Wednesday, October 7, 2009

The Perfect Storm

I found this. It is so good that I am putting it here. This has certainly happened to me, more than once. However, I am still sure that the source is at least collaborative between me and some Other.

"Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That's the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.

And you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there, and you will bleed too. Hot, red blood. You'll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood of others.

And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about."

- Haruki Murakami
Kafka On The Shore

12 comments:

  1. While going through the storm it is impossible to foresee the outcome. To be strong and wise enough to endure the storm seems to be enough in itself. But the big surprise is the big payoff in getting to know the person you are now. Wow.

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  2. But then there is the part where you sew your skin back on...

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  3. Or get used to your new shiny skin :)

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  4. "How long have I
    been in this storm,
    so overwhelmed by the ocean's shapeless form?
    Water's getting harder to tread,
    with these waves crashing over my head..." - Lifehouse

    Soaked and sandblasted.*sigh*

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  5. Christopher, sometimes I come here and read exactly what it is I needed to read. This is one of those times.

    I'm beginning to wonder about a new nature to life. This is occuring to me right now, how my son says to me on the weekends, "Mom, I'm bored. I'm not having any fun." And you know, I very calmly tell him that life is not about having fun. We can't have fun all the time. And those words, my own very simple words that originated from within me have just been sucked out of me and are coming back at me time and time again. And so why should I be surprised when this growth that I am in is not fun. Of course it's not. This is not what life is about. Life is not about having fun at all. We only have moments of levity. But right now, in this sandstorm of the moment, which is only in my own head, really, I'm wondering about the nature of life. I was thinking beauty. I'm having a small moment of clarity and I'm thinking perhaps it's not beauty, either. Maybe that was me being childlike like my son. And if not beauty, then what?

    Really, Christopher. That's a question. Then what?

    Is it only learning? And if so, then for what purpose?

    xo
    erin

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  6. new wine in old wineskins? won't work.

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  7. Erin, If you check the honest literature of the human race all across the world, and you read with an open heart, you are square in the middle of the human experience, at least in the middle of those who throughout the ages had the education, experience and the time to pay attention. I say for myself that my life is to have depth and weight, meaning, to not be absurd. There cannot be such without deep love and forgiveness.

    Arguably forgiveness is critical. Some say so, that without forgiveness, over and over again, ever coming up, the whole thing soon becomes meaningless, and thus inhuman.

    Indeed it is not about being happy as I say it, but if I live a meaningful life, then my happiness has a genuine chance. When I anchored this attitude, I was spending most evenings at the hospital with my wife who was really sick and still had to work in order to keep the medical insurance and things were so fucking unfair and I was definitely not happy.

    {{{Karen}}}

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  8. This is all very beautiful and i have nothing to add really,
    just that i love storms! That's maybe why i sit here peaceful, listening to the ravens and next i will join them in the totally still, white world. Called; after a snowstorm

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  9. Jozien, blessings on your snowstorm.

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  10. Conrad wrote about the perfect storm and how it is impossible to go around it... because then you'd have to say that that was what you did and you'd have no storm to talk about... and no discovery that you made because of it...
    I got a similar feeling here in this piece as well. Nice selection--thanks.

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  11. Christopher, many of those hugs coming back at you.
    xo
    erin

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The chicken crossed the road. That's poultry in motion.


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