Category: Experience

Impromptu

On By NW FilbertIn change, creative writing, Experience, grief, human, life, love, meaning, Poetry4 Comments

Death.

Abundance.

Extravagant generosity of depletion.

Lust with which the world gives way.

And life.

Things.

Prominence.

.

I have entered a world

in which I am

saddened

begladdened

nostalgic

and eaten away

.

It is “Today”

this world –

the realm, the sphere, the moment:

Now.

A time that’s never,

only almost

and a just-was.

.

Each beginning

what equals

another end.

ThatΒ time.

What was.

What will be.

What I remember

and predict.

.

The first day

once again;

each possibly

the last

.

It is like this –

each time –

it is the present:

that attachment

that letting go.

Incessant welcome,

and its goodbye.

FYI – in margins

On By NW FilbertIn change, creative writing, Experience, life, WritingLeave a comment

Although nearly silent, or, too busy to conjure and compose, or…

I have not given up, having not ceased,

somewhere in the mix of these,

somewhere between voices…

ASPECTS OF WRITING

OFFLINE

On By NW FilbertIn Art, Experience, Experimenctes, family, Journey, Photography, Travel3 Comments

for a necessary while

(Parenthesis) : Swarm – Becomings

On By NW FilbertIn Art, creative writing, Experience, Experimenctes, human, Language, meaning, Poetry1 Comment

Reflection swarmIntelligence_swarm_1

(Parenthesis) : Swarm

developing concept, ideas, form

Confession:Β  for me the process involving humans crafting and innovating artifacts is (perhaps, nearly) as pleasurable and fascinating as the delight and enjoyment of the β€œaccomplished” creation / artifact / best-of-my-ability result.

Today I plunged into a work I project for my future – a collection of poetic writings with a provisional cohesion designated by the titular nomenclature (Parenthesis) : Swarm.Β  I am offering the beginnings, inchoate guesswork, anticipatory effort, languaging hoping to find some concretion or sense – in case others too are fascinated by the ways in which we humans find forms, structures, outlets, mediums for the expression of our experience.

Poetry depends on its realization to activate and actualize its purposes.Β  I think that form and structure, metaphor and language rudiments all occur as potencies – possibilities, options, offerings – to both direct and elicit, open and enclose, what we are moved, determined, or curious to communicate.

Here lies (or rises) the inception of one of this year’s projects for me… for better or worse, I hope it provides instigation or inspiration in you concerning the prospects of concocting, explaining, depicting, describing, or mediating some forms of human experiencings of our living, our worlds.

(Parenthesis) : Swarm

assaying beginnings

(The blue was an empty sector of sky) :

before the ascending clamor of birds,

blackbirds, maybe.Β  Or wrens, sparrows, the murther of crows

at which point : (monochrome)

(Soundless activities = black / white) : an argument of colors.

–

(White page.Β  Blank.Β  Emptiness.Β  A void) : A chaos.

Sounds, ideas, emotions bum-rushing, flood-filling, desire-aching to mark up, cross out, cross-hatch, scribble-claim, create/destroy the unwanting, unwanted : (Blank page.Β  White.Β  Unlined.Β  Refusing).

–

(White noise.Β  A chaos.Β  A filler) : (A Parenthesis) : A Swarm.

–

Rising up or rising down?Β  Its violence, this freedom (this emptiness, bereavement) : this horde.

(If parenthesis sounds aside reflective calm) the lettered patterns are closing in, are pressing, encroaching (an erasured calm).

–

There are (Breath-gaps, Awareness) : while we survive.

Endure infinity, perception, experience : ALIVE (reflect. dream. prepare to become).

(Sleep-freedom) : surreality of anxious dreams.

(The β€œlittle deaths”) : vigorous and belabored, exhaustively lusted , our desires.

Like fires, like (Ash).Β  (A remains, an inchoate.

A beginning) : an actuality.

–

If triggering happens – within swarm – directions will alter towards (flow)

An isolation (becomes compatible).Β  (We thrive) or are disjointed.

Differentiation (in accord).

(This is how it ends) : in its beginnings.

–

You arrive – a great undoing – traumatic archive.Β  I retreat

(or receive, select the join).Β  Independence (community).

The surge : (the Swell).Β  We swarm – the two, no six, no twelve

(of Us).Β  The (love) : and discord.Β  (Arrangements) interrupted.

(Habitude) : and nuance.Β  (The Parenthesis) : The Swarm.

Β 

The bum-rush of living

On By NW FilbertIn communication, Experience, human, identity, meaning1 Comment

entanglement

There are places we β€œescape to,” i.e. repair to for very specific reasons and purposes.Β  Maybe an acquaintance’s pad for hurried or feverish orgasms.Β  A park or patch of woods for perspective, silence or briefly encounters with β€œnatural nature.”  A carrel in a library to prompt and focus our studies.Β  A basement stairwell for sustaining shots of liquor, bathroom window or fire escape for a stealthy cigarette.Β  Favored chair and lighting for reading, drawing, reverie…

Repair.

