Word of the day: "Theogony"

Why should I write a diary entry, I think? Everything I could ever feel, think, love, experience, hope, despair or believe has *already* been said, somewhere in the Alexandrine library of human literature. And said *better*. Neal Stephenson writes in the Cryptonomicon about externally-generated-representations or patterns which are captured and filtered by our internal human perceptions into recognizable archetypes - like the Trickster Deity; the Triple Goddess - or, in Neal Stephenson's unique take on the old Platonic ideals - Athena as technological prowess and nerdism used as a means of defense; versus Ares as destructive, neanderthal warlordism. We see these same patterns emerging out of chaos; patterns that recur and manifest in every cultural paradigm; we see these old manifestations torn down in every great cultural conflagration, only to emerge, in a different guise, or in a different mutation. But on the micro level of the individual; isn't it the same thing for all emotional and personal travail? The events and contexts and facts may be different; the feelings and suffering and joys remain the same. Sylvia Plath (damn the woman!) may have felt alienated by her asshole husband, abusive family background, and manic depression; I get ticked off because I've run out of blue cheese. Different inspiration; same effect.

From the disiecta membra of others' words, it is not only possible, but it is, I feel, *respectful*, to construct a Frankensteinian collage of emotional scholia. Why not? Like the character of Jacopo Belbo; why should I create? Whenceforth comes this strange, human need to be *original*; when, in an old Benedictine's words, "the truth requires only fearless defense and not foolish increment. Knowledge is, at best, a subtle and divine recapitulation; the Word repeating itself to itself".

(Some of you sharper chaps / chapettes can already read the underlying leitmotiv in this post, I think:) The sweet, astringent pickle nestled beneath the turkey and lettuce and mayonaise)

I don't really believe that everything that has to be said *is* already said; and I certainly agree that, as a factual narrative, one *is* forced to, if not to be wholly original, to be at least descriptive in one's own words; verbalizing your perceptions and experiences into something resembling a readable passage. But then again, sometimes, one blogs not to describe in mind-numbing detail every meal eaten, every person loved, every single factual and specific nuance of a day in our brief lives. Sometimes, I think, one should blog (at least I do), to paint in broader strokes - an emotional swathe; a general sense of malaise or euphoria - not the nitty-gritty tiles of our daily mosaics. A fragment of gossip, a detailed shard of an interpersonal relationship, a calcified account of a walk down a road or a day spent.

No. no, sometimes I think it is best to just.. overarch. Instead of the tapestry of loving detail we find in a Bruegel; I choose the garish crayon scrawls of a kindergarden girl. Short on detail; long on colour and frenzy.

So today; me feeling numb. But not quite numb numb. Dazed, numb; the feelings not dampened; but the capacity to be hurt by them attenuated.

And onto the quote:

"But yesterday it was you offering it to me, and I thought that maybe this was your way of offering yourself, so I smoked, trusting. We danced close, the way nobody's danced for years and - the shame of it - while Mahler's Fourth was playing. I felt as if in my arms an ancient creature were yearning, a serpent rising from the dephts of my loins, and I worshipped you as a old and very universal thing... Probably I went on holding my body close to yours, but I felt that you were in flight, ascending, being transformed into gold, opening locked foors, moving objects through the air as I penetrated your dark belly, Megale Apophasis, Prisoner of the Angels.

Was it not you I sought all along? I am here, always waiting for you. Did I lose you, each time, because I didn't recognise you? Did I lose you, each time, because I did recognise you but was afraid? Lose you because each time, in recognizing you, I knew I had to lose you?

But where were you this morning? I awoke with a headache."