Voyeurism

Being a first time renter there a lot of little things that you need to get used to. When to take out the trash, keeping track of the bills, making sure the lawn is cut short, and avoiding the gaze of a potential creeper - of course. Yes, the other night while I was talking on the phone, walking around my kitchen, I noticed an odd shape in the window. I head over to investigate, still chatting, and stare right back at two emotionless eyes for about 30 seconds before I casually walk away into my house mates room where I then begin to freak out. We dealt with and now make sure to close our blinds at night so as to avoid alluring any more peeping Toms, but this whole incident makes you wonder about what motivates the invasion of privacy in the first place.

Would you rather fly or have the ability to turn invisible?

A question as old as time itself. I was listening to a This American Life episode recently that dealt with this very question and surprisingly enough most people choose the latter as their initial response. Soon enough though they begin to reason their way through their choice - well, invisibility could entice me towards some creepy habits, they'll usually say. It's true, but the other question to ask here is, "would it be me?" Does everyone have the potential to degrade into peeping Toms? What is it that's within us that compels us to loose ourselves in others? Yes, a fetish is the traditional answer, but I don't think all cases of voyeurism are based upon it - there must be something else.

I think that it all goes back to our finitude and our struggle against it. We know that we're limited, in consciousness, in time, space, etc. There is only so much that an individual could possibly experience and there certainly one thing that she will never be able to, what it's like to be you. We'll never know what it's like to be anyone else, simple of a statement as this may be I think it's one that hits close to home for many of us. I mean, what are movies or books after all if not escapes into the lives of others? For those moments we may become more than what we just are. We want ghostly glimpses into other's lives simply because they're not ours, we want to experience the unattainable. It all goes back to those fleeting moments of immortality and our pursuit of them... I think.

Now I'm in pursuit of some sleep. G'night Blog.

p.s

I would choose the ability to fly. So much more fun.

I Want to Believe

Magic's important. First, a clarification on the meaning of magic. It's a broad term for sure, I think it can range from traditional ideas about supernatural to a scientist trying to understand the universe. The point is that there's always going to be something we don't understand and it's what we do with that void in our knowledge key. We could ignore it, but that's not human! No, we're a curious species and we're beautiful because of that. We always search even if it's in vain. The thing is despite something that's inherent within us, magic is dying. Answers are killing our spirit.... I think. I'm not sure about this because I think it's up to you to keep it alive, to transform your reality. Magic sneaks up on you. When you're driving and listening to a good song and feel happy - you feel like there's more than what is. You ignore your everydayness, the work you have to get done so that you can live the life that seems logical for you to lead. It's all about believing that you can be more than what you are or that somehow things are more than what they seem. Reality isn't depressing, it's just that we often times get to experience the more 'magical' aspects about this world in which we live. [And also from a scientific perspective I heard that at some point our advancements in understand "life the universe and everything" will peak, at which point I think we'll see a rise in magicians.]

Well, by chance it happened that I showed the same magic trick to two people recently. The reactions were different. One treated it like a magic trick, the other like a puzzle. My house mate was very frazzled by his inability to figure out how I did the trick. He sat there for a long time trying to figure it out, eventually feeling bad I just told him how I did it. I wish I didn't, because he strikes me as someone who could use some magic in his life - even if it's something as trivial as seeing a card trick and smiling afterwards. I want to inject him with some wonder! The question now is how...

I digress. I'm not sure what my point is. Lately I've been trying to express abstractions and have just not had the attention span necessary to get those thoughts out verbally. I'm a bad writer/movie maker/communicator for that reason, it all goes back to feelings with me. I digress again. Um the point, the moral, I try to have a moral at the end of these things (how nicely they tie everything together, something about humanity yadayadayada).

Ok here we go, the motto of my college is to "live in ecstatic wonder," a great motto I think. Personally I need to start finding the magic in existence more often, if anything it'll be a pleasant distraction from the lack of future I have at the moment.

Yeah that's me 2 years ago, yeah it's a bad haircut, no there's no video editing involved in the trick.