theirs is a just cause, a holy war – when it all boils down to power. It’s so terrible, it’s ridiculous. It reminds me of that quote of Abigail Adam’s (and apparently previously Daniel Dafoe): “All men would be tyrants if they could.”