Mr. Knapton’s Wayward Semeiotic

Decided to take a break from the screaming children tonight. Some people say that here has some bad areas, being out alone at night in a place like this could have consequences. Maybe I stick to the right areas, maybe those people exaggerate. Doesn’t matter. Short sleeves, short pants, short socks, long board.

It’s been awhile. I rolled my ankle the last time I was out, and have been dealing with murmurings of a shin-splint on my pushing leg. Doesn’t matter. I’m ground-floor.

The ipod’s been broken for weeks. Abstract art from freed(!) liquid crystals. Doesn’t matter. I know how to feel it out, at least enough to get it to shuffle. Tonight’s shuffle was beautiful and appropriate for my first night boarding in awhile. Fate can be fun like that, in the way that presents you with slow solitary piano, delicious post-rock and the illest of hip hop at just the right moment.

It feels good to be on the streets, I’m not planning a big ride (haha I never do but they happen often) and I know the smoothest pavement near my place. Shaking the dust off of these creaky bones happens faster than I expect. It didn’t matter.

The streets are mostly empty, and the sky is perfect. Palm trees and powerlines silhouetted against the gradient of a subduing sky and the light pollution (and I do me pollution) of the bustle that surrounds these neighborhoods. I guess that doesn’t matter much, either. Blacker still is the asphalt, and I’m happy

It’s fun to feel like a kid in your twenties. Slaloming the paint on the street, taking big corners down low, hitting the banks, attempting (and failing) tricks. If this place had hills I wouldn’t be home yet. Everything’s smooth and quiet, these streets belong to me. This is my place in the world.

Cruising at about 15, I stretch as tall as I can go. Sometimes it’s upsetting to think that I’ll be moving away from everything I grew up with. Sometimes it’s upsetting to think the opposite. But there’s a lot of roads out there, and I’m not going to be on this planet nearly as long as I’d like to be. But this sense of movement, of freedom, of fresh new experiences, that’s a constant I can live with. I’ve made it this far, I want to keep going. These are the things I think about when carving the concrete at night, as the rest of the world doesn’t matter for a bit.

I was informed yesterday that we’re stopping to see Mt. Rushmore after Omaha. =D

Also I’m going to try to blog from the road, and expect my youtube account to finally host something other than a video of my roommate stealing a plastic dolphin and the outtakes from our hit high-school commercial, “Trout Yogurt”. I hope my little point-and-shoot will be enough to make a documentary if I upload videos after each night.

HOORAY.

Doing some thinking lately. Perusing.

Immanuel Kant once wrote

“Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”

In normal English, this means that we should act as if the reasoning for our actions would become human nature — we should act as role models, even though we aren’t.

Another thing I’ve been wrapped up in has been Nietzsche’s note, “The Greatest Weight”. Here it is:

What if some day or night a demon were to steal after you in your loneliest loneliness and say to you: “This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence—even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again—and you with it, speck of dust!”

Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: “You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine!” If this thought gained possession of you, it would change you as you are, or perhaps crush you. The question in each and every thing, “Do you desire this once more, and innumerable times more?” would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight! Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?

So, let’s recap.

1. Listen to Brecht (a few posts back) and take in life as much as you can. It’s short and needs to be valued.
2. Listen to Kant and make sure that the reasons behind your actions are ones that you would find acceptable or agreeable, were other people to d them.
3. Listen to Nietzsche and consider the greatest weight before committing and action. Would you be willing to experience it over and over again?
4. Apply a little Nietzsche and Brecht and continue to try and experience events that would make your life worth living over and over again for all eternity. It’s those moments that make our lives valuable.
5. There’s a ton of stuff I could say here from the Dalai Lama and how being selfless and compassionate not only fits in with the previous, but I really don’t have time to write a novel

Bit of a rando post, but I figured it’d be fun to share. I’ve been thinking a lot lately, it’s nice to jot this stuff down.

If you’ve got suggestions for good pieces of philosophy to read, there’s the comments section.

Bertholt Brecht was quite the character. I won’t bore you with his whole history, but I can tell you that he lived quite a wild life. If you want a great philosophical short read, check out Gallileo, a book I had read a few years ago and recently re-read in German. It’s an excellent play. If you’re a history buff, go download his smartass testimony against the House of Un-American Activities Commitee (HUAC).

Anyways, along with being a novelist, political activist, spy, playwrite, librettist, exile, and traitor, Brecht was a poet, and a damn good one at that. One of my favorite poems of his is seemingly nonexistent on the internet in translated form, so I decided to translate it for you to the best of my ability. For the original German text, you can go here.

Against Seduction

Don’t allow yourself to be seduced,
There will be no return!
The day stands in the doorway
You can already sense the night winds
Mornings will come no more.

Don’t let yourselves be tricked,
Life is rare!
Sip it to the fullest,
It will not please you
when you have to leave it.

Don’t let yourselves be delayed,
You don’t have much time!
Let the released decompose.
Life is the most important thing,
It won’t stand still anymore.

Don’t allow yourselves to be seduced
by drudgery and emaciation!
What can you do to quiet fear?
Live with all the animals
and it never comes back.