Some of them were dreamers
And some of them were fools
Who were making plans and thinking of the future
With the energy of the innocent
They were gathering the tools
They would need to make their journey back to nature
While the sand slipped through the opening
And their hands reached for the golden ring
With their hearts they turned to each others heart for refuge
In the troubled years that came before the deluge
Some of them knew pleasure
And some of them knew pain
And for some of them it was only the moment that mattered
And on the brave and crazy wings of youth
They went flying around in the rain
And their feathers, once so fine, grew torn and tattered
And in the end they traded their tired wings
For the resignation that living brings
And exchanged loves bright and fragile glow
For the glitter and the rouge
And in the moment they were swept before the deluge
Now let the music keep our spirits high
And let the buildings keep our children dry
Let creation reveal its secrets by and by
By and by--
When the light thats lost within us reaches the sky
Some of them were angry
At the way the earth was abused
By the men who learned how to forge her beauty into power
And they struggled to protect her from them
Only to be confused
By the magnitude of her fury in the final hour
And when the sand was gone and the time arrived
In the naked dawn only a few survived
And in attempts to understand a thing so simple and so huge
Believed that they were meant to live after the deluge
Now let the music keep our spirits high
And let the buildings keep our children dry
Let creation reveal its secrets by and by
By and by--
When the light thats lost within us reaches the sky
- Jackson Brown
Monday, September 22, 2008
Sunday, September 14, 2008
What the heck is this all about?
Part Two
So, back to Van Morrison again.
By the way, if you don't know "Dweller on the Threshold," there's a good performance of it here.
So, the other reason the song spoke to me was because it seemed to articulate, in a rather roundabout way, some of my concerns about a wide variety of current issues. As I said in my first post, I'm trying to think about how these issues and changes are going to work within my academic life. But I think the idea of the dweller on the threshold also speaks to peak oil, climate change, food security, and a whole host of other issues in a more general way, and one that's probably relatable to a bunch of people beyond me.
Now, clearly the song doesn't deal specifically with these issues. It's a song, after all, and a bit of an older one, and I'm sure Van likes to sell his records and not depress his fans too much. I am, however, about to go vaguely literature interpretation on you with some of the lyrics, thanks to that BA in English, but I'll try not to get to heavy,
In any case, the song deals with a lot of similar themes - waiting in darkness, moving from darkness into light, having to move through doors, the loss of illusion, and seeing without perceiving. These are all issues I think we're having to face now. Our world is changing rapidly, and we're having to come to a lot of really difficult conclusions about the impact that we're having on a whole host of things we depend on - weather, the environment, oil, water, food, travel, and how we fundamentally live our lives. We're losing the illusions that we've held onto for years and being, in at least some cases, forced through the door and into the light.
In some ways, I feel like we're talking about Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" on a grand scale (good grief, I hope this works, since it just came to me now). For those unfamiliar with this work, it's essentially a tale of a number of people chained in a cave, facing the back wall, and lit from behind. All they know of the world is the shadows that are projected on the wall that they face, sinc ethat's all that they can see. But eventually, one of these people is dragged away from the cave, so he can see the actual world, and not just the shadows. And it hurts. The sunlight hurts his eyes (and, if we're talking post-ozone, might even burn his skin). He has a difficult time equating the shadows of the cave with what he can now see of the real world. Everything is new and strange and damn scary.
Again, we've got a dark to light transition, a movement from one way of being to another. And we also have a sense of the pain that maybe, just maybe, comes up in "Dweller" in the ideas of crossing the burning ground, and then of drowning. Now, we too are being hauled out of the cave, en masse. I certainly feel like I've been dragged out, especially with regard to issues around peak oil and food security. For some, I'm sure it's a more difficult transition than others.
But, there can be a happy ending. In Plato's allegory, the person who is dragged away from the cave adjust, and even returns to the cave to try to convince ther others how wonderful non-cave life is. They, of course, do not believe him, since they need to experience it themselves and work through their own fears and deal with the changes themselves. But it is possible to grow used to it.
