with prom coming up, and all that jazz, you can guess what's been on my mind lately. look at these dresses.
Windows Live Hotmail is giving away Zunes. Enter for your chance to win.
31.3.08
26.3.08
HAIR HUNTER
facehunter, thankyou. i've been looking for examples of this hairstyle for along while. as prom is comign up and my hair is short , finding an example of a decent, interesting hairstyle for a stylist has been fruitless, until you!
20.3.08
WHY I AM STUMPED
To this day my sense of distance in relation to the time it takes to travel aforementioned distance is irrevocably damaged.
Explaining this is going to be difficult.
From kindergarten to 8th grade I lived in a house past a cemetery about five miles out of town. An unbiased person could brainlessly calculate the approximate time it would take for a car consistently following speed limits/suggestions (the way out to that house is cuuuurvy) to drive into the city limits of Big Rapids. I, however, was brainwashed.
You see, the dominant mode of transportation from home to school for me was the yellow bus. In a normal situation it takes about ten minutes to drive into town. Unfortunately, I am unable to comprehend this law of basic physics because I grew up thinking it always took an hour or more to travel the ten or so miles to the imposing bricks of Brookside.
Imagine how badly this has influenced me! All the standardized testing math sections are just killer. This type of problem, for example, seemed to be exceptionally apparent throughout the years:
A car driving about 48 miles per an hour traveling due North left and began traveling at 11:42a.m. What time will it be when the car will have driven 136 miles?
Well, of course, I couldn’t tell you the right answer! The only options given were somewhere between two and four hours! In all of my experience, there was no way this could be achieved! It would take at least 21 hours for the bus to travel this distance! Needless to say, my score in the math section of the ACT was… lower than I would have liked.
More aspects affecting the quality of my higher education are altered by the presence of my disability to this very day… let me explain. After riding a nauseating bus nearly everyday for eleven years and subsequently being mentally blighted, the last two years have been spent forcing myself to face the facts and vowing not to let my little hindrance stop me from leading a normal, healthy life.
Unfortunately, becoming a normal person is a long difficult process, and sometimes I mess up. There, I admit it. Every time I arrive to school tardy, now you know why. It’s because I’ve been overcorrecting myself. I realize that in the real world, it shouldn’t take an hour to drive to school. In typical conditions it should only take about ten minutes. However, sometimes mornings play out like this: I wake up, shower, eat, and gather my keys, get ready to start the car, and glimpse the clock, which is signaling to me that I have a good forty-five minutes before I need to physically be in the classroom. So, I take it easy, slip off my shoes, and lie on the couch, counting the minutes for a while, but, as I said, I am human, and sometimes I lose track of the minutes. Still, usually the next time I open my eyes all agitated and worried about being late, I would see that I have fifteen minutes still. This, to a high schooler, is a considerable amount of time that CANNOT be wasted. I must milk every precious free second and nap another five minutes. As you have probably guessed, by the time I deem it is really time to go, I’m either going to drive, let me borrow a phrase from my mother, like a bat out of hell- or I’m not going to risk getting pulled over and just be late.
It is my opinion that I should not be punished for this, after all, it is the school system’s fault for misleading me so.
It is also my firm belief that making children ride buses to school is a heinous injustice to all of society! Not only are nine out of ten bus-riding children mentally irreparably impaired, 100% of them are subjected to the lifelong unpleasantry of remembrance of bus-related experiences. If someone is trying to work and keeps being distracted by someone talking down the hall because their voice is scarily similar to that of person’s creepy old bus driver who used to yell and always stop the bus ten feet or so past the stop, especially in the rain or cold, how are they going to do a good job for their employer? This person is undoubtedly too disheveled to concentrate on their assignment, and will most likely end up writing their monthly report or whatever in incomprehensible gibberish or personal Esperanto. Next thing you know, they’ve been fired, and it’s just another helpless victim draining our economy collecting unemployment dollars.
It’s a vicious circle people! If you don’t have a car to drive your kids to school, I suggest you home school them.
I just hope for everyone’s sake that I’m not going to be one of those poor people. I think I am reasonably adjusted to reality, and besides, I’m going to be a flight attendant, so my perception of ground travel is really unimportant anyway. I only hope I’ll be able to cope if I move to some metro and end up taking cabs to the airport.
Explaining this is going to be difficult.
From kindergarten to 8th grade I lived in a house past a cemetery about five miles out of town. An unbiased person could brainlessly calculate the approximate time it would take for a car consistently following speed limits/suggestions (the way out to that house is cuuuurvy) to drive into the city limits of Big Rapids. I, however, was brainwashed.
You see, the dominant mode of transportation from home to school for me was the yellow bus. In a normal situation it takes about ten minutes to drive into town. Unfortunately, I am unable to comprehend this law of basic physics because I grew up thinking it always took an hour or more to travel the ten or so miles to the imposing bricks of Brookside.
Imagine how badly this has influenced me! All the standardized testing math sections are just killer. This type of problem, for example, seemed to be exceptionally apparent throughout the years:
A car driving about 48 miles per an hour traveling due North left and began traveling at 11:42a.m. What time will it be when the car will have driven 136 miles?
Well, of course, I couldn’t tell you the right answer! The only options given were somewhere between two and four hours! In all of my experience, there was no way this could be achieved! It would take at least 21 hours for the bus to travel this distance! Needless to say, my score in the math section of the ACT was… lower than I would have liked.
More aspects affecting the quality of my higher education are altered by the presence of my disability to this very day… let me explain. After riding a nauseating bus nearly everyday for eleven years and subsequently being mentally blighted, the last two years have been spent forcing myself to face the facts and vowing not to let my little hindrance stop me from leading a normal, healthy life.
Unfortunately, becoming a normal person is a long difficult process, and sometimes I mess up. There, I admit it. Every time I arrive to school tardy, now you know why. It’s because I’ve been overcorrecting myself. I realize that in the real world, it shouldn’t take an hour to drive to school. In typical conditions it should only take about ten minutes. However, sometimes mornings play out like this: I wake up, shower, eat, and gather my keys, get ready to start the car, and glimpse the clock, which is signaling to me that I have a good forty-five minutes before I need to physically be in the classroom. So, I take it easy, slip off my shoes, and lie on the couch, counting the minutes for a while, but, as I said, I am human, and sometimes I lose track of the minutes. Still, usually the next time I open my eyes all agitated and worried about being late, I would see that I have fifteen minutes still. This, to a high schooler, is a considerable amount of time that CANNOT be wasted. I must milk every precious free second and nap another five minutes. As you have probably guessed, by the time I deem it is really time to go, I’m either going to drive, let me borrow a phrase from my mother, like a bat out of hell- or I’m not going to risk getting pulled over and just be late.
It is my opinion that I should not be punished for this, after all, it is the school system’s fault for misleading me so.
It is also my firm belief that making children ride buses to school is a heinous injustice to all of society! Not only are nine out of ten bus-riding children mentally irreparably impaired, 100% of them are subjected to the lifelong unpleasantry of remembrance of bus-related experiences. If someone is trying to work and keeps being distracted by someone talking down the hall because their voice is scarily similar to that of person’s creepy old bus driver who used to yell and always stop the bus ten feet or so past the stop, especially in the rain or cold, how are they going to do a good job for their employer? This person is undoubtedly too disheveled to concentrate on their assignment, and will most likely end up writing their monthly report or whatever in incomprehensible gibberish or personal Esperanto. Next thing you know, they’ve been fired, and it’s just another helpless victim draining our economy collecting unemployment dollars.
It’s a vicious circle people! If you don’t have a car to drive your kids to school, I suggest you home school them.