A therapist’s office wherein to be oblivious for a moment, anonymously honest, saved from (and toward) pressing responsibilities.Β  A cafΓ©, a waiting room, a stoplight, a store.Β  Our furtive thievery of solitude.Β  Self-care.Β  Secrets.

A human is a strange animal indeed.Β  Tantalized by taboo.Β  Somehow more fully owner when the product is taken for oneself.Β  Somehow more strenuously truthful when maintaining a lie.Β  Somehow better at self-care when stealthy and artfully dodging.

Perhaps not all of us.

Who claims directly to know what they want?Β  What feels good to them?Β  What they obsessively desire?

β€œPre-emptive strikes.”  We are wary.Β  We negotiate rather than demand or direct (what separates the β€œneurotic” from the β€œpsychopath”?).

The time goes by.Β  Incrementally, unceasingly, dependably.Β  In leaps.Β  Life, again, moment after moment, wends and charges, plows and slips its certain way into death.

We hesitate, we detour, we β€œpit stop.”  We navigate, wander and avoid.Β  We indulge and punish, set out and swerve, ashame and repent.Β  Sort of.Β  Sneaking pleasures, performing roles and rites, detracting, desisting, compulsing, rewarding…

Remarkable at tricking and deceiving ourselves.

We are interesting characters, sincerely.

Operative on many contradictory planes.Β  Ridiculous, incredible, foolish, amazing…complex.

Woven into surrounds we continually seek to distinguish ourselves from, in, for.Β  Tremendously unstable, uncertain, tormented, delighted and undone.

Just try to piece it apart: what you WANT, and what you WANT.Β  What you DO and what you WISH.Β  Where you GO and where you ARE.Β  Who you APPEAR and why you BE.

What you want and what you want.Β  What you desire and what you mean.Β  What you do and what you say.Β  How.Β  How.Β  Why.Β  and What.

It is all quite twisted.Β  Very weird and strange and unusually usual for us, to BE.Β  The β€œhigh” and the β€œlow.”  β€œGood” and β€œbad.”  β€œProductive” and β€œlazy.”  Health and unhealthy, partial and whole, fragment and phrase.

Complicated beings in intricate surrounds.Β  The regularity is what’s irregular, the constancy is changing, that which we’d love to consider paradox or mystery.Β  The off-putting put on.Β  The performance unmasked.

β€œHow many out-of-character things did I need to do, I wondered, before the world rearranged itself around me?”

-Ben Lerner, 10:04–

Deceptive dialogues giving so much away.Β  Proper behaviors exposing our lies.

My son recently said he was a “walking contradiction” and I thought is that not the nature of humanity?

Confusion and contrast, contractions and deconstruct.

Wilder beasts – fearful and proud, generously scrooged, clinging as it slips our grasps.

Odd, misnomered things.Β  Smart here, dull there, sexy and unkind, popularly rejected, abnormally similar.Β  Attempts to be truthful mire us in espionage.

The bum rush of living – death’s inescapable quicksand

The Holidays

On By NW FilbertIn Art, Experience, family, holidays, human, Poetry2 Comments

Within this 3-week, no, 2-month, no, now nearly half-year era

misnomered “the Holy Days” –

I want everything –

.

to come due later,

in January,

in what’s new,

to BE new

and newly different.

.

ForΒ now –Β 

to simply endure,

and that – blithely.

For there to be lights and laughter

and a certain sort of gladness.

Not this anxiety, this stress,

this hurry-up and choosing.

.

What is “holy” of these days

must be a kind of wanting.

Beings filled of wish

and momentary joys.

We list them:

I want …….

and I am thankful for …..

.

Hooray! – these days are holy!

I get to say and give and get …

wantonly.

Wantingly.

.

We ache.

.

And it begins again.

Tyranny of Transition

On By NW FilbertIn communication, Experience, human, identity, Journallings, meaning2 Comments

Greetings all – I wanted to apologize for the sloppy frenzy of disregulated writings I’ve been releasing with little meditation or editing of late. Β “In the midst of things…” somewhere near the crossover looping of composition, storage, digestion, excretion, and growing…I’ve found it somewhat difficult to know what it is I am doing aside from what must be done.

400px-Cycles_of_Life

Feeling change,

an entering of halves and fractions

tired and ecstatic

sad and delighted

moving on and along.

Having lost and lost and lost

while ever continuing to gain,

such simple equations

ofΒ little sense

yet filled with meaning

a meager promise

and maximal joy.

