Darkling I listen

Look –

I know I sometimes say upsetting things. I know I sometimes behave stupidly, annoyingly, upsettingly. I know it sometimes causes hurt. I know I sometimes hurt you. I am sorry.

I am clumsy when it comes to loving. I can behave stupidly when I am around someone I care for so much it makes me weak. But please,

it is because I am socially clumsy. It is because I am clumsy and unsure of myself.

I never mean to hurt; I am not evil, mean, bad, calculating. I don't go out of my way to hurt you, or plot against you, to cause you untold harm. I don't play power games to make myself feel whatever it is that people seek to feel when they do play power games.

It hurts that you think these things of me.

This is not meant as a passive-aggressive retaliation.

But I think it might be best if I pull away for a bit so that you can really figure out what it is you think about me, without my bumbling puppy-dog affection mixing up your thinking.

This is not meant as a passive-aggressive retaliation. Being without you hurts.

This is not a sign of me not loving.

Quite the contrary.



So you know, there it is.

It makes you cry. Makes me cry, at any rate.

The nightingales came back yesterday; or at least yesterday, I heard them for the first time this spring. I have written about them before. They feel meaningful to me, I don't know why. I feel privileged to live in a place where I can hear them, even though I live in a city.

I don't know of a place where spring comes like it does here in the north. Nowhere do I know it to be simultaneously so delicate yet so furious. It explodes upon you; if you blink, you will miss it and it will suddenly be summer.

I debate with myself, and sometimes with other people, which is the most hideously ugly month, November or April. April? I hear you say. Oh verily, April is the cruellest month, I believe. In both, the world is grey-brown, muddy, dead, albeit in November, recently dead, and in April, still dead, and complete with piles of the dirtiest grit-covered piles of snow you would think industrial waste from some outlandish factory of the future, if you didn't know better. But what really makes the hideousness scales tip towards April – is my current opinion – is the amount of light. At least November is so dark, has so few daylight hours, you cannot really see the ugliness. April brings exposure, with its bright, white, new-born-world light.

And then, lo. Out of the ugliness, within days in May, the most heart-breaking beauty comes forth. Springs forth, yes. So delicate, so swift, so short. Is it any wonder we know the deepest melancholia, the inevitability of loss within the joy of birth?

A few years ago, I used to take photographs quite extensively, trying to document every iota of beauty I saw, so I could share it. I haven't for some time now – but perhaps I will try and dig some out, at some point, from the depths of my external hard-drive, where these documents of the beauty of life and love were banished a couple years ago when I changed computers. We'll see.

I bet you can't wait, no? But don't hold your breath.

I was dressed up as mad-scene-Ophelia, but the truth is I just wanted to wear the fabulous dress from our theatrical wardrobe, so any excuse, you know.

Not only
to celebrate the fact that I have just written (in the record-breaking essay-writing time of three days) as well as sent off an essay on the topic of "Sextos Empiricus on appearances and assent" (I am only quoting the title to sound cleverer than I am, innit. Anyway, the lecturer set the titles, which made my life so much easier),
but also
because I think the picture is fun and I want to reward my faithful readers-and-friends with something fun,
I am posting this picture from our recent Shakespeare's Birthday Party.

And the reason that I've split that sentence over several lines is that it was so long and unwieldy that something needed doing to it.

A-lone-/liness?

Much of today's "social networking" is about not having to feel lonely. Simple, no? I hadn't really realised this, but last night I was thinking back to the days of our youth, when the world was young and blogging was the very thing. It was lovely to be at home (alone!) in your own peace and quiet and yet feel connected to others, perhaps far away and only known to one by their words, humour, thoughts, style of writing. To feel that tingling anticipation of awaiting someone's reply, or the lovely surprise of someone coming over to your "house" and speaking their unique stuff.

It was nice, wasn't it? I am a committed non-facebooker – don't ask, it just seems the very right thing to do and I am not about to change. But I can see why it is addictive. I'd forgotten. But now I remember, and hereby give my blessing to those who need the reassurance of people "liking" the picture of their lunch, or recycled joke, or funny web find, or whatever. (Not like I've got any preconceived notions, no. Whatever gave you that idea?)

Okay, perhaps not "blessing", that may be a bit strong. But some auntly understanding.

I like italics

Causality and possible worlds, historical contrafactuals and Severino:

so: (as I have understood Severino, following Parmenides and discarding all of (Western) philosophy since him) if every thing and everything (that) is, is, has always been, and will always be

but the concept and possibility of possible worlds goes against this

but in logic: if two possible worlds w₁ and w₂ are identical up to a given point in time (t), and if the worlds then diverge at point t, and in w₁ Hitler doesn't come to power (for example) and in w₂ (ours, sadly), he does, and so from t onwards, w₁ and w₂ land up being very different and unidentical indeed, it follows that w₁ and w₂  never were identical in the first place, even up to t, as all along, they differed in what their future would be*

therefore
is it so that these things "prove" Severino (and Parmenides) – that it is not possible that anything would be other than what it is, because everything that is, has been, and ever will be, is, has always been, and will always be

and
does this mean that possible worlds are not in fact possible, and that we live in the only world there not only is, but also the only one there could have been?

* for this, there was a solution logicians had come up with, but I cannot quite remember it