I just hope for everyone’s sake that I’m not going to be one of those poor people. I think I am reasonably adjusted to reality, and besides, I’m going to be a flight attendant, so my perception of ground travel is really unimportant anyway. I only hope I’ll be able to cope if I move to some metro and end up taking cabs to the airport.
14.3.08
13.2.08
I WANT OUT
A note first, just so you know, Jenny is the president of my class.
I'm tired, and I want out. I'm ready to be gone from here.
It's the song of the senior, and as predictable as it is bound to sound coming from a soon-to-graduate, it's true. I don't say it necessarily in the "I want to get to college as far away from home as possible" way, however. While that statement would be partially true, there are some parts of it that are a little too misleading for me to let slide. Like the college bit. There, I said it; I'm not going to college.
That is not the point.
It hasn't taken me so long to figure out that a city catering to 20,000; 10,000 sans Ferris chumps; people is not the place for me. I've lived in this predominantly white, Christian, red-necked place, that is, Big Rapids (extending to Michigan, extending to the United States) for the whole of my long life - 17 years, staggering, I know. I feel inclined to say that while to some, having lived only 17 years gives me 'no reason' to feel so deprived, I'd like to argue that when people are dying before the age of 30, it's damn stupid to wait to start 'living' until college. In fact, I might go as far to call it abusive of a parent not to travel and culture their child(ren) if they have the means to do so. Unfortunately, my parents, while having the means, saw it as decadent to spend so much money on vacations to far off lands full of wonder to persons of all ages, and so chose to spend most of the income on far more essential things, such as cigarettes- later cigarette rolling contraptions and bags of tobacco, alcoholic beverages, directionless appointments with under-qualified shrinks, and hair-dye kits to name a few. All the while I rot in a state of semi-despair, dissecting every glossy page of my magazines, and savoring time away at the homes of my friends'.
It would be wrong of me to blame my misfortune entirely on my parents', however. After all, the corrupt are born of a corrupt society. How can I rightly expect anything different from them when they were raised in this country?
If you haven't figured it out yet, this is a rant. Maybe not one of epic proportions, and maybe not new, but here nonetheless. I feel like lately the shortcomings of the homestead have become devastatingly apparent. I'm sure everyone is aware that the economy is going to the shitter here in Michigan, especially in the real-estate department. Also the fact that the newly revealed most-murderous city in the whole damned nation is a couple hours down the road from little ol' Big Rapids, is notwithstanding. Finally, Michigan has something to contribute! Speaking of individual states, did you know that California is the better half of the U.S.'s economy? Anyway… let me share with you some of the statistics in favor of people like me, who just want to leave, and want do it as soon as possible, because we internally cringe every time we are reminded where our citizenship lies.
America is the stingiest, most polluting, fattest, dumbest, criminal, unthinking 'developed' country you could imagine. Since I already mentioned the murdering lot of Detroit, I'll continue by expanding on the criminal aspect. The level of violent crime that occurs in the United States as compared with other industrialized countries, such as Britain, is exceptionally high. There are more reported murders in the aforementioned D-Town, with a population of about 1.5 million, than in the whole of the United Kingdom, which has a population of a little more than… 58 million. The murder rate in the U.S. as a whole from 1990 was more than double that of Ireland, which is torn by civil war. It was four times that of Italy, nine times England's and 11 times Japan. Furthermore, only 7% of all rapes are reported. Still, by comparison, the UN published statistics on Gender Violence stating that the reporting rate for robbery is 53%, burglary 52%, and assault 46% from the United States. The rape rate in the United States was eight times higher than France's, 15 times higher than England's, 23 times higher than Italy's, and 26 times higher than Japan's.
On a less depressing note, still not comforting, the U.S. also snags the top spot as stingiest of all the developed countries. GDP (Gross Domestic Product) wise, national wealth, that is devoted to foreign aid, the Land of the Free ranks twenty-second of the 22 most developed nations. It can be said that the U.S. is the biggest giver, but proportionately, the U.S. manages to give only .1% of GDP, while the rest of the United Nations has established the target of .7% GDP. In addition to holding back so much, what does go out only goes out to a select few. Fifty percent of the aid budget is spent on middle-income countries in the Middle East, and some sources report that around 80% of all the aid itself actually goes to American companies in areas receiving aid.
The recipient of the largest single share of the U.S.'s foreign aid is Israel, who is supported by the U.S. under any circumstances, with the U.S. vetoing any and all movements against Israel's illegal occupations. This, in turn, does not exactly heighten the U.S.'s importance and effectiveness in the UN Security Council. The U.S. and Israel’s simultaneous dismissal of the World Conference Against Racism and the U.S.'s lack of movements to ratify half of the six core Human Rights treaties keeps confirming my qualms- run, and don’t look back!
I find it interesting still that of all the interventions the U.S. has staged in foreign places under the guise of trying to improve the situation- think Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, Cuba, Bosnia, Nicaragua, etc.- all the intended benefactors have ended up hating us in the end. Perplexing that the thing that all of them have in common is that they were virtually created by the 'Interventions' in the first place. Maybe the government will soon learn that the more weapons you put out there and the more factions you turn into monsters, the worse the fighting becomes and the less democratic is the resulting instated government. As can be guessed, my prediction concerning the outcome of the little project in Iraq or Iran or Pakistan or wherever they've sent troops last isn't what you'd call optimistic.
In other complaints, there is the lack of a national health service, and, horror!, rising gas prices and the decreased face-value of the previously thought almighty dollar. This is bad? It seems like here, everyone is terrified of having to pay more for energy and gasoline. It reminds me of when my mother still bought cigarettes from the gas station. Every time the prices were upped, she'd freak out and start bitching about how it's unfair and blah, blah, blah, apparently her addiction should be cheap! That's what it is, really, isn't it, an addiction? Silly me, I had thought that prices rising here were moving towards a, gasp, sustainable price for everyone! In addition, the U.S. refuses to support pollution treaties to reduce emissions from cars or consumption of petrol. Statistics from 1990 assert that 36.1% of worldwide greenhouse emissions can be accounted for by the U.S., and it keeps going up. Four percent of the world's population resides in the U.S. and 25%-ish of all the carbon dioxide emissions come from them. Comparatively, Britain and India both emit only about 3%, the latter of which contains about 15 times as many people. I'm thinking some of this is due to Etats-Unis stubborn cling to driving, rather than bicycling or walking- a seemingly forgotten mode of transportation, considering the obesity epidemic. Oh, yeah! 61% of people in the U.S. were overweight and 26% obese in 1999. I'm almost afraid to know what the numbers are now.
Anyway, back to the gluttonous consumption of fuel- I've got a notion that Mr. Dubya Bush can be blamed in this case. The election, if my memory serves me, was pretty straightforward. Oil, gas, coal, and nuclear companies donated upwards of $50 million in his election, just to get him in office. After the election, in which he did not receive the popular vote; another fault, that being the Electoral College; Bush denounced the Kyoto Protocol for reducing carbon-dioxide emissions. I wonder if, with these kinds of things going on, the government can still be considered democratic at all. The interests of the people seem to be pretty nonexistent, while from a corporal standpoint, it's in the bank.