Existence is the Cusp – A Journal Entry

On By NW FilbertIn Experience, human, identity, Journallings, Language, meaning3 Comments

cursive journaling

It’s December, and I’m writing outside, lucky by so many counts.

  • It’s December, and 45Β°
  • My partner in love and life instills health and wellness in me
  • I’m writing
  • James is serving me coffee, ice water and double greyhounds enabling me to work without interruption

I’m in what you might call a β€œCusp Area.”

The present is always a liminal space.Β  I am a few days away from completing a Master’s degree in Library & Information Management, and months away from embarking on a PhD in Media & Communication coupled to the Arts at a University in Switzerland.

I work very part-time (10-20 hours / week) for the United States Postal Service, attend regular psychotherapy sessions, parent 4 children, read and write as much as I can, cook and clean a LOT, and spend as much time as I can with my beloved (a brilliant, gorgeous, amazing, resourceful, intelligent and creative human).

I rest very little.

We (my immediate family) will not survive January on my income (sans school loans).Β  Cusp.

Change is imminent, and yet NEVER is NOT.

Every day relationships morph.Β  What could be termed β€œstability” in life must be radically redefined to have any resemblance or β€œfit” to reality – which is always, ALWAYS in enormous, factually ubiquitous, tremendous FLUX.

There is something like β€œsimilarity” – of persons, circumstances, situations, emotions, experiences… which we occasionally tag β€œfamiliar” or β€œrepetition,” (providing a modicum of regularity, β€œconsistency,” β€œnormativity”) but none of it, EVER!! – is β€œidentical,” β€œsame,” β€œrepeated.”  Not even ourselves, one β€œmoment” to the next (i.e. in spans of cursive time – what seems utterly continuous is still difference – otherwise could not be noticed).

I am writing this in cursive in attempts toward continuities of form and content.Β  And yet there is vast uniqueness with each stroke.Β  β€œDistance,” difference, change.

I delight in working in language – a symbology for expressing experience – a fabric, social set and structure – a shared and flexibly rule-bound medium.

Possessing or harboring…containing vast incommunicable DIFFERENCES – between ethnicities, cultures, geographies, genders, contents, shapes, habits, practices, processes…REALITIES.Β  And yet useable.Β  Useful.

I am writing outside in December, in Kansas, in the United States of America, in cursive, in English, in black ball-point ink, in a ruled soft-covered notebook, in 2014, in attempts partially to think, to recount, to visualize, to express, to extend, to discover, remember, critique, perceive, view… understand a curious unstoppable flow –

The Experience of Being a Living Organism

with billions of particularities – both structures and substance, arrangement and order, experience and resources, habits, capacities, learning, abilities, perceptions, interpretations, emotions…

THIS kind, type, genus, species, instance, sort, occurrence, happening of this one/many, living (active, interactive, interacting, linked, dependent, individual, functioning) THING.

Differently now and now and NOW.

I cannot curtail difference.Β  I can hypothesize similarities.Β  I have agency, but an energy and forcefulness utterly dependent and constrained by countless systems, substances, processes and constituents.

I have a kind of power – corralled by everything within and around me.Β  I am at the mercy of – the support and boundary of – all else + the combinatory elements and activities of WHAT I exist of and the rest of existings.

I do not fool myself into thinking I am a cause or blame, and yet I am utterly response – able / – ible.Β  β€œMy” interactions and interactivities, are mine / β€œme” / THIS.

THIS & THAT, Yin/Yang, Individual/Environment, β€œself”/”other”, – difference without discontinuity, ever in exchange: molecularly, actively, REALLY, and wholly.

cusp area

EXISTENCE IS THE CUSP.

I love while / as / if / because / in spite of (or in contradistinction to) I am loved.

I move with / against / into / around / while / within / because of / in distinction from, possible movements, contents, and affordances / constraints of everything about / within / around me.

I β€œexist” (stand-out) because I am, in a swarm, a sea, of existences, existings.

I have no other chances to be…

…outside of my surrounds.

I am.Β  Within a lifeworld.Β  Without which – I am not.

And still, β€œI am.”  Singular / plural.Β  Similar across space-time, an appearance and occurrence of similarity marked by difference.

The safest expression (for one seeking at β€œtruths” or reliable, testable regularities) is:

WE ARE

or

IT IS.

We, the living.

architectural animal

I thank you.

And so, the story, such as it is

On By NW FilbertIn creative writing, Experience, Experimenctes, human, Image, Writing2 Comments

Embryo,_8_cells

We start. Β We start out. Β We dance into a light. Β We are seen. Β WeΒ have become. Β We are embodied.

This is how it begins for us. Β We are noticed as a being, as a living, as living beings. Β Addressed.

