podpolia

i've been neglecting my livejournal lately. then again, i decided a while ago i'd not just write in it when i was incredibly and horribly depressed. so it looks like i'll be neglecting it again for a while.

random thoughts from my conversation with stef tonight…

(00:19:22) xpanxpunkx: i forget who said that true creativity can only be attained through suffering
(00:19:39) oh 2 luv you: so i should want to suffer?
(00:20:15) xpanxpunkx: you shouldn't want to… that's masochism. however… being a creative person and having an extremely powerful mind, your brain sort of looks for suffering
(00:20:33) xpanxpunkx: i don't think it actively WANTS it… but it realizes that it's there and that it must be dealt with
(00:21:19) xpanxpunkx: in our society today we have very little suffering… life is very good compared to the way it would be in the wild or whatnot… and so in these surroundings, your mind begins to create things to suffer from
(00:22:46) xpanxpunkx: i think that's why i like manual labor as much as i do
(00:23:25) xpanxpunkx: it's HARD. it's not necessarily suffering, but it, like suffering, is something that stretches you, makes you do things you're not used to… makes you GROW
(00:24:04) xpanxpunkx: i suppose that's what suffering is… rubbing your skin raw to grow a callous, or breaking the bone to mend it stronger than before

on the way home tonight, i caught one of those fleeting mental glimpses of my own mortality. it wasn't really scary, or morbid, but just one of those flashes of insight that life will continue when i'm gone.
i feel sometimes like i'm nearing the end of my life. nothing in particular makes me think that i'm gonna suddenly die soon… but it just feels like i really don't have much of a future. maybe it's because i have no real conception of what the future will be like – i mean, i could have been in an accident on the way home tonight and my life would be over then. on the other hand, there's a fairly good chance i'll live to be 80 or 90. but i can't visualize very far in advance. at the moment, for example, i know i'm going to finish typing this, take off my boots and fatigues and t-shirt and lay down in bed… read a chapter, take off my glasses, turn out the light, and go to sleep. all of that is more or less within my control. but beyond that is just a haze of possibilities, probabilities, and speculation. nothing solid about it in the least.
it made me think, though. how will people think of me when i'm gone? i know that in all likelihood there will be the usual sharp spasm of grief of those who were the closest to me, but after the sorrow has worn off and the rosy glow that surrounds the recently dead in the memory of their kith and kin has faded… what then?
i wonder if i should live my life differently. i know i wouldn't live substantially differently – i really don't care what posterity reflects on me. i'll be dead, it's not like i'll be complaining. i have thought a lot recently that if i DO die young, i'd want it to be because i did something honourable. anachronistic as that seems, it does have a certain appeal.
i think overall, though, that if you live your life solely with your eye to posterity that you aren't LIVING, you're only ACTING. however, if you don't look to the future at all… then you've basically condemned yourself to ride the wave of the present without any preparation for what it might do later. what is the balance, the point at which life is the freest and most enjoyable? it's undoubtedly different for every person, and each person has to find their balance.
just some thoughts.