I think there are a lot of reasons that we've lived so long in what only now seems to be the darkness. It's been comfortable and, until now, has been relatively easy to go along with. In addition, it's been even easier because the powers that be - those who have a vested interest in keeping us working, buying, and living in particular ways that tend to support capitalism - have led us to believe that this is the best way. That's not to say that we're dupes. I think that far too often the tendency is to assume that people are dupes of the system. But, we're talking about a system that's been around for awhile, and one that's so normalized and expected that it's just plain difficult to get away from enough that it can be questioned and confronted on any large scale. But, we're being pulled far enough away now that we can begin to see these things - sadly, it seems to be much easier to question the system when it's difficult to afford fuel, or food, or housing. As a result, we're being forced into a position where not only our ways of life our changing, but our assumptions and illusions about them are as well. And so, we're all, in a sense, dwellers on a threshold, whether we know it or not yet, and we need to figure out how this transition is going to work for us.
This turned out a bit more general than I wanted it too. Maybe I'm wrong, and I'm the only one who feels like Van's dweller on the threshold, or the guy hauled out of Plato's cave into the glimmering and shiny world. But I suspect a lot of us feel like this. That a lot of us are making this transition and trying to manage the pain and shock and confusion of moving past the dark and into this new light. I know it's not always a picnic over here, and so I'm going to write about it. Yeah, I want to think about integrating my domestic life a little better with my academic life, but I also think these issues and means of dealing with them are worth thinking about on their own.
So, back to Van Morrison again.
By the way, if you don't know "Dweller on the Threshold," there's a good performance of it here.
So, the other reason the song spoke to me was because it seemed to articulate, in a rather roundabout way, some of my concerns about a wide variety of current issues. As I said in my first post, I'm trying to think about how these issues and changes are going to work within my academic life. But I think the idea of the dweller on the threshold also speaks to peak oil, climate change, food security, and a whole host of other issues in a more general way, and one that's probably relatable to a bunch of people beyond me.
Now, clearly the song doesn't deal specifically with these issues. It's a song, after all, and a bit of an older one, and I'm sure Van likes to sell his records and not depress his fans too much. I am, however, about to go vaguely literature interpretation on you with some of the lyrics, thanks to that BA in English, but I'll try not to get to heavy,
In any case, the song deals with a lot of similar themes - waiting in darkness, moving from darkness into light, having to move through doors, the loss of illusion, and seeing without perceiving. These are all issues I think we're having to face now. Our world is changing rapidly, and we're having to come to a lot of really difficult conclusions about the impact that we're having on a whole host of things we depend on - weather, the environment, oil, water, food, travel, and how we fundamentally live our lives. We're losing the illusions that we've held onto for years and being, in at least some cases, forced through the door and into the light.
In some ways, I feel like we're talking about Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" on a grand scale (good grief, I hope this works, since it just came to me now). For those unfamiliar with this work, it's essentially a tale of a number of people chained in a cave, facing the back wall, and lit from behind. All they know of the world is the shadows that are projected on the wall that they face, sinc ethat's all that they can see. But eventually, one of these people is dragged away from the cave, so he can see the actual world, and not just the shadows. And it hurts. The sunlight hurts his eyes (and, if we're talking post-ozone, might even burn his skin). He has a difficult time equating the shadows of the cave with what he can now see of the real world. Everything is new and strange and damn scary.
Again, we've got a dark to light transition, a movement from one way of being to another. And we also have a sense of the pain that maybe, just maybe, comes up in "Dweller" in the ideas of crossing the burning ground, and then of drowning. Now, we too are being hauled out of the cave, en masse. I certainly feel like I've been dragged out, especially with regard to issues around peak oil and food security. For some, I'm sure it's a more difficult transition than others.
But, there can be a happy ending. In Plato's allegory, the person who is dragged away from the cave adjust, and even returns to the cave to try to convince ther others how wonderful non-cave life is. They, of course, do not believe him, since they need to experience it themselves and work through their own fears and deal with the changes themselves. But it is possible to grow used to it.
