Staring into Pascal's Abyss

While reading Anthony Vidler's "Warped Spaces", I learned that Blaise Pascal suffered from an affliction where he always felt there was an endless void on his left side. This occurred after an accident which almost threw him into the Seine River. I used to have a similar experience while driving to my mother's house; I would envision something crashing into my passenger door as I drove past the fields leading to her house. I'm not sure what caused this "vision" or how it faded away, but it began a long process of dealing with the notion of mortality & how we deal with the passage of time.

To say this year has been a whirlwind would be a massive understatement. Moving to Brooklyn, attending Pratt, making new friends & leaving some behind, dealing with the deaths of my cousin & a newly made acquaintance... All of these have made this year what it is. I have also felt the shift in generational power: my brother will soon become a father, my grandparents have shown signs of aging (Pop held my arm as we traversed some snow & ice, triggering more thoughts on mortality), & spending Christmas with my cousins, most of whom are married with children. This idea of time within our world has never seemed so urgent as I live in "my own little world" in Brooklyn. That sense of detachment allows me to live as selfishly as I want to live.

As much as I like to escape for a few days from Brooklyn, I am instantly reminded of what I escaped from: suburban dystopia. I am beyond the point of "no offense, but suburban living bores me to tears" & feel no need to apologize for it. I have fallen into the "I don't own a television" crowd; it seemed like an extremely snobbish thing to say, but I felt no need to defend myself to my family as i plead ignorance of what was happening in the world of television & 'entertainment'.

I have begun another cycle of stripping away the things I don't feel are necessary or hinder moving beyond what I look at with utter disdain. Of course this usually begins with trying to minimize hints or symbols that may cue how people perceive me. This whole process is completely vain & often does not actually remove me from The Spectacle. These are minor steps of re-invention that allow us to grow while we sit idle between periods of production. All of this free time & nowhere to go. This begins the desire to be able to produce on my own terms- outside the realm of school- and see what develops.

Sometimes this process begins with the stripping of labels, associations to schools of thought, re-establishing history, or the cliche notion of resolutions. These precedents often hinder our vision & make us vote down the party line: "Oh, you live in Williamsburg? You must be a hipster." I have felt the need to dissociate myself from concrete ideas or passing trends, yet I often end up with some mediated opinion pouring out of my mouth without much filtering. This leads to defending past ideals in order to realign how we plan on living from this day forward. If we hope to push the evolution of society into something a bit more engaging, perhaps starting with ourselves is the best course of action. This may involve a lot of open mindedness & not trusting our first reaction to a particular topic; living on instinct has rarely been effective.

All of this to say I'm passed transitioning. I am ready to consume each day, project, & friendship with the fervor & attention they deserve. Less dreaming, more doing.