Bismillah.
It occurred to me after the last post that I wasn't sure how to post again to Sadia's Blog. Thus, the delay in my second post. It's much harder than people tell me, this blogging thing.
Today I will be making my 2 hour train odyssey to Flatbush, Brooklyn to a place called Ecology Village, located in Floyd Bennett Field. I am being specific because I can't guarantee that I'll be coming back. There are never any guarantees in existence. This I say because, as I've already given away in the title of this post, I will be going CAMPING. First time. Stars. Nature. Dog Ticks. Cutter spray. Cooking my own food. And oh yeah, sharing a tent with 3 other individuals. No internet, no Dish TV, no civilized niceties. My goal during this adventure is to experience something like Pirsig did in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, a book that inspires me to know machines with as much diligence as I like to read theory about Nature. I would like also to remember God in His magnificent creation when I am sleeping under stars, with poison ivy surrounding my campsite and trailmix in my pocket. In truth, I am a coward, afraid of pain and suffering and the difficult. But I have an inclination to know what I don't need to know. Like camping.
As I sat on the Uptown B Express (from Sheepshead Bay) to Manhattan, with my legs crossed because I had drunk too much water and coffee during my 6 hour camp safety training, my mind began fantasizing. My fantasies, for the most part, are crude and unwomanly for I see things I would never dare to see in reality. Or at least, these fantasies are unconventional for any woman to think about intensely for 1.5 hours (or even admit to doing). I will be as vague as possible because our most troubling selves appear in the dreams, and untold stories we keep hidden in ourselves. I too will keep my stuff hidden. There will be a time when we will be accountable for the dirty creativity of our minds, but I'd rather have that revelation come from outside my nonexistent readership.
Today, I spent the 1.5 hours in a delirious fantasy land of my brain. It was troubling on a rational level, but thoroughly enjoyable to have my mind ran amok on a more base, i-really-have-take-a-piss-level. This constant clash between what feels good, and what is good troubles me. I love making normative claims about reality, about what ought to be the case, yet I fail to consider descriptive claims of how reality actually operates. I often disregard my intuitive feelings about people, ideas or things as invalid because the feelings cannot be explained by way of reason some times. The disconnect in my brain between normative and descriptive mean that when I am conscious of both, I am conflicted. For example, to fantasize explicitly about the body is a normal, psychological fact. Yet, the socialized, learned idea that such thoughts warrant punishment is equally valid, though also guilt-inducing. Because I am conscious of the clash between fact and feeling, I am conflicted.
Work and classes ended this week and the camping trip marks the beginning of another transition in my personal growth and seasonal development. I may come back with more than itches and smelly clothes. I may come back a more experienced, young woman.
It occurred to me after the last post that I wasn't sure how to post again to Sadia's Blog. Thus, the delay in my second post. It's much harder than people tell me, this blogging thing.
Today I will be making my 2 hour train odyssey to Flatbush, Brooklyn to a place called Ecology Village, located in Floyd Bennett Field. I am being specific because I can't guarantee that I'll be coming back. There are never any guarantees in existence. This I say because, as I've already given away in the title of this post, I will be going CAMPING. First time. Stars. Nature. Dog Ticks. Cutter spray. Cooking my own food. And oh yeah, sharing a tent with 3 other individuals. No internet, no Dish TV, no civilized niceties. My goal during this adventure is to experience something like Pirsig did in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, a book that inspires me to know machines with as much diligence as I like to read theory about Nature. I would like also to remember God in His magnificent creation when I am sleeping under stars, with poison ivy surrounding my campsite and trailmix in my pocket. In truth, I am a coward, afraid of pain and suffering and the difficult. But I have an inclination to know what I don't need to know. Like camping.
As I sat on the Uptown B Express (from Sheepshead Bay) to Manhattan, with my legs crossed because I had drunk too much water and coffee during my 6 hour camp safety training, my mind began fantasizing. My fantasies, for the most part, are crude and unwomanly for I see things I would never dare to see in reality. Or at least, these fantasies are unconventional for any woman to think about intensely for 1.5 hours (or even admit to doing). I will be as vague as possible because our most troubling selves appear in the dreams, and untold stories we keep hidden in ourselves. I too will keep my stuff hidden. There will be a time when we will be accountable for the dirty creativity of our minds, but I'd rather have that revelation come from outside my nonexistent readership.
Today, I spent the 1.5 hours in a delirious fantasy land of my brain. It was troubling on a rational level, but thoroughly enjoyable to have my mind ran amok on a more base, i-really-have-take-a-piss-level. This constant clash between what feels good, and what is good troubles me. I love making normative claims about reality, about what ought to be the case, yet I fail to consider descriptive claims of how reality actually operates. I often disregard my intuitive feelings about people, ideas or things as invalid because the feelings cannot be explained by way of reason some times. The disconnect in my brain between normative and descriptive mean that when I am conscious of both, I am conflicted. For example, to fantasize explicitly about the body is a normal, psychological fact. Yet, the socialized, learned idea that such thoughts warrant punishment is equally valid, though also guilt-inducing. Because I am conscious of the clash between fact and feeling, I am conflicted.
Work and classes ended this week and the camping trip marks the beginning of another transition in my personal growth and seasonal development. I may come back with more than itches and smelly clothes. I may come back a more experienced, young woman.
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