Speaking of my favorite president, I'd like to share some potential cliché quotes, for good measure. Was there ever a criticism of the U.S. that didn't include at least one? In light of the previous paragraphs, I find these most enlightening: "This foreign policy stuff is a little frustrating," deepest condolences, Mr. President. Also, “our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." Freudian slip, anyone? And, no offense to those of you in here who think you might be one of the sharper knives, but you'll never match Mr. Bush for intelligence. "The illiteracy level of our children are appalling." Well said. I for one, am quite envious of his effortless mastering of the language. Not to be outdone, Mr. Bush has apparently, "coined new words, like, misunderstanding and Hispanically." Well, Hispanically speaking, Mr. Bush, who, bless his soul, forgot that they speak Portuguese in Brazil, asked the President Fernando Cardoso, "Do you have blacks, too?" Good question. It seems that Mr. Dubya is the superior polyglot of our times, but, rather disappointingly, often refuses to enlighten the rest of us, and does not answer questions "Neither in French nor in English nor in Mexican." Well, maybe another time.
All that said, when Jenny comes a`knockin’ trying to find people to attend our high school reunions, you’d better not spill the beans.
I'm tired, and I want out. I'm ready to be gone from here.
It's the song of the senior, and as predictable as it is bound to sound coming from a soon-to-graduate, it's true. I don't say it necessarily in the "I want to get to college as far away from home as possible" way, however. While that statement would be partially true, there are some parts of it that are a little too misleading for me to let slide. Like the college bit. There, I said it; I'm not going to college.
That is not the point.
It hasn't taken me so long to figure out that a city catering to 20,000; 10,000 sans Ferris chumps; people is not the place for me. I've lived in this predominantly white, Christian, red-necked place, that is, Big Rapids (extending to Michigan, extending to the United States) for the whole of my long life - 17 years, staggering, I know. I feel inclined to say that while to some, having lived only 17 years gives me 'no reason' to feel so deprived, I'd like to argue that when people are dying before the age of 30, it's damn stupid to wait to start 'living' until college. In fact, I might go as far to call it abusive of a parent not to travel and culture their child(ren) if they have the means to do so. Unfortunately, my parents, while having the means, saw it as decadent to spend so much money on vacations to far off lands full of wonder to persons of all ages, and so chose to spend most of the income on far more essential things, such as cigarettes- later cigarette rolling contraptions and bags of tobacco, alcoholic beverages, directionless appointments with under-qualified shrinks, and hair-dye kits to name a few. All the while I rot in a state of semi-despair, dissecting every glossy page of my magazines, and savoring time away at the homes of my friends'.
It would be wrong of me to blame my misfortune entirely on my parents', however. After all, the corrupt are born of a corrupt society. How can I rightly expect anything different from them when they were raised in this country?
If you haven't figured it out yet, this is a rant. Maybe not one of epic proportions, and maybe not new, but here nonetheless. I feel like lately the shortcomings of the homestead have become devastatingly apparent. I'm sure everyone is aware that the economy is going to the shitter here in Michigan, especially in the real-estate department. Also the fact that the newly revealed most-murderous city in the whole damned nation is a couple hours down the road from little ol' Big Rapids, is notwithstanding. Finally, Michigan has something to contribute! Speaking of individual states, did you know that California is the better half of the U.S.'s economy? Anyway… let me share with you some of the statistics in favor of people like me, who just want to leave, and want do it as soon as possible, because we internally cringe every time we are reminded where our citizenship lies.
America is the stingiest, most polluting, fattest, dumbest, criminal, unthinking 'developed' country you could imagine. Since I already mentioned the murdering lot of Detroit, I'll continue by expanding on the criminal aspect. The level of violent crime that occurs in the United States as compared with other industrialized countries, such as Britain, is exceptionally high. There are more reported murders in the aforementioned D-Town, with a population of about 1.5 million, than in the whole of the United Kingdom, which has a population of a little more than… 58 million. The murder rate in the U.S. as a whole from 1990 was more than double that of Ireland, which is torn by civil war. It was four times that of Italy, nine times England's and 11 times Japan. Furthermore, only 7% of all rapes are reported. Still, by comparison, the UN published statistics on Gender Violence stating that the reporting rate for robbery is 53%, burglary 52%, and assault 46% from the United States. The rape rate in the United States was eight times higher than France's, 15 times higher than England's, 23 times higher than Italy's, and 26 times higher than Japan's.
On a less depressing note, still not comforting, the U.S. also snags the top spot as stingiest of all the developed countries. GDP (Gross Domestic Product) wise, national wealth, that is devoted to foreign aid, the Land of the Free ranks twenty-second of the 22 most developed nations. It can be said that the U.S. is the biggest giver, but proportionately, the U.S. manages to give only .1% of GDP, while the rest of the United Nations has established the target of .7% GDP. In addition to holding back so much, what does go out only goes out to a select few. Fifty percent of the aid budget is spent on middle-income countries in the Middle East, and some sources report that around 80% of all the aid itself actually goes to American companies in areas receiving aid.
The recipient of the largest single share of the U.S.'s foreign aid is Israel, who is supported by the U.S. under any circumstances, with the U.S. vetoing any and all movements against Israel's illegal occupations. This, in turn, does not exactly heighten the U.S.'s importance and effectiveness in the UN Security Council. The U.S. and Israel’s simultaneous dismissal of the World Conference Against Racism and the U.S.'s lack of movements to ratify half of the six core Human Rights treaties keeps confirming my qualms- run, and don’t look back!
I find it interesting still that of all the interventions the U.S. has staged in foreign places under the guise of trying to improve the situation- think Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, Cuba, Bosnia, Nicaragua, etc.- all the intended benefactors have ended up hating us in the end. Perplexing that the thing that all of them have in common is that they were virtually created by the 'Interventions' in the first place. Maybe the government will soon learn that the more weapons you put out there and the more factions you turn into monsters, the worse the fighting becomes and the less democratic is the resulting instated government. As can be guessed, my prediction concerning the outcome of the little project in Iraq or Iran or Pakistan or wherever they've sent troops last isn't what you'd call optimistic.
In other complaints, there is the lack of a national health service, and, horror!, rising gas prices and the decreased face-value of the previously thought almighty dollar. This is bad? It seems like here, everyone is terrified of having to pay more for energy and gasoline. It reminds me of when my mother still bought cigarettes from the gas station. Every time the prices were upped, she'd freak out and start bitching about how it's unfair and blah, blah, blah, apparently her addiction should be cheap! That's what it is, really, isn't it, an addiction? Silly me, I had thought that prices rising here were moving towards a, gasp, sustainable price for everyone! In addition, the U.S. refuses to support pollution treaties to reduce emissions from cars or consumption of petrol. Statistics from 1990 assert that 36.1% of worldwide greenhouse emissions can be accounted for by the U.S., and it keeps going up. Four percent of the world's population resides in the U.S. and 25%-ish of all the carbon dioxide emissions come from them. Comparatively, Britain and India both emit only about 3%, the latter of which contains about 15 times as many people. I'm thinking some of this is due to Etats-Unis stubborn cling to driving, rather than bicycling or walking- a seemingly forgotten mode of transportation, considering the obesity epidemic. Oh, yeah! 61% of people in the U.S. were overweight and 26% obese in 1999. I'm almost afraid to know what the numbers are now.
Anyway, back to the gluttonous consumption of fuel- I've got a notion that Mr. Dubya Bush can be blamed in this case. The election, if my memory serves me, was pretty straightforward. Oil, gas, coal, and nuclear companies donated upwards of $50 million in his election, just to get him in office. After the election, in which he did not receive the popular vote; another fault, that being the Electoral College; Bush denounced the Kyoto Protocol for reducing carbon-dioxide emissions. I wonder if, with these kinds of things going on, the government can still be considered democratic at all. The interests of the people seem to be pretty nonexistent, while from a corporal standpoint, it's in the bank.
