me: missing london these days. sometimes i dont even miss it anymore, but when i do… i listen to elliott smith, like i’m doing now
anders: i got the same thing with san francisco, but right now its only people and burritos. I watch star trek like i’m doing now
me: it´s not really people that i miss the most in london. and the food only when i’m hangover, craving for an english breakfast. i miss the streets, the greasy spoons, the dusty pubs. my right to loneliness without guilt.
anders: word, i had a nice sunday lamb roast at this pub in a park.
that is nicely phrased. how do you feel guilty about being lonely? I mean, what about it brings up guilt for you?
me: i dunno. like, when i’m here in sao paulo and i know people who are in the same city, i feel like i should be with them and if i’m alone i feel guilty. like i should be socializing and showing people i like them and enjoy being with them and that they are important to me. and if don’t, i feel anxious and guilty and you never can give enough atention to all the people you know and like. so i’m constantly feeling guilty.
anders: I know exactly what you mean. I was tryingto say something true about it but the words aren’t coming… thinking…
me: …
anders: this is something that I’ve struggled with a lot too. i have come to choose that the only OBLIGATIONs I have to my friends is to keep what promises I make (so I make few) and to live a life that they can enjoy having as part of theirs. it’s really easy to try to be there all the time, especially since its a ton more fun than thinking about crappy things you don’t feel like dealing with … but the loneliness is important for taking care of those things
me: but see, foreigners they respect it more. brazilians are famous for being “friendly”. but by “friendly” you can understand: obtrusive. is it a word? like not respecting your space and individuality. if you’re not socializing, if you’re not attending every event they make up, you’re akward, you’re weird, you’re cold, etc
anders: yeah, but that’s just not possible to do all the time.
me: BUT THAT’S WHAT PEOPLE EXPECT YOU TO DO. ops, sorry for the caps
anders: do you mean loneliness when you are actually alone or do you include feeling lonely when you are around other people? dont yell at me! joking
me: both, i guess, but mostly being on your own
anders: I’m just trying to make sense of the guilt that is felt based on a feeling or a self expectation to be with other people … it’s self imposed. I dont think that it actually exists in other people’s expectation of you … it’s something I’ve been thinking about here. I get to spend a ton more time alone without feeling like I’m letting someone down, but I don’t fully understand why. it reminds me of this:
My life is not this steeply sloping hour,
in which you see me hurrying.
Much stands behind me; I stand before it like a tree;
I am only one of my many mouths,
and at that, the one that will be still the soonest.
I am the rest between two notes,
which are somehow always in discord
because Death’s note wants to climb over-
but in the dark interval, reconciled,
they stay there trembling.
And the song goes on, beautiful.
me: which song is that?
anders: thats rainer maria rilke
me: i don’t think it’s totally self-imposed, i mean, i havent been going out as much lately as i used to, and people are always like “what happenend? are you ok? you disappeared”
anders: yeah, but being “party friend” is different than being friend
me: and you do want to get closer to some people
anders: I can’t imagine that the people who really matter mind if you hang alone more
me: but it’s life, there’s never enough time. and in here? they do. they think you’re depressed
anders: hm, I guess. I dont really see anything wrong with depression
me: it’s in fact necessary
anders: thats where I’m at with it
me: i read some article about it, about how depresison is a way to deal with reality, with frustration. it’s a way to align your expectations with what the world has to offer and how, till a certain point, it actually protects you from hurting yourself even more or from suicide
anders: sure, read a paper on how the reason people in colder climate are more depressed because it is useful to be lazy and not want to do anything when humans couldn’t go outside and didn’t want to eat or fuck during winter when there wasn’t enoug food for an apetite or more kids. I’m not sure about the truth of aligning your expectations … I think that is more self fulfilling than anything
me: i don’t know either, that’s just something scientists and psychologists, etc, said
anders: yeah, but I think psychologists end up explaining things satisfacorily from one perspective, an sometimes lose sight of how it actually impacts somebody’s life to hold a belief like that
me: hm, what do you think of this quote:
“I came to realise depression is when nothing matters… and sadness is when everything matters.”
anders: I think that its great, but the “nothing matters” to me is more of a “what’s the point” and the “everything matters” is not just “matters” but “is significant”. did that make sense? what I mean is “fuck it” vs. “omigod omigod omigod”
me: yes, exactly
anders: it’s really late here and I’m getting sleepy and not thinking well, but I think depression is related to consiousness
me: self conciousness most of the time
anders: there is a philosopher at UC Berkley named alva noe, and I think this is a decent paraphrasing:
“I don’t reject the idea that the brain is necessary for consciousness; but I do reject the argument that it is sufficient. That’s just a fancy, contemporary version of the old philosophical idea that our true selves are interior, cut off from the outside world, only accidentally situated in the world. The view I’m attacking claims that neural activity is enough to explain consciousness, that you could have consciousness in a petri dish. It supposes that consciousness happens inside the brain the way digestion occurs inside the GI tract. But consciousness is not like digestion; it doesn’t happen inside of us. It is something we do, something we achieve. It’s more like dance than it is like digestion.
Even if we had a perfect way of observing exactly what a brain was doing, we would never be able to understand how it made us have the kinds of experiences we do. The experiences just aren’t happening inside our skulls. Trying to understand consciousness in neural terms alone is like trying to understand a car driving down the road only in terms of its engine.”
what is the difference between being conscious and being self-conscious?
me: hm,they are both linked, but when you say self-conscious you’re concentrating on yourself and your direct relationship with the world around you. when you’re conscious, it can refer to how you see relationships outside of yourself, not directly related to you, though it’s still your vision anyway
anders: but everything that shows up for you in the world is something you have a direct relationship with: of recognition and some sort of engagement. I can’t think of a single thing that somebody coud be consious of, and not have any relationship with. the direct relationship would exist I guess in language, in having an abstract symbolic structure to relate to the thing itself with. a word or phrase which includes the world how it is outside you, objectively, as an aspect of what makes your consciousness, and therefore, in part, where consciousness resides.
it’s an interesting idea
me: it is. i really like the text you quote. when i think about it, i reach a point where everything is so linked, in such a complex way, that it makes a whole of everything, like every little thing is so connected in so many forms that it makes it difficult to think. because we think in words and words are a way of cutting pieces of reality, separating things. and it feels..incomplete. like it’s always missing something, leaving something out
anders: hm but words are also the only way we have to access these ideas. they are real, but they don’t exist outside of words
me: true. but still… when i think in terms of language…
anders: i think the reason it feels that way might be that it’s never an answer, and just a series of questions, or a query
me: like, knowing english pretty well, made me realize how it’s almost impossible to translate things. translations are always going around stuff, but never putting your finger there, understand?
anders: I do
me: different langauges cut through reality in different ways
anders: sure, I think thats very well said
me: and when you come to think of how many languages there are out there…
anders: sure, and if would even be possible to know which to learn to think better about what…
me: exactly! (staring at the horizon thinking)
anders: regarding the silver pepper of the stars
me: ha, still one of my favourite english sentences.