Some one, some thing, is aware of “us.” Β We become. Β Something. Β Someone.

I am born. Β I have…”be-come.” Β And that, a result…a result, resolution, resolublution, happenstance, happening of cum. Β Plus. Β Cum (sperm, spermatazoa, DNA transport system) PLUS egg (potentia, potentiality, amorphous stew – DNA resourcing, inchoate, unpredictable, predictable)

CUM + EGG = possibility

A be-cumming. Β A chance, a shot, a gumbo – ME.

And then I AM.

PRinc_rm_photo_of_7-8_week_embryo

And that “I am” is a simply recognition, a simply acknowledging, acknowledgment, an awareness, a “noticing” – a THAT – THERE IS – a “There is: That.”

A “Nathan.”

A nothing be-cums (in collusion with egg) a “Nathan” – named, cognized, acknowledged, noticed and noted: Nathan is NOT a Nothing, but is a Some Thing… a “Being,” a “human,” a “boy,” a “creature,” even…a “Person.”

And I become. Β We. Β Become. Β A combination of things cognizable in individuality and commerce. Β A singularity in multiplicity…

THIS combination of possibilities = Nathan

= THIS one

= ??????

this ITEM is accounted, is sensed, perceived, listed, catalogued – BECOME.

And so, we start out. Β Cells of a particular way. Β Become. Β Noted, recognized, be-come, be-came, be-CAUSEd. Β IT. Β THIS. Β YOU. Β (ME).

Held. Β Cooed. Β Coddled. Β Nursed. Β Murmured and whispered as an “I,” a “You,” an “It,” a “They,” an “A,” a “Him.”

I am a Definite Article.

A/The Some Thing. Β Being. Β Organism. Β Combinatory intricate systemic reality object of cellular operations – genetic, bio-logical(?), “existent,” “happening/happenstance,” as… THISΒ ONE,Β THING, REALITY.

And so, we begin.

embryo

I try to go back there. Β To the beginning, that initial “noticing.” Β (“Honey, I think I might be pregnant”). Β Effect. Β A. Β The. Β This one. Β Son. Β Boy. Β He. Β It. Β Him. Β Here: Β a coagulation of cells.

Biology. Β Psychology. Β Chemistry. Β Anthropology. Β Philosophy. Β Science. Β Metaphysics.

“I” began. Β By being accounted for. Β Taken note of. Β Recognized. Β Attached or detached from. Β Signaled, symbolized, named and noted.

Here comes a new “One.” Β (that is, Many). Β – A “Person.” Β Awkward, precedented (unprecedented) amalgam equaling a “You” “It” “He/She” “Being” “Person” “Human” “Child.”

NAMED (accounted for and acknowledged, reported AS…)

“Nathan Wayne Filbert”

A-ha! Β So –Β thisΒ one! Β That, right there…different from andΒ the same as this other kind…

An observable being, a kind of individual sample, remarkable and marked down, documented, evidential data…A, The, It, An…

Here begins a definite article.

An individual.

An example.

Sample.

Kind.

Type.

Organism.

Characteristic.

Assortment.

Collusion.

Combination.

Instance of.

SOME THING.

And life goes on.

Happens.

Takes shape.

Becomes.

Invents.

Occurs.

Adapts.

Results.

Resolves.

again…again…again…

Here rises/lies Nathan Wayne Filbert,

named and acknowledged,

become, begun, existent,

(such as it is)

(from time to time)

ahem

cough, cough

(occasionally)

grrrrr

Hello.

handprint1

Coming Bare

On By NW FilbertIn Experience, human, identity, Journallings, meaning, Writing5 Comments

head-silhouette-with-question-mark

In the interests of authenticity…

  • The fact or quality of being true or in accordance with fact; veracity; correctness. Also (overlapping with sense) accurate reflection of real life, verisimilitude. Β 
  • Genuineness;
  • The quality of truthful correspondence between inner feelings and their outward expression; unaffectedness, sincerity.
  • A mode of existence arising from self-awareness, critical reflection on one’s goals and values, and responsibility for one’s own actions; the condition of being true to oneself.
  • The fact or quality of being real; actuality, reality. (Oxford English Dictionary,Β 2014.)

Unveiling. Β The action of reveal. Β Is the “condition of being true to oneself” a possibility?

Recently my partner and love wrote me a revealing, unveiling, letter that blunted me with authenticity – a quality of herself thatΒ she was questioning in that very message.

Self-awareness. Β Sincerity. Β Something corresponding to actuality, reality. Β Genuineness.

How often do we present or re-present ourselvesΒ authentically? Β Do we all wish to? Β What would it look like? Β Sound like? Β Would we lose friends? Β Lovers? Β Jobs? Β If our outward expressions matched our inner feelings?

WHO AM