Speaking of my favorite president, I'd like to share some potential cliché quotes, for good measure. Was there ever a criticism of the U.S. that didn't include at least one? In light of the previous paragraphs, I find these most enlightening: "This foreign policy stuff is a little frustrating," deepest condolences, Mr. President. Also, “our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." Freudian slip, anyone? And, no offense to those of you in here who think you might be one of the sharper knives, but you'll never match Mr. Bush for intelligence. "The illiteracy level of our children are appalling." Well said. I for one, am quite envious of his effortless mastering of the language. Not to be outdone, Mr. Bush has apparently, "coined new words, like, misunderstanding and Hispanically." Well, Hispanically speaking, Mr. Bush, who, bless his soul, forgot that they speak Portuguese in Brazil, asked the President Fernando Cardoso, "Do you have blacks, too?" Good question. It seems that Mr. Dubya is the superior polyglot of our times, but, rather disappointingly, often refuses to enlighten the rest of us, and does not answer questions "Neither in French nor in English nor in Mexican." Well, maybe another time.
All that said, when Jenny comes a`knockin’ trying to find people to attend our high school reunions, you’d better not spill the beans.
23.1.08
SAVAGE GARDEN
maybe unfortunately, not about the band, though I love it dearly. inspired in part by the writing of Anne Rice, moreso by a disturbing dream I had.
After this I slip from consciousness into unconscious thought, and without realizing it, I have begun to descend towards the surface of the earth. Unaware of this, I continue to concentrate on an epiphany. The nature of an epiphany is that it is sudden and uncalculated prior to its birth, however, within the isolation of my hippocampus this nature can be stretched, manipulated, or destroyed. And as I ponder this somewhere it registers with me that the earth is no more than some celestial giant’s spit wad. It doesn’t necessarily spin in any orbit, and it only exists because it is simply imagined to do so.
My body is free of my mind, and has no navigator. It floats down, and is above Egypt. My eyes know this because the earth has transformed, it has become a life-size political map of a globe. Apparently, this spit is multicoloured. My body is absorbed into the multifaceted purple grains of sand that compose the desert.
My thoughts plunge back to my location, and just as this happens I experience the sensation of having put on a skintight jumpsuit made of a very thick rubber. I find it excruciating to move, and so, as though frozen, I am sort of sucked through the sands of time. I suppose what I feel is comparable to what a snake would feel if he was forced to shed his perfectly fine and bonded scales from his muscles beneath. Such is the sensation. In the midst of this, there is a sound like the pop heard when an airtight vacuum is unsealed. If feel completely new. I direct my focus to my limbs to find that they have arranged themselves in a bazaar fashion. My right leg is bent at my hip underneath my back. I must look strange should someone happen by, but also peculiarly elegant. I don’t recall being this flexible in the Waking Life. I am surprised that when I try to move it, I don’t feel pain. I don’t want to open my eyes until I am standing. I am incredibly aware of the severe silence. In the Waking Life there is the unwavering noise of machinery, the incessant buzzing of information being passed through wires and cables. The quite is pulsating, weirdly enough, hushing the intrusion of my thundering heart.
When my eyes did not open of their own accord, I lifted my hand to my forehead, and felt for the little cord underneath my skin between my brows, and yanked it up and outward from my face.
I missed a breath.
It occured to me that I had been catapulted through the crust of the earth to land in an uncharted land of beauty. I felt as though here, I could make a thousand fatal errors. I had discovered a wild and indifferent paradise without signposts.
A cartographer’s dream.
I decided immediately upon this revelation to roam the region. I found the perfection of my surroundings dizzying. The sprawling grandeur in steps to come looked positively nauseating. I contented myself to simply observe the terrain.
This beauty, I ascertained, contained alien dangers and lawlessness as had dwelled in the earth of my Waking Life, eons before man had one single coherent thought in his head. When I had collected some inertia to travel and presumed to take a step forward, instead of lifting my other foot in sequence I was sliding across a plane unseen to me. It was as if I was gliding on invisible ice, and when I threw my hands out in near desperation and fear of hurtling into the splendid foliage, and thereby possibly obliterating it, my arms extended behind me and out of my vision without consulting me.
“Curse you, damn arms!”
Perhaps in response to my hypothetical ‘slap on the wrist’ and aggression, my arms, having had enough of me, dislocated themselves in protest. This only elicited further rage from the rest of me, and my lips did not hesitate to guarantee that the consequences of my arms’ actions would not be pleasant. I did not take the time to consider whether or not I would feel any of the pain I was promising to inflict on them. In my anger, I failed to notice that I had stopped moving through the Savage Garden. I fumed as I watched the appendages that divorced my soar into the violet sky, expanding like balloons until, finally, they had become the size of blimps.
I became aware of the fact that my fear wasn’t stemming from the growing chance that these arms of mine would explode in a very Hindenburg-esque fashion (truly, I could still feel my arms and the effects this absurd bloating incurred.) My trepidation was due to the increasingly apparent fact that I had absolutely no control over my body.
After the couple zeppelins faded into the distance, I teetered on the brink of hysteria. Miraculously, the jungle came to my rescue; for what would become of me if I had no arms and no time to adapt to my newly self-mutilated body? Seeds from the towering green trees around me showered on me, planting in my scalp. Then I felt them sprout, and saw my tresses, emerald as the leaves, grow longer and longer, wrap around my chest and then elongated more. I watched, stunned, as my jade locks weaved into braids, and then wound around the plaits on either side of my torso to replace my arms as creepy extremities.
Forgot was the previous foreboding of the forest, the melancholy of the arboretum. In hugged myself in my rapture. My new arms were reluctant to release me. I hardly minded.
Victoriously, the vines consumed me, impervious to my damning. I was rooted in the very soil I had once gazed at in awe. The scintillating grains of sand were now my suppressors. I was now part of the bravura of the landscape.
For the first days of my captivity I entertained thoughts of escaping. After that did not happen, I stared at the other trees in horror. And after years of imprisonment, I have watched as others like me were ravaged by the Savage Garden.
***
It is the earliest of morning. I don’t know where I am, I think maybe in a vacuum. This is disconcerting to me, as I have never been exactly nowhere. To ease my displeasure I imagine surroundings for myself. I must have just woken into The Dream, normally when I arrive I am at least somewhere. I imagine myself suspended in midair many miles above the earth, dangling on the particles of nitrogen and oxygen beyond the weather. I am so light I cannot feel my body now.After this I slip from consciousness into unconscious thought, and without realizing it, I have begun to descend towards the surface of the earth. Unaware of this, I continue to concentrate on an epiphany. The nature of an epiphany is that it is sudden and uncalculated prior to its birth, however, within the isolation of my hippocampus this nature can be stretched, manipulated, or destroyed. And as I ponder this somewhere it registers with me that the earth is no more than some celestial giant’s spit wad. It doesn’t necessarily spin in any orbit, and it only exists because it is simply imagined to do so.
My body is free of my mind, and has no navigator. It floats down, and is above Egypt. My eyes know this because the earth has transformed, it has become a life-size political map of a globe. Apparently, this spit is multicoloured. My body is absorbed into the multifaceted purple grains of sand that compose the desert.
My thoughts plunge back to my location, and just as this happens I experience the sensation of having put on a skintight jumpsuit made of a very thick rubber. I find it excruciating to move, and so, as though frozen, I am sort of sucked through the sands of time. I suppose what I feel is comparable to what a snake would feel if he was forced to shed his perfectly fine and bonded scales from his muscles beneath. Such is the sensation. In the midst of this, there is a sound like the pop heard when an airtight vacuum is unsealed. If feel completely new. I direct my focus to my limbs to find that they have arranged themselves in a bazaar fashion. My right leg is bent at my hip underneath my back. I must look strange should someone happen by, but also peculiarly elegant. I don’t recall being this flexible in the Waking Life. I am surprised that when I try to move it, I don’t feel pain. I don’t want to open my eyes until I am standing. I am incredibly aware of the severe silence. In the Waking Life there is the unwavering noise of machinery, the incessant buzzing of information being passed through wires and cables. The quite is pulsating, weirdly enough, hushing the intrusion of my thundering heart.