I think there are a lot of reasons that we've lived so long in what only now seems to be the darkness. It's been comfortable and, until now, has been relatively easy to go along with. In addition, it's been even easier because the powers that be - those who have a vested interest in keeping us working, buying, and living in particular ways that tend to support capitalism - have led us to believe that this is the best way. That's not to say that we're dupes. I think that far too often the tendency is to assume that people are dupes of the system. But, we're talking about a system that's been around for awhile, and one that's so normalized and expected that it's just plain difficult to get away from enough that it can be questioned and confronted on any large scale. But, we're being pulled far enough away now that we can begin to see these things - sadly, it seems to be much easier to question the system when it's difficult to afford fuel, or food, or housing. As a result, we're being forced into a position where not only our ways of life our changing, but our assumptions and illusions about them are as well. And so, we're all, in a sense, dwellers on a threshold, whether we know it or not yet, and we need to figure out how this transition is going to work for us.
This turned out a bit more general than I wanted it too. Maybe I'm wrong, and I'm the only one who feels like Van's dweller on the threshold, or the guy hauled out of Plato's cave into the glimmering and shiny world. But I suspect a lot of us feel like this. That a lot of us are making this transition and trying to manage the pain and shock and confusion of moving past the dark and into this new light. I know it's not always a picnic over here, and so I'm going to write about it. Yeah, I want to think about integrating my domestic life a little better with my academic life, but I also think these issues and means of dealing with them are worth thinking about on their own.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
What the heck is this all about?
Part One
Really, this is a question that I get a lot, although especially from my family and boyfriend. I suspect the only question I get more is, "what the heck are you wearing?", but that usually comes from my dad. It's almost a running joke. Almost.
In terms of background, I live in a fairly small city in Canada, on my own, in an apartment full of books and other assorted things (yeah, shoes too, I admit it). I'm a doctoral candidate finishing my third year and working on my dissertation. My research isn't really important here - suffice it to say that it's markedly removed from...well...most of the stuff that I'm hoping to work on and work through here.
So, then, what am I doing here? And what's with the title?
Well, the title is borrowed from a Van Morrison song, and I've posted the lyrics here. I started listening to it a lot recently, and thought it would make a great blog name, but it also seemed like it worked well with some of the things I was trying to puzzle through in terms of my life-at-large (as opposed to my life-as-academia.)
I sometimes feel like a dweller on the threshold, although I'm not always sure of what that threshold is. I do academic research, but the ivory tower is, in many ways, so far removed from other elements of my life, especially given my specific focus. So, I exist somewhere between these two worlds, one where I do academic research on fairly technological subject matter, and the other where I have a baby garden on my patio, knit socks for myself, cook vegetarian food, and concern myself more and more with environmental and food security issues.
To a degree, I've supressed this latter part of my life. Academic takes up so much of my time, and tends to come first. But more and more I feel like my interests here (fromerly dealt with only in the summer and those odd moments when I don't have things immediately due) need to be addressed in some way. They certainly won't take over from my academic life, but I think they need some more inclusion, because right now they're so very separate.
Of course, this isn't to say that these two things have to be mutually exclusive. It's just that I feel the divide very acutely at some times, and I'm not always sure how to reconcile it. Some of these concerns are making their way into my academic life a bit more as time progresses, but the divide is still there. I don't even think that I can work it out through here necessarily, but I at least want to give voice to these things and give them a bit more actual rather than just theoretical space in my life.
So, although I'm not as metaphorical as good old Van, I guess I feel like a dweller on the threshold of something new in my own life, or at least of something that's an increasingly source of concern and focus. And I hope, at least in some small way, to figure out what this is that I'm dealing with, and how I can better integrate it at least into my world, if not into my work.
Really, this is a question that I get a lot, although especially from my family and boyfriend. I suspect the only question I get more is, "what the heck are you wearing?", but that usually comes from my dad. It's almost a running joke. Almost.
In terms of background, I live in a fairly small city in Canada, on my own, in an apartment full of books and other assorted things (yeah, shoes too, I admit it). I'm a doctoral candidate finishing my third year and working on my dissertation. My research isn't really important here - suffice it to say that it's markedly removed from...well...most of the stuff that I'm hoping to work on and work through here.
So, then, what am I doing here? And what's with the title?
Well, the title is borrowed from a Van Morrison song, and I've posted the lyrics here. I started listening to it a lot recently, and thought it would make a great blog name, but it also seemed like it worked well with some of the things I was trying to puzzle through in terms of my life-at-large (as opposed to my life-as-academia.)
