Strain of Consciousness

-Third day in. Last day. I’m done, or I feel done, but the need for momeny overpowers my distaste. Completely disillusioned, I care so much less than when I stepped in to my first classroom. I was the idealistic kid stepping into the reality of our world. Screaming voices, but they’re just talking to each other, you should hear them whisper, you could hear them across the room. They have no idea about social appropriateness, I think at this point they even misunderstand that actions have ramifications. Our society’s done a very poor job, apparently. Look at me, I’m a […]

-I got in my car today, on my way home. The car sped past this intersection and that. My gaze falling from one thing to the next. The same car stopped at two red lights alongside me. My dreamy gaze bouncing from side of the street to the other, from the people on the side walk to those in cars. I caught a glimpse of myself in the rear view. Something my cousin told me recently jumped into my mind, summoned from the dearth of useless memories. “You look like your cousin,” he said, referring to my mother’s sister’s son, […]

-I was driving today, as I passed a park, I saw a group of people in costume sword fighting in the park. In the darkness of the night, they were dueling and practicing dueling. The park lights shining off of their medieval garb, swords clinking and bouncing off trees. An odd juxtaposition, as trucks passed by, their red brake lights emanating an ominous glow. I got off and turned on my mini dv cam (I haven’t named her yet). Watching the make believe Camelot in the park, I started thinking about imaginary living. The words from a film come to […]

-I watched The Company somewhere in the lazy trajectory of this weekend. I found it really beautiful in a sense and far from what we expect from a narrative film. I started thinking about Neve, who was the impetus behind this film, in a way. How with acting, you live the fullest life anyone can because while being yourself, you are also a myriad of others. I wondered if the reason behind the film, was to shine a light on the ballet, on the company of professionals in Chicago, who would still be oblivious to me had I not watched […]

-The camera is on, I stare at the little red light and inside myself, wonder, should I be aware of the camera, or in my awareness should I ignore it. No this is not a shoot, this is not a feature, this is not a short and probably won’t be seen by anyone, but I am planning to document in some sense my travels. I mean the travels outside the country that will lead me to the travels within myself. So I guess this is practice. I turn to the mirror image of the camera because I nearly feel exasperated […]

-Anais Nin said, “We do not see the world as it is, we see it as we are.” To further this notion: The inadequacies we see in others, are reflections of our own. I was thinking about the things that get to me. The reason they dig themselves into me, like a thorn, is because these are my own short comings. Sometimes, they are simply for lack of action, at others-lack of persistence, and yet at others-lack of discipline. I sat in my livingroom today, all afternoon. I had a mini DV camera pointed at me, but I did not […]

-There was a small victory in today. I drove around for nearly an hour. It gave me something to do. I was in search of Parliaments, two fer. I drove from one place to the other, thinking about the times I had been there before, driven through the same passages I followed. It was completely laughable that I was driving to buy cigarettes. But there was more to it. It was a journey. Not a journey with a destination, to be exact, but a journey into the self perhaps. Almost that of an old soul searching through where it’s been. […]

-I was up late, reading. The Unbearable Lightness of Being. I think now, I may actually get it, or something of it. Weight having something to do with knowing, awareness of what may be at the end of each path along the journey that we find ourselves on. There was a moment, almost hallucinatory, it was like a dream almost. I imagined myself in a chair, but only at the last moment did it become a chair, before that it was travelling, perhaps, it was me separate from the chair, and all the people in life, my life were along […]

-Two hours of my life disipated before my eyes, as an acquaintance of mine took to the stage and walked around almost lost, expounding on the mundane. It was meant to be comedy, but it turned into something nearly torturous…my apologies, but it’s true. My eyelids grew heavy and I had to get up and walk. I waited, hoping for a comdic moment, something to laugh at, anything. At that moment, the slightest bit of humor would have brought the house down. All is relative. In relation to the long winding stories that lead no where with the least impression […]

-Tonight, I watched City Lights. A love story. Chaplin. I thought about whether silent films make for a smarter audience, at least one that’s willing to put in a little work to get the whole cinematic experience. Everything is fed to us these days, spoon fed. It was dark. Night. The lights were off and I found myself in that certain limbo, that state between reality and the antithesis to it. My eyes wore heavy. I watched Charlie’s tramp run from scene to scene and persist through the suffering he endured, all for a smile, her smile. It’s funny how […]