When my eyes did not open of their own accord, I lifted my hand to my forehead, and felt for the little cord underneath my skin between my brows, and yanked it up and outward from my face.
I missed a breath.
It occured to me that I had been catapulted through the crust of the earth to land in an uncharted land of beauty. I felt as though here, I could make a thousand fatal errors. I had discovered a wild and indifferent paradise without signposts.
A cartographer’s dream.
I decided immediately upon this revelation to roam the region. I found the perfection of my surroundings dizzying. The sprawling grandeur in steps to come looked positively nauseating. I contented myself to simply observe the terrain.
This beauty, I ascertained, contained alien dangers and lawlessness as had dwelled in the earth of my Waking Life, eons before man had one single coherent thought in his head. When I had collected some inertia to travel and presumed to take a step forward, instead of lifting my other foot in sequence I was sliding across a plane unseen to me. It was as if I was gliding on invisible ice, and when I threw my hands out in near desperation and fear of hurtling into the splendid foliage, and thereby possibly obliterating it, my arms extended behind me and out of my vision without consulting me.
“Curse you, damn arms!”
Perhaps in response to my hypothetical ‘slap on the wrist’ and aggression, my arms, having had enough of me, dislocated themselves in protest. This only elicited further rage from the rest of me, and my lips did not hesitate to guarantee that the consequences of my arms’ actions would not be pleasant. I did not take the time to consider whether or not I would feel any of the pain I was promising to inflict on them. In my anger, I failed to notice that I had stopped moving through the Savage Garden. I fumed as I watched the appendages that divorced my soar into the violet sky, expanding like balloons until, finally, they had become the size of blimps.
I became aware of the fact that my fear wasn’t stemming from the growing chance that these arms of mine would explode in a very Hindenburg-esque fashion (truly, I could still feel my arms and the effects this absurd bloating incurred.) My trepidation was due to the increasingly apparent fact that I had absolutely no control over my body.
After the couple zeppelins faded into the distance, I teetered on the brink of hysteria. Miraculously, the jungle came to my rescue; for what would become of me if I had no arms and no time to adapt to my newly self-mutilated body? Seeds from the towering green trees around me showered on me, planting in my scalp. Then I felt them sprout, and saw my tresses, emerald as the leaves, grow longer and longer, wrap around my chest and then elongated more. I watched, stunned, as my jade locks weaved into braids, and then wound around the plaits on either side of my torso to replace my arms as creepy extremities.
Forgot was the previous foreboding of the forest, the melancholy of the arboretum. In hugged myself in my rapture. My new arms were reluctant to release me. I hardly minded.
Victoriously, the vines consumed me, impervious to my damning. I was rooted in the very soil I had once gazed at in awe. The scintillating grains of sand were now my suppressors. I was now part of the bravura of the landscape.
For the first days of my captivity I entertained thoughts of escaping. After that did not happen, I stared at the other trees in horror. And after years of imprisonment, I have watched as others like me were ravaged by the Savage Garden.
18.1.08
KAMA
another class assignment, 4,000ish words. I warn you.
KAMA
the biggest skank ever. also described as ‘easy’. Likely to have sipphilus.
i.e. That girl kama has slep with every guy in Georgia.
Tags: slut skank whore tramp hoe.
(www.urbandictionary.com).
I once read a book about linguistics that claimed “Words do not have any ‘real’ meaning as opposed to other, ‘false’ meanings. Any meaning people give to a word is automatically its ‘real’ meaning under those circumstances,” (Hall, Robert A.) Personally, I put full stock in this idea. So I shall embrace this particular definition of the word. However, I have chosen to dedicate myself to a more widely accepted and utilized province of the lexeme. Just as I also chose to contribute to the website by- how should I say? - editing, its former definition
Kama sounds like Comma, and looks like Karma. More testing of my patience than the annoyance of having to repeat myself three times after being asked what my word is, and whereupon recognition of the word is finally reached, having to defend myself against unspoken low opinions regarding my propriety, was the frustration of overcoming a language barrier in finding certain pieces of the puzzle of writing this paper. Kama is Sanskrit, which to my uneducated eyes, looked at first something like Arabic, a language defined by as “n. An ancient Indic language of Hinduism and the Vedas and is the classical literary language of India [sanskrta- perfect, refined :sam=together + karoti=he makes, see,]” (Webster’s). The fact that the word kama is not exactly English lent to all sorts of complications- surprisingly, Shakespeare hasn’t been translated into Sanskrit! Luckily for me, all of the Vedas- loosely, the equivalent of the Bible to Christianity, but divided into four books and told in a manner similar to Greek mythology- in print had the Sanskrit text, the literal translation of each word, a sentence structured English translation, and an analysis with suggestions for interpretation to go with each and every single verse. I thought I might bypass the hazards of investigation, as it would no doubt require me to do an awful lot of page turning, with the use of a friendly web-sit,e Wikipedia. I realized quickly that going through all of the links (Kama, a Hindu god, the God of Love, son of Lakshmi; Kama, the Sanskrit and Pali word for “sensuality”; the kama River, a tributary of the Volga river, in Russia; Kama, Fukuoka, a city in Japan; Kama(weapon), sickle-like weapons, often wielded in both hands, that evolved from tools used ofr cutting weeds in Japan; Kama, name of straight bladed, double edged daggers in Turkey; Kama, Estonian food; Charles Wright, Wrestler who performed as Kama; Kama, iron pots used to heat water in Japanese tea ceremonies; Kama Tarkham, legendary leader of the Huns; and Panzertruppenschule Kama, a secret Soviet-German military research training facility) would be even less enjoyable, and more likely less reliable than old-fashioned book sifting. This made for extremely tedious research and many paper cuts, but much more knowledge gained about my religion-of-choice.
Works Cited
Burton, Sir Richard F. Kama Sutra. Kama Shastra Society, 1876.
The Kama Sutra of Vatsayayana. Dec.-Jan. 2007.
Hall, Robert A. Linguistics and Your Language. 2nd ed. Garden City: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1960. 6.
Jonas. "Kama." Experience Festival. May-June 2006. Dec.-Jan. 2007.
"Kama." Roget's International Thesaurus. 4th ed. 1977.
"Kama." Urban Dictionary. 6 Dec. 2006. Dec.-Jan. 2007 http://www.urbandictionary.com.
Kaviraja, Krsnadasa. Caitanya Caitamrta of Krsnadasa Kaviraja. Vol. 56. Cambridge: Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies, Harvard University, 1999.
Kumar, Animesh, comp. "Acquiring Dharma, Artha, and Kama." Sanskrit Documents. 24 Mar. 2007. Dec.-Jan. 2007.
Manser, Martin H. Foreign Words and Phrases. Facts on File, Inc., 2002. 212.
Niteowlneils. "Kama." Wikipedia. 26 Jan. 2005. Dec.-Jan. 2007.
Rice, Edward. Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1990. 444-447.
Russel, Bertrand, and Somerset W. Maugham. "Quotation Search." Quotations Page. Dec.-Jan. 2007.
V, Jayaram. "Purusharthas or the Four Aims of Life." Hindu Website. Dec.-Jan. 2007.
Walker, Benjamin. Hindu World: an Encyclopedic Survey of Hinduism. Vol. 1. London: Allen & Unwin, 1913. 514-515.
