Not a lot to record in the Journal of Kate. Not sure i'm socially integrating that well into uni life... I can't quite configure how people get from being strangers to being friends. I guess it just takes me a long time to trust anyone, to be openly familiar with them. So- in the critical preliminaries- i'm kind of cold and distant. Not a very appealing starting point. SIGH. But i talk about these things as though they are indelible, written in stone. I'm not fated to be a social misfit (or am I? Even in preschool i remember that sense of not fitting in. I remember myself playing dress ups in my own little fantasy world, while other kids interacted. Cripes.)
No, i refuse to believe in THAT kind of destiny. After my philosophy course however, i can't help BUT believe in determinism though. It's blinking irrefutable, and that's why its so depressing. I don't know if you're familiar with the theory, but if not, the basic idea is as follows:
...ok i'm too lazy to reconjure the theory from memory, so i found this in last semester's exam notes:
"Hard determinism resolutely denies the existence of free will. In Holbach’s unequivocal words: “Man’s life is a line that nature commands him to describe upon the surface of the earth, without his ever being able to swerve from it, even for a instant” . According to the theory, every event is necessarily determined by the unique set of conditions that immediately precede it. Likewise, that preceding order was the end product of the inconceivably complex formula of interacting components which were its antecedent. And so it goes, ad infinitum to the beginning of the universe (granted there was a beginning). Man can be described as the sum of circumstance; for circumstance is merely the macroscopic and temporal result of interlinking natural laws. The individual is cast into a genetic mould upon conception, and from birth has no say in which forces should harshly buffet or gently mould him, ultimately dictating his every protean trait. In this sense, not only the jailed have no freedom, but so in the jailor; the oppressed and the oppressor, the mentally afflicted and the sane. None can lay legitimate claim to a shred of autonomy in their conduct and behaviour, bound by the fact that they could not have done otherwise than what they do."
Bleh. How prattish I sound. Sometimes i hate words. No, that's not right. I hate this mentality (that, admittedly, i'm weaning myself of) that to sound smart, you have to inject it with complicated, indecipherable words. NO! I RESIST! The best writing expresses itself clearly, using words which best communicate its meaning, not the ones which make it sound snotty. I REJECT THAT. Hey! No! Look at me Kate! What about JK Rowling? Tim Winton? ANY of the great authors (yes, i regard Rowling as a great author. It may not be "literature" as those ACADEMICS would classify it, but MEH, i say MEH). Think about their writing! The beautiful architecture of it, not the glamour of the building blocks.
...Forgive me. I'm in the process of self-education here. Which goes against some old, entrenched habits.
OMG MUM WILL YOU STOP SAYING ETC!!!!!!! IT IS SO ANNOYING!!! AT THE END OF EVERY SENTENCE!! EVEN IF THAT SENTENCE CLEARLY ARTICULATES ALL IT INTENDED TO SAY!!! ET CETERA, ET CETERA, ET BLOODY CETERA!!!!!
There are some things that you just can't help but tighten your jaw at.
Anyhoo, it seems i have, once again, meandered off course from the initial subject. I was talking about the dynamics of friendship...the unplottable progression towards it. You know, i actually get shocked when people who have just met are open with each other, joking around like they're old buddies. I think, at such times, i actually stare at the impossible MATERIALISATION of this space of intimacy that they share. I think i think too much of the logistic of it. Agonisingly pondering the economics of gesture, movement, the sound of my voice cutting through silence.
HAHAAHAHH- you know, when i get really self-conscious, i am suddenly very aware of my nostrils. Like, worrying if they're flaring or not. *cackles hysterically*
...
I keep thinking of something this other philosophy guru (Kant) said. It's just a snippet from one of his normative ethical theories which i thought was rubbish, but in isolation, it just stuck with me: To treat people not as means to an end, but as ends in themselves.
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