I sometimes feel like a dweller on the threshold, although I'm not always sure of what that threshold is. I do academic research, but the ivory tower is, in many ways, so far removed from other elements of my life, especially given my specific focus. So, I exist somewhere between these two worlds, one where I do academic research on fairly technological subject matter, and the other where I have a baby garden on my patio, knit socks for myself, cook vegetarian food, and concern myself more and more with environmental and food security issues.
To a degree, I've supressed this latter part of my life. Academic takes up so much of my time, and tends to come first. But more and more I feel like my interests here (fromerly dealt with only in the summer and those odd moments when I don't have things immediately due) need to be addressed in some way. They certainly won't take over from my academic life, but I think they need some more inclusion, because right now they're so very separate.
Of course, this isn't to say that these two things have to be mutually exclusive. It's just that I feel the divide very acutely at some times, and I'm not always sure how to reconcile it. Some of these concerns are making their way into my academic life a bit more as time progresses, but the divide is still there. I don't even think that I can work it out through here necessarily, but I at least want to give voice to these things and give them a bit more actual rather than just theoretical space in my life.
So, although I'm not as metaphorical as good old Van, I guess I feel like a dweller on the threshold of something new in my own life, or at least of something that's an increasingly source of concern and focus. And I hope, at least in some small way, to figure out what this is that I'm dealing with, and how I can better integrate it at least into my world, if not into my work.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Dweller on the Threshold
I'm a dweller on the threshold
And I'm waiting at the door
And I'm standing in the darkness
I don't want to wait no more
I have seen without perceiving
I have been another man
Let me pierce the realm of glamour
So I know just what I am
I'm a dweller on the threshold
And I'm waiting at the door
And I'm standing in the darkness
I don't want to wait no more
Feel the angel of the present
In the mighty crystal fire
Lift me up consume my darkness
Let me travel even higher
I'm a dweller on the threshold
As I cross the burning ground
Let me go down to the water
Watch the great illusion drown
I'm a dweller on the threshold
And I'm waiting at the door
And I'm standing in the darkness
I don't want to wait no more
I'm gonna turn and face the music
The music of the spheres
Lift me up consume my darkness
When the midnight disappears
I will walk out of the darkness
And I'll walk into the light
And I'll sing the song of ages
And the dawn will end the night
I'm a dweller on the threshold
And I'm waiting at the door
And I'm standing in the darkness
I don't want to wait no more
I'm a dweller on the threshold
And I cross some burning ground
And I'll go down to the water
Let the great illusion drown
I'm a dweller on the threshold
And I'm waiting at the door
And I'm standing in the darkness
I don't want to wait no more
I'm a dweller on the threshold
Dweller on the threshold
I'm a dweller on the threshold
I'm a dweller on the threshold
- Van Morrison
And I'm waiting at the door
And I'm standing in the darkness
I don't want to wait no more
I have seen without perceiving
I have been another man
Let me pierce the realm of glamour
So I know just what I am
I'm a dweller on the threshold
And I'm waiting at the door
And I'm standing in the darkness
I don't want to wait no more
Feel the angel of the present
In the mighty crystal fire
Lift me up consume my darkness
Let me travel even higher
I'm a dweller on the threshold
As I cross the burning ground
Let me go down to the water
Watch the great illusion drown
I'm a dweller on the threshold
And I'm waiting at the door
And I'm standing in the darkness
I don't want to wait no more
I'm gonna turn and face the music
The music of the spheres
Lift me up consume my darkness
When the midnight disappears
I will walk out of the darkness
And I'll walk into the light
And I'll sing the song of ages
And the dawn will end the night
I'm a dweller on the threshold
And I'm waiting at the door
And I'm standing in the darkness
I don't want to wait no more
I'm a dweller on the threshold
And I cross some burning ground
And I'll go down to the water
Let the great illusion drown
I'm a dweller on the threshold
And I'm waiting at the door
And I'm standing in the darkness
I don't want to wait no more
I'm a dweller on the threshold
Dweller on the threshold
I'm a dweller on the threshold
I'm a dweller on the threshold
- Van Morrison
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