Yeats, William B. "William Butler Yeats." Poetry Hunter. Dec.-Jan. 2007
KAMA
the biggest skank ever. also described as ‘easy’. Likely to have sipphilus.
i.e. That girl kama has slep with every guy in Georgia.
Tags: slut skank whore tramp hoe.
(www.urbandictionary.com).
I once read a book about linguistics that claimed “Words do not have any ‘real’ meaning as opposed to other, ‘false’ meanings. Any meaning people give to a word is automatically its ‘real’ meaning under those circumstances,” (Hall, Robert A.) Personally, I put full stock in this idea. So I shall embrace this particular definition of the word. However, I have chosen to dedicate myself to a more widely accepted and utilized province of the lexeme. Just as I also chose to contribute to the website by- how should I say? - editing, its former definition
Kama sounds like Comma, and looks like Karma. More testing of my patience than the annoyance of having to repeat myself three times after being asked what my word is, and whereupon recognition of the word is finally reached, having to defend myself against unspoken low opinions regarding my propriety, was the frustration of overcoming a language barrier in finding certain pieces of the puzzle of writing this paper. Kama is Sanskrit, which to my uneducated eyes, looked at first something like Arabic, a language defined by as “n. An ancient Indic language of Hinduism and the Vedas and is the classical literary language of India [sanskrta- perfect, refined :sam=together + karoti=he makes, see,]” (Webster’s). The fact that the word kama is not exactly English lent to all sorts of complications- surprisingly, Shakespeare hasn’t been translated into Sanskrit! Luckily for me, all of the Vedas- loosely, the equivalent of the Bible to Christianity, but divided into four books and told in a manner similar to Greek mythology- in print had the Sanskrit text, the literal translation of each word, a sentence structured English translation, and an analysis with suggestions for interpretation to go with each and every single verse. I thought I might bypass the hazards of investigation, as it would no doubt require me to do an awful lot of page turning, with the use of a friendly web-sit,e Wikipedia. I realized quickly that going through all of the links (Kama, a Hindu god, the God of Love, son of Lakshmi; Kama, the Sanskrit and Pali word for “sensuality”; the kama River, a tributary of the Volga river, in Russia; Kama, Fukuoka, a city in Japan; Kama(weapon), sickle-like weapons, often wielded in both hands, that evolved from tools used ofr cutting weeds in Japan; Kama, name of straight bladed, double edged daggers in Turkey; Kama, Estonian food; Charles Wright, Wrestler who performed as Kama; Kama, iron pots used to heat water in Japanese tea ceremonies; Kama Tarkham, legendary leader of the Huns; and Panzertruppenschule Kama, a secret Soviet-German military research training facility) would be even less enjoyable, and more likely less reliable than old-fashioned book sifting. This made for extremely tedious research and many paper cuts, but much more knowledge gained about my religion-of-choice.
The search for the perfect definition yielded some interesting results, as can be seen if you reread the introduction. The better definitions were the following: Kama is, in the Rig-Veda (x.129), “the personification of that feeling which leads and propels to creation. He was the first movement that stirred in the One, after its manifestation from the purely abstract principle, to create. ‘Desire first arose in It, which was the primal germ of mind; and which sages, searching with their intellect, have discovered to be the bond which connects Entity with Non-Entity;’” and The Sanskrit Documents website pseudo-definition,
kAma m. wish, desire, longing(Pa1n2.3-3, 153); desire for, longing after,; love affection ,object of desire or of love or of pleasure(RV., VS., TS., AV. MBh., R.); pleasure, enjoyment; love, especially love or sensuality; Love or Desire personified(AV. Ix; xii; xix(RV. x.129.4); N. of the god of desire(AV. iii.25.1) represented as the son of Dharma and husband of Rati(MBh.1,2596), or as a son of Brahma, or sometimes of Samkalpa(BHm.i.6.10); cf. KamaDeva; N. of Agni(SV.ii.8.2/19.3, AV., TS.) of Vishnu, of Baladeva. L. a stake in gambling; a species of mango tree; N. of a metre consisiting of four lines of two long syllables each; a kind of bean; L. a particular form of temple cat; N. of several men; of a daughter of Prithusrava and wife of Ayutanayin(MBh.i, 3774); N. object of desire; L. semen virile; N. of a Tirtha(MBh.iii,5047); ind. out of affection or love for; according to desire, agreeably to the wishes of, out of love for(RV., AV., TS.); ind. for one’s own pleasure, of one’s free will, of one’s own accord, willingly, intentionally(R.); wishing, desiring(RV.ix.113.11); desirous if, desiring, having a desire or intention; frequently with; enjoyment of the body, desire for bodily pleasure; all such desires that come across in the life of us, the whole range of desires.
The worser definition was belonging to Foreign Words and Phrases with: kama (kahma) Sanskrit [love] noun love.
Undeniably better in the aid of understanding a word, I believe, is the consultation of a thesaurus. My favourite had this to say about kama as a lowercased, regular noun:
(seven principles of man. Theosophy) spirit, atman; mind, manas; soul, buddhi; life principle, vital force, prana; astral body, lingra sharira; physical or dense or gross body, sthula sharira; principle of desire, kama. (Roget’s).
When capitalized, kama became Kama;
(Hindu deities) Aditi, Agni, Aryaman, Asapurna, Avokolita or Avalokitesvara, Bhaga, Bhairava, Brahma, Brihaspati, Chitagupta, Daksha, Devaki, Dharma, Dyaus, Ganesa or Ganesha or Ganapati, Garuda, Himavat, Hanuman, Indra, Ka, Kala, Kama, Kamsa, Kartikkeyea, Marut, Mitra, Parjaynam, Pushan, Rahu, Rhibhusm Rudra, Savitar, Shiva, Sita, Soma, Surya, Vaja, Varuna, Varuni, vayu, Vibhu, Vishnu, Yama, Dharti Mai, Bhudevi; Devi, Bhairavi, chandi, Durga, Gauri, Jjaganmati, Kali, Parvati, Uma; Lakshmi, Sarasvati, Ushas,; Asvins.(Roget’s).
(gods) Love, Cupid, Amor, Eros, Kama; (goddesses) Venus, Aphrodite, Astarte, Freya.(Roget’s).
While Roget’s International Thesaurus provided related words and such, actual synonyms were only to be found from an online source. Kama-Deva, as the personification of the word, has a great many nicknames it seems. I have deigned to only write the meanings of these monikers, and they are: self-existent, beautiful, wanton, eager, water-born, inciting, diverting, love-god, satisfier, appeaser, enslaving, son of Krishna, desirous, happy, flower-armed, drunk(with love), destroyer, crocodile-banner, agitator, mind-produced, honey-lamp, bewildered, crackling(like a fire), dalliance passion-stalk, lover of women, gladdener, ender of peace, rememberer, fire, and handsome(Benjamin Walker.)
It became apparent after hours of research that the meaning of kama has some serious religious upbringing. Scriptures of Hinduism have shaped the way the word is used crucially. During my voyage to éclaircissement, use of Sruti (collective term for all of the Vedas. Also, Samhita.) has rendered the books to be quite like fantastic oars across the sea of interpretation… ackhem. First and foremost among the texts revered in Hinduism is the Rig-Veda (RV.) because it was the earliest and the others are more or less based upon it. There are four altogether, however, following the Rig-Veda chronologically is the Yajur-Veda (YV.), the Sama-Veda (SV.), and the Atharva-Veda (AV.) Next in importance are texts Brahmanas (BHm.) and the Upanishads (U.). These are often thought of as commentary to Sruti. This verse(AV.xix.52):
Sraddhalur mat-kathah srnvan
Su-bhadra loka-pavanih
Gayann anusmaran karma
Janma cabhinayan muhuh //
//Mad-arthe dharma-kamarthan
Acaran mad-apasrayah
Labhate niscalam bhaktim
May addhava sanatane
translates literally to:
a faithful person narrations about Me hearing
Which are all-auspicious the entire world
Purifying singing remembering constantly My activities
My birth also reliving through dramatical performances, etc. again and again//
//For My pleasure religious activities sense activities and commercial activities
Performing in Me having one’s shelter
One obtains without deviation devotional service
To Me O Uddhava dedicated to my eternal form.
