The arrival gates at Heathrow Airport.

Christmas list, two thousand and nine.



Please, Santa. Please.

Another round, another round, another round.

I wonder how much room is allowed for one to voice a complaint. If I want to say that I am tired or worn down by important elements of my life, of what value are those to the facts that I have youth and ability. Relatively, though sometimes separately, if I say that I am tired from being awake for twenty out of twenty-four hours each day, and that when I do sleep I am plagued by some of the worst dreams I can remember having, the truth is that I have a chair to sit on and a bed to sleep in. I can open my fridge and I can type on my computers. The place that we live in is a lucky place, and it is our only one. And, further, I have chosen this life. If I want to keep to the topic of academia, I have chosen this school, these classes, these assignments to write and to grade, these applications to send out, this time of night. 4:37 AM. Wait, no, 4:38 AM.

But I walked home through the loveliest blustering snowfall, you know. And so I do not know how bad these things are in truth. Someone next to me in the library wails "FML," bemoaning their shoe that has been scuffed by some heavy swinging door, and is met by their friend sharing anecdotally in the other's grief by lamenting that there is nothing worse but that their dryer shrunk one of their shirts. And they are going to some beach for the holidays.

We should of course feel guilty, I think, for supposing that our whole lives are so taxing to the energies of our soul. There are complaints to make, though, and yes, if there are negative points in a person's life they may feel that they are able to feel negatively about them. So they may do so, but I wonder when that should be challenged. By what means is one enabled to ache over some aspect of their life, and to what level, and why not some other aspect. When one has the kind of breath that is free to deepen as its body tires, I would wish to know where the brimming aches must cease.

Motion for action.

If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it kills you too but there will be no special hurry.

Wister left and vanished, so I have enough glasses again.

I have been writing today about a nothingness that exists between the two poles of an intersubjective relationship, and that this nothingness is everything. The space between two ends is that meaning, that the truth of everything is always unsaid.

Right on.

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I have these Christmas albums waiting to be listened to, but Dustin and Frank need to wait. For now, it's a Wister/Iser/Foucault/Husserl party, and I'm the host. And I'm out of glasses.