Uplifting

I am currently in a situation I think a lot of people can relate to. I am drudging through the 4th week of "midterms".

This afternoon, while I walked amongst the tall office buildings of downtown Montreal on my way to the music faculty, the pressure from all the pending assignments weighed me down. The tall, gray buildings closed me in and reminded me I couldn't escape from the structure that school forces upon me. At least for the next few weeks. But then, waiting for the bus, I looked far enough down Sherbrooke that I could see where the sky meets the street, and I remembered one of my New Year's resolutions: to look up more often.

When I looked straight up at the sky and everything in it, I was reminded that there really was no ceiling over my head, and that me and all my worries were just a tiny, tiny part of the big, big world.

No one ever remembers to look up. We all only ever look straight ahead, thinking about what we have to do next, and where we're going. But if you look up every once in a while, you remember that it's not that big of a deal. There's more to life :-)

Art Appreciation Can Be Gross

Sometimes I feel like I have an extra gland. Sometimes I'm embarrassed of it because I can feel it showing. It only swells on rare occasions though.

I have an art gland. Lots of people I know have art glands. But not everyone has one. Personally, I think everyone who doesn't have one is seriously missing out.

Ok. So it's basically my appreciation for art. But I call it a gland because you can almost feel it react to beauty, the way you can almost feel your pituitary gland react to sunshine for the first time after winter.

But my art gland has been very happy the past few days.

I enjoyed 5 very different types of music this week. Rehearsals for part of a concert for MNM ( http://www.festivalmnm.ca/fr/2011/prog/concert/27415/), a tabla demonstration in ethnomusicology class, (http://www.shawnmativetsky.com/bio.html), a Cappella Antica concert, and the Interpol concert. And I've seen my first ballet, Giselle (http://pda.qc.ca/pda-evenement/4249/giselle-les-grands-ballets-canadiens-de-montreal.en.html)

I promised myself this wouldn't be a music blog, but I have to say that that's an awful lot of music for three days. It's hard to take in. But I think that's when my art gland is truly at it's peak. There's so much to take in that there's no time to second guess your thoughts on it. You have to just process all the information. All of it.

Seeing Giselle was definitely a memorable experience. It was visual beauty in a way I've never seen it before. It moves. And it's being created by someone right in front of your eyes. (The music to Giselle, however, is not remarkable.) There's so much to process because there are so many levels to this art. The story and all its implications, the choreographer's interpretation of the story, how the choreographer thinks the dance represents the story and the emotions of the characters, etc. There's an awful lot to think about when observing this art-form, and it's constantly changing. Then there's also the enormous feeling of admiration for these dancers.

My art gland is busy processing quite a few things at the same time, and the easiest way to do that is to compare the new information to the last time you've seen anything like this. My art gland immediately pulled out Degas' dancers. This was a bad choice on the part of my art gland, because the art appreciation hormones doubled at the image of Degas' paintings. After a smile and a giggle, and my art gland had heaved out as much awe as it could, I could resume my concentration on the ballet.

Ew.

My hungry art gland is pretty satisfied at the moment. But could this become an addiction?

Heavy

After a heavy weekend, I enjoyed some light entertainment tonight: steak and ice cream. 

My yoga teacher on Friday talked about us as "human beings". Sometimes we need some lightness to relax and just "be". She said we focus too much on doing, doing, doing, and I have to agree. In our north american society we grow-up thinking that this is what makes us human. We created the world we know now and we keep creating and recreating it. There is so much energy being spent making that sometimes I fear there won't be any space left to breathe. Sometimes I feel like there is so much mindless doing that I feel numb and this is when I question what separates us from animals. Animals don't have emotions, they don't think about their next creation, what they're going to do next to improve themselves, where they want to be in 5, 10, 20 years, what they have to have done in their lives. Animals just are. My dog is always very happy to see me, and yesterday I told him is was especially nice to see him too because I knew all he thought about was eating, pooing, walks, and playing. It's a depressing thought to think that maybe all this doing is all that makes us human. 

But we have emotions. We can be happy or sad, we love and hate, etc. But when there's none of that, what do we do? When we're numb and suffocated by all the doing, how do we know we're still human? How do we know we won't suddenly start walking on four legs and have to run after our food?

It's difficult to "be" sometimes, because it isn't tangible. You can't work at being, you can't study being, you can't sketch being, or practice it. You just have to accept it. But accepting something you can't explain or understand is very difficult, similar to accepting god. Some people will tell you "He just is".

But I realised recently that we're conscious of life whether we like it or not. That also makes us human. We're conscious of our being alive and how that is. We may have forgotten why, but we always know how. We have control over it. We always have control over our lives, whether we feel like we do or not. We are always controlling our lives. We're keeping ourselves alive.

But this is what animals don't know. For them, it is instinct. But we understand it.

It's easy to forget what makes us human. There are times when we feel like less than animals. Like machines. So when you feel like a machine from all the time you've spent doing, when you stop doing, what do you feel like then?

What separates us from machines? The fact that we are alive. That's when we're being, and not doing. 

Now how do we bring ourselves back to feeling human again? By realising that we know this is a depressing place to be. We could recognise this as an emotion. 

We could then call upon other feelings. Feelings like happiness, and love. And we could start small. We could start with steak and with ice cream. And then we could move on to music. And then we could move on to people. 

Don't judge me, but...

...but I really feel this is nonsensical.

Feelings. We all have them. To some they're difficult to figure out. To others that’s very easy. 