With grammar:
My dear Uddhava, narrations of My pastimes and qualities are all-auspicious and purify the entire universe. A faithful person who constantly hears, glorifies and remembers such transcendental activities, who through dramatic performances relives My pastimes, beginning with My appearance, and who takes full shelter of Me, dedicating his religious, sensual, and occupational activities for My satisfaction, certainly obtains unflinching devotional service to Me, the eternal Personality of Godhead.
Not to fear though, each and every one of
the twenty something volumes of the Vedas in the rolling shelves of the deep, dark FLITE[the university library] basement also has a purport. About the use of kama in this context it says quite simply, “The word kama indicates that one should satisfy one’s desires with the transcendental paraphernalia of the Lord,” and it goes on to list what is considered acceptable, remedies, etc.
Another verse (AV.ix.2) says this about kama, which is in its driest form, sense activities.
Gaty-ukty-utsargopadanam
Ananda-sparsa-laksanam
Asvada-sruly-avadhranam
Aham sarvendriyendriyam
Which, slipping to the coherent translation, says:
I am the functions of the five working senses- the legs, speech, anus, hands and sex organs- as well as those of the five knowledge acquiring senses- touch, sight, taste, hearing, and smell. I am also the potency by which each of the senses experiences its particular sense object.
Because the Upanishads are inarguably the best commentary yet on the Vedas, I find these verses (U.I.iii.4-6) adequate supplements to the previous statement of The Lord’s Opulence:
The senses, they say, are the horses; the objects, the roads. The wise call the atman- united with the body, the senses, and the mind- the enjoyer.//
//The five organs of perception and the five organs of action are compared of horses because they draw the body hither and thither.//
//The natural tendency of a horse is to run wild; but it can be trained and brought under the charioteer’s control through reins firmly held with his hands. The senses, too, are naturally impetuous; but they can be trained and controlled by the discriminating buddhi through a one-pointed mind.
Taken together, the Atharva-Veda and Upanishad advocate kama as more than just ‘desire’ or ‘love,’ but the means by which desire is fulfilled and love is sought.
Among the texts of the Atharva-Veda is the avow that “just as in its cosmic activities and relations, kama is both a superior and inferior activity; indeed, it may be said to be divine in its higher aspects, just as it is physical in its lowest fields of action,”(www.experiencefestival.org.) Therefore, in one context kama may mean only sexual passion, but in another context it will mean all desire for the satisfaction of the self, including the desire for nirvana, and Godhead (Krsnadasa Kaviraja). When dealing with satisfaction, and the desire of it, there is a sort of antonym to kama, that is, prema. Prema entails desires to satisfying another, perhaps a lover or Brahma, while kama is the desire for the satisfaction of one’s own self. Often, I have found, kama is looked upon negatively, as being a selfish wish, and prema as being pure and more natural. In this way, kama and prema are distinctions between the higher and lower activities of all that kama encompasses.
“It is love rather than sexual lust or unbridled sexuality if, in addition to the need or want involved, there is also some impulse to give pleasure to the persons thus loved and not merely to use them for one’s own selfish pleasure.” – Mortimer Adler. The man of the matter was an illustrious Aristotelian philosopher from New York, New York. Well, maybe illustrious is a bit of a stretch as I’ve never heard of him, but I don’t think it really matters in this case. I couldn’t have hoped to find a better example of the aforementioned kama/prema idea. Here, Adler has, perhaps unknowingly, defined the two in layman’s terms. I’m not sure if I can discern any grandiloquence from that quote, as it is quite comprehensible as anything could ever be, which makes for a startlingly short paragraph compared to the others!
Oh, but that is not at all it! There is a god, as was mentioned somewhere above, that stands as the personification of kama, called Kama-Deva, or just Kama. The Rig-Veda says that upon the birth of the universe, desire was the first feeling born in it. The Atharva-Veda embellishes it as Kama-Deva, the creator. He is the son of Dharma and of Sraddha, or sometimes the son of Lakshmi, or of Brahma, or born of water. In any and all cases he is the wife of Rati(passion), who holds the mirror of wantonness. Kama-Deva is depicted riding a cuckoo bird or parrot while surrounded by celestial nymphs. He holds a bow of sugar cane with a string of honeybees and he shoots flower-arrows, usually five to signify the five senses, that will penetrate any heart, and fill the punctured organ with love and desire.
Déjà-vu? Probably. I contribute the dilapidation of the word to the proper noun’s uncanny resemblance to Cupid. It’s a shame, really. It felt like, for all I was worth, I could not find anything- don’t get me started on poetry!- that didn’t use kama in a steamy, romantic, often graphic manner. It is my idea that to only use kama in the romantic, graphic sense is superficial and a little stupid. Kama is a multi-faceted gem of a word! Surely, a writer would take the time to know that before using it, instead of throwing it in the mix because it fits the exotic/erotic tone of their…piece. Not to be outdone, however, I did flit across a rather, how should I say, open-minded poetry website to find a beautiful, shockingly non-amateur, poem that isn’t exactly a poem by one W.B. Yeats. The poem/duet acting scene in question is entitled Anashuya and Vijaya. Imagine my joy at having discovered something written by a credible author! The poem is the dialogue of a jealous young priestess, Anashuya, and her lover, Vijaya, who meet in a temple and discover their…compatibility. In short they converse and at one point Vijaya says:
The hour when Kama, full of sleepy laughter,
Rises, and showers abroad his fragrant arrows,
Peircing the twilight with their murmuring barbs.
Then a flock of ancient flamingos come by and steal Anashuya’s rice and she asks Vijaya to chase him away. He does, and when he leaves Anashuya appeals to Kama-Deva to send Vijaya in sleep dreams of her. Yeats has done his research, the fact that the temple is located very closely to running water is highly symbolic if one accepts that Kama is water-born. There is also the fact that the temple in the poem is a temple of Brahma, who is in other legends, the father of Kama.
