Tuesday 5 September 2000

Pic of the day: A close-up of my glitter lamp. It's not really on topic, but I just wanted you to see it. Oh, and if some of you are tempted to buy your own, remember to always turn them off after use. Yes, this incidentally means you should not use them while drunk or stoned, which sort of limits the potential usability.

Cracked bells

"If I speak in the tongues of men and angels, but do not have love - then I am a sounding gong or a clanging cymbal." (Paul, early Christian apostle.)

Ring the bells that still can ring!
Forget your perfect offering!
There is a crack, a crack in everything;
that's how the light gets in.

Leonard Cohen, Anthem.

***

I have listened to Leonard Cohen, as you may have guessed already, and his album The Future. I think the chorus that I quoted above was what he really wanted to say. Much of the song - and indeed the rest of the album - was mainly filler, in my humble opinion. A sad farewell from one of the very few non-Irish artists who have regularly delivered albums packed with good songs.

Leonard Cohen is one of my favorite songwriters. As is often the case when the artist writes many of his own songs, they have a personal feel and a correspondence between the music and the lyrics. (Other examples of this are Chris de Burgh, and Enya.) Cohen's songs are often full of symbols, reaching deep into the dark soil underneath the human soul. But at the same time he never loses sight of the world. In his Anthem he sums up perhaps some of the essence in his decades of writing: That a human is by necessity flawed, imperfect. And that even so, he has to do what he can.

Unsurprisingly, this coincided with my reading of James Redfield these last few days. Redfield believes that each human comes to this world with a vision of something to accomplish, a vision which must be gradually regained during our life. Each of us have a special "life truth", though this truth can not always be formulated into a cute slogan. As we meet each other, we can help combine these life truths into a greater whole. Nice thought. Whatever you think about it, the effect is much the same as Leonard Cohen says: "Ring the bells that still can ring" - anyone who have enough spiritual awareness to know that they have a responsibility in the world. Even if they are not perfect, even if they have flaws or cracks.

***

I spent last night at the Breakup girl website. There are heaps of cool stuff there now! BG screen saver! BG desktop sounds! BG e-cards! And flash cartoons! I know I've called flash a monstrosity, but that was in the context of online journals. For cartoons it's another matter entirely. Thrill at the sight of Breakup Girl flying to the rescue of clueless lovers in the most hilarious of predicaments! Recommended. (Requires Flash 4 and a fast connection.)

Umm, you know, I hang out there because I like funny superhero comics and such. Not because ... well, you know.

I know some people, certainly some men, use the person they love to anchor them to the world. Like that Dr. Manhattan in Watchmen, who left for Mars when his live-in left him. I thought that was very symbolic. I've wondered more than once if I would feel similarly detached from the world if I didn't have a Best Friend to connect me. And as that anchor line grew longer and thinner, I wondered again.

In Watchmen, Dr. Manhattan was already disconnected, really. The girlfriend told a friend that to him, the so-called real world was like a fog, and the people in it like shadows. Only shadows in the fog. I've thought about that often enough, too. I used to be a bit like that. I used to live in an abstract world, a world of words and symbols and thoughts, only narrowly intersecting with the physical world. The physical world supplied the things I needed to live - food, oxygen, internet access, stuff like that. But most of the time, I did not really notice it. When I was with her, reality seemed suddenly more real, in a way. That's the best I can explain it. I guess I can understand Dr. Manhattan, much good that does a fictional character.

But I'm not planning to go away, if it's up to me! I may be cracked, but I can still sound.