So, I've been thinking about busyness. I've noticed that a lot of people (myself included) ladle completely unimportant things onto their plates. This would be okay, except for our remarkable ability to convince ourselves that the things are HUGELY important. As a result we spend our lives running around like headless chooks (the very opposite of legless bovines), utterly convinced that if we stop for a moment the world will fall apart.
Some people have asked me why I don't take a break from the multitude of things that are always popping up in my diary, and I answer with: 'Because if I stop I know I won't be able to start again'.
This raises the issue of busyness for busyness' sake. It's like a car with a flat battery, rolling down a hill. It'll keep going as long as it's in motion, but as soon as it stops - well, it'll take a lot of grunt work (or a new battery) to get it moving again. I'll find myself out at bars or clubs or music gigs on three hours of sleep, with a blinder of a headache wondering what the hell I'm doing out in the middle of the city when I could've been curled up in bed, asleep.
Really, if you feel like you can't stop what you're doing, you're doing too much.
It also occurred to me that being busy is a way of avoiding our real problems by moving in circles, rather than fleeing from them in straight lines. This way, we can kid ourselves into believing we're facing them, conquering them, solving them, when really we're just distracting ourselves.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
It's all about Jeff
“Words are beautiful but restricted. They're very masculine, with a compact frame. But voice is over, the dark, the place where there's nothing to hang on: it comes from a part of yourself that simply knows, expresses itself, and is.”
A quote from Jeff Buckley, decidedly lyrical (no surprises there!) but not everyone has the capacity to sing as beautifully, as emotionally, as he did. How many of us feel we have the capacity to conjure up such sense of place and identity with our voices? Certainly not me.
But, he was a singer (albeit, one who often wrote his own songs). His voice was his focus and words merely a form for it to take. For a writer, it's all about the words; how well we can create a voice out of silence. There are writers out there who can give words the depth that Jeff Buckley created with his song performances. This is even more of a feat when considering that a song when performed has both text and context. There is both a tangible and intangible quality, appealing to both the senses and the mind.
I think this video encapsulates his emphasis on otherness. It's not one of his most well known songs (indeed, he did not write it), but his performance of it is utterly haunting.
And, of course, his absolutely moving rendition of Cohen's 'Hallelujah'.
There's a saying, 'poetry in motion' (also the name of a Johnny Tillotson song, but let's not go there). And I think this should be the endeavour of anyone who picks up a pen with an idea. Words don't necessarily have to be restrictive.
A quote from Jeff Buckley, decidedly lyrical (no surprises there!) but not everyone has the capacity to sing as beautifully, as emotionally, as he did. How many of us feel we have the capacity to conjure up such sense of place and identity with our voices? Certainly not me.
But, he was a singer (albeit, one who often wrote his own songs). His voice was his focus and words merely a form for it to take. For a writer, it's all about the words; how well we can create a voice out of silence. There are writers out there who can give words the depth that Jeff Buckley created with his song performances. This is even more of a feat when considering that a song when performed has both text and context. There is both a tangible and intangible quality, appealing to both the senses and the mind.
I think this video encapsulates his emphasis on otherness. It's not one of his most well known songs (indeed, he did not write it), but his performance of it is utterly haunting.
And, of course, his absolutely moving rendition of Cohen's 'Hallelujah'.
There's a saying, 'poetry in motion' (also the name of a Johnny Tillotson song, but let's not go there). And I think this should be the endeavour of anyone who picks up a pen with an idea. Words don't necessarily have to be restrictive.
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