Sometimes, I feel like I'm colourblind. It's like I have fewer possibilities for what I’m feeling than most people. They’re just different shades of brown. Or different levels of anxiety. Some people have a wide variety of options. Usually, those people are also talented at interpreting emotions, the way some people can just tell aqua and turquoise are different. 

Artists are trained to interpret these colours. Can we train ourselves to interpret our feelings just as clearly? Would it make a difference? I suppose most of us don’t do it already because we don’t care?

Maybe if we could feel as clearly as we see colours, we wouldn't have double standards about them: we have to feel, but we can't show it; the possibility of feeling the wrong way; having feelings proves our weakness.

I think these double standards exist because we don't understand the way we feel. It's difficult for most people. We have to think about them much more than we actually do. Usually when my feelings seem grey, it's because there are a whole load of different ones mixed up. We don’t take the time to trust ourselves and separate them. 

If we understood the way we feel and why, we would have more confidence in ourselves and what we do. Our feelings drive our lives, but if we don't know who's driving, of course it's unnerving. 

We shouldn't be ashamed of the way we feel; we just do. There are so many reasons that shape that. So when we ask ourselves "Why am I feeling this way?", instead of saying that you or someone else is stupid, maybe you should take the time to question that answer. That's probably not the real reason. 

We probably do this so rarely because it's so scary to go and find those real reasons, but then, why should we be afraid of our feelings. They are, in fact, our feelings. We're terrified of our feelings, because of this preconceived idea that we're out of control of our feelings, that they could drive us crazy. But, again, if we figure out who's driving, we might find a way to stop them from driving us crazy.

With the way our lives have evolved, there’s no time. We care less and less about the things that really make us who we are. It’s scary and uncomfortable, so we move on. Nothing must put us out of control of our own lives. Not even ourselves. 

We’re afraid of the chain effect that dealing with our feelings will have on the many other aspects of our lives. We have no time, because we have too many other things to deal with. Or do we make it that way so that we don’t have to deal with our feelings? Is it an excuse?

So how can we be weak for showing our feelings? We are strong for believing that we have enough self-control to take the time to remove ourselves for an extra second to think about who we are. We feel because who we are. We feel because of values, fears, needs. These are all unique to us, and we should remember that it’s important to express who we are. 

Therefore, it’s impossible to feel the wrong way. You're feeling your way. You can’t feel anyone else's way. 

Why don't we all just accept it and stop guessing and denying and feeling guilty about feeling? It's your life. Do you understand why you're doing what you’re doing with it?

Blog virgin

I am about to lose my blog virginity. I'm nervous, fumbling, and don't know what to say. First times are always awkward. You build up exactly how it's all going to go, until you get there and you forget. So maybe I'll start off by explaining the title of my blog, "Sort of Silly". Well, first of all, it's sort of a silly title isn't it? It demeans my blog before you've even read it. But I've always thought that all blogs are sort of silly. Aren't they? People can just talk about nothing and feel important because they pretend to themselves that someone's listening. It sounds sort of silly to me. My blog will, most likely, be about sort of silly things (I have a few ideas), because I'd like to write about whatever comes to mind, which is the point of blogs, no? But I titled my blog as such mainly because I'd like to write about life in general, and, I think, life is just sort of silly.

How about a real post then?

Snow.

There are very few things I actually enjoy about snow. Unfortunately, living where I do, there is a lot of it, and unfortunately, living where I do, it tends to come all within a very short period of time. Hence, today, there is suddenly a lot of snow. However, I have decided that this year I will try to go into winter with a more positive outlook on snow. Instead of focusing on the horrible aspects of snow, I will focus on the almost-good aspects of snow. In the end, it'll only get worse as winter goes on. Here are a few things I noticed that I actually enjoy about the snow.

1. The quiet
For some reason (there certainly is one, I just don't know which), the snow seems to silence all the noise in the city. Not entirely, of course, but it makes quite a difference, which is quite calming. It dims the sound of far or loud noises, but enhances the closer, quieter ones, bringing you more "in the moment". Now, instead of focusing on the enormous effort involved in walking to the bus stop, the lack of buses running, the increase in time spent outside freezing while I wait for the bus, the decrease in speed of such buses, and my increase in tardiness, I shall focus on the muffled squeaking of my footsteps in the snow.

2. The glitter
While freezing and trying to walk up the hill (when I remembered how with every step one takes, one slips half a step back down the hill) from the metro (which was broken for a "periode indéterminée", no doubt because of the sudden increase in people taking the metro since the buses weren't running) I noticed that the ground was covered in glitter. It was surprisingly distracting from everything dislikable about my then-current situation.

3. The wonderland
I never really understood why everyone always thought that so much snow on houses and streets was so pretty, until I noticed that the snow masked the roughness of my neighbourhood. Suddenly, all those tough, quasi-gangster-looking faces were covered up by scarves, hats, and hoods, not to mention bright red, which does make everyone's, even the scariest faces, looked a little more adorable. The snow covered up, unfortunately for the environment, all the rubbish that missed the bins, all the spit and cigarette butts, and the dog shit (thankfully there was enough snow to not make its being hidden a bad thing). Even the sketchy looking, slightly more run-down apartments were covered in a cosy white blanket. And those men who like to sit on the corner of the pavement and smoke pot while shirtless, well, can't.

I'm sure there will be other things that will distract me from everything I hate about the snow, and probably these three things will wear off, but as long as I don't let my moods about the weather resemble the weather, winter might go by a little faster.