Back to my loathing of persons who talk and employ words that which they do not know the meaning of! I suppose I cannot be all that hateful, I do realize that not everyone has done such a lengthy research of the word. Just because these people do not know the scope of delitescence kama includes does not mean their lexicon should be deprived of it. Who could blame them at any rate? If one is at all familiar with the word kama, I am willing to bet it is due to their quasi-exposure to the famous, or infamous if you rather, Kama Sutra. True, the bulk of the book is a detailed account of instructions on how to be an effective lover, but more importantly, the Kama Sutra is a priority. The original Kama Sutra was translated by Sir Richard Francis Burton, with the help of his collaborator, Aruthnot. It was published by The Kama Shastra Society in 1883, meant for private circulation, only it was leaked and published in Paris and Brussels soon after (Edward Rice). This can be seen as both fortunate and unfortunate, for without the pirating the world may never have been introduced to the work, but also unfortunate in that many versions of the Kama Sutra were then made, some omitting the foreword and other parts, only publishing pictures and descriptions, etc. The intended purpose of the Kama Sutra was not to be a book of more effectual techniques of sex, but to be a guide in living one’s life. There is firmness in the importance of fore and after play, kissing, marking, and all those little things that are just as important in lovemaking as the actual act of fornication. Interestingly, and perhaps a little rebelliously- feminists take note- the Kama Sutra stated that men and women were equal in love, quite revolutionary for the times. On the other hand, inarguably most imperative in the text is the constant credence. In Hinduism, there are four main “goals” of the soul. Collectively, they are called Purusharthas. The first is Dharma, meaning virtuous living; the second is Artha, which is material prosperity; the third is Kama, being aesthetic and erotic pleasure; the fourth is Moksha, or liberation of the cycle of rebirth (www.hinduwebsite.com). The Kama Sutra plainly states:
Kama is the enjoyment of appropriate objects by the five senses of hearing, feeling, seeing, tasting and smelling, assisted by the mind together with the soul. The ingredient in this is a peculiar contact between the organ of sense and its object, and the consciousness of pleasure which arises from that contact is called Kama. Kama is to be learnt from the Kama Sutra (aphorisms on love) and from the practice of citizens. When all three, Dharma, Artha and Kama, come together, the former is better than the one which follows it, i.e. Dharma is better than Artha, and Artha is better than Kama…
(It should be mentioned that it is my belief that the Kama Sutra is and inspiring spiritual text, because the truth about love and lovemaking is that it is, and has been, a worldwide spiritual phenomenon. Seen the Dead Poets Society, anyone? For this reason, I have chosen to use the Kama Sutra as one of my eight sources in place of The Oxford English Dictionary, as unfortunately, my word was not there.)
Which- are you still reading this? Good (you know you’re flirting with lunacy when you start addressing your readers directly in the paper.)- brings me to an article from The Independent; of Sunday, May 7th, 2006, by Ray Smith.
The Kama Sutra can be read, first, as an antidote to shame. It celebrates carnality, making it a part of life to be seen in the clear light of day… Sex is unadulterated pleasure when you enter the world of the Kama Sutra. The sexual organs are called ‘the organs of pleasure.’ As such they are not considered shameful, any more than the tongue is shameful because it brings the delights of eating.
I have to restrain myself now, because I want to just copy the whole article for the reader’s reading. I shant. I shall bestow another snippet of the article on the paper.
The whole history of the romantic novel is written in those few observations. If you smile at the notion that sexual desire can make someone grow sick and die, you may be correct medically, but millions have wept over the death of Catherine Earnshaw pining for Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, not to mention a thousand nights languishing for love in medieval romances.
Well said, Mr. Ray. I can attest to the legitimacy of this statement, because I am founder of the Dirty Romance Novel Club (questions, ask later.) I cannot count how many smut books I’ve read that have shown this to be spot on. In other articles; there was one from the Chicago Sun-Times, which was in essence a review, and not a happy one, I might add. It was a criticism of a musical called “Kama Sutra: The Musical.” Sorry as I am, I’m afraid I will not be elaborating on it, as it isn’t necessary and I’ve got other things to write about…
Like kama. Oh, good idea! Well, I wasn’t lying earlier when I said Shakespeare hasn’t been translated into Sanskrit. Seeing as that is how it is in the world, isn’t it lucky that the two largest epic poems in the world are both written in this elusive language? To give one an idea of the immensity of these, consider this: The Bible contains 35,000, The Odyssey and The Iliad combined contain only a meager 27,803 verses, while the Mahabharata contains 90,000 verses, and the Ramayana has 25,000. I love Shakespeare- “Something is rotten in the State of Denmark!”- But the Mahabharata and Ramayana make the lot of his work look scanty. It can be said that the Ramayana is The Iliad of India, respectively. It is a story of the wanderings and adventures of a prince banished from his country. I has been alleged of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata collectively that they “present us with the most graphic and lifelike picture that exists of the civilization and culture, the political and social life, the religion and thought of ancient India.”(Ramayana Epilogue.) The Purusharthas are significantly developed in the two epics, therefore it can be inferred that kama is a huge overtone in both of them. The Ramayana boasts a character of the name Kama, who appears alongside the hero, Rama. There are two prominent instances of the Purusharthas being defined in the Ramayana. The first is when Bharat came to a forest to meet Rama. Rama then asked him whether or not he followed the rules of the purusharthas properly. In the Ramayana, Rama defined them, roughly, in this manner: Artha should not interfere with Dharma and vice versa. Similarly Kama should not interfere with either Dharma or with Artha. Dharma means the duties and welfare one does for society. Artha means earnings (here it is advised that tax should not be more than 16% of a person’s income), Kama means pleasure. One is allowed to have pleasure, but without affecting the duties and earnings. The second instance of definition is when Kumbhakara, Ravana’s brother, advises Ravana that one should use Dharma in the morning, Artha in the daytime, and Kama at night. He further says to Ravana that he is busy with Kama all of the time and this will take him to destruction. Perhaps contradictorily, one of Ravana’s minister reprimands Kumbhakarna for not paying attention to proper balance of the Purusharthas, and to please his master says that a King may enjoy Kama at any time. Surely, one can perceive the likeness of the forward from the Kama Sutra.
So, with all that said, all sources contemplated, this is the part where I tell about how much writing this paper has enlightened me, how I am going to be an advocate for the proper use of language, how much I love doing MLA format research papers, how I’ve come to enjoy being in tight spaces with the constant threat of being squished, and how I know I will absolutely adore making thousands of tiny marks on this paper after I print it. In all seriousness, I did enjoy writing this paper. I started out with a vague idea of what I thought the word kama meant, and I have finished knowing what it can mean. Kama is the accumulation of the senses and the derivation of pleasure from them, kama is need and want and desire of pleasure. Kama is extraordinary in that it is shared between all bodily entities, the focus of humanity.
There was a man, W. Somerset Maugham, who said in his book, Of Human Bondage, “Men seek but one thing in life- their pleasure.” With kama in mind, I could not agree more. There was another man, Bertrand Russell, who said, “There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.”
And, with this paper in mind, well, obviously I agree with him too.
Works Cited
Burton, Sir Richard F. Kama Sutra. Kama Shastra Society, 1876.
The Kama Sutra of Vatsayayana. Dec.-Jan. 2007
Hall, Robert A. Linguistics and Your Language. 2nd ed. Garden City: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1960. 6.
Jonas. "Kama." Experience Festival. May-June 2006. Dec.-Jan. 2007
"Kama." Roget's International Thesaurus. 4th ed. 1977.
"Kama." Urban Dictionary. 6 Dec. 2006. Dec.-Jan. 2007 http://www.urbandictionary.com.
Kaviraja, Krsnadasa. Caitanya Caitamrta of Krsnadasa Kaviraja. Vol. 56. Cambridge: Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies, Harvard University, 1999.
Kumar, Animesh, comp. "Acquiring Dharma, Artha, and Kama." Sanskrit Documents. 24 Mar. 2007. Dec.-Jan. 2007
Manser, Martin H. Foreign Words and Phrases. Facts on File, Inc., 2002. 212.
Niteowlneils. "Kama." Wikipedia. 26 Jan. 2005. Dec.-Jan. 2007
Rice, Edward. Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1990. 444-447.
Russel, Bertrand, and Somerset W. Maugham. "Quotation Search." Quotations Page. Dec.-Jan. 2007
V, Jayaram. "Purusharthas or the Four Aims of Life." Hindu Website. Dec.-Jan. 2007
Walker, Benjamin. Hindu World: an Encyclopedic Survey of Hinduism. Vol. 1. London: Allen & Unwin, 1913. 514-515.
Yeats, William B. "William Butler Yeats." Poetry Hunter. Dec.-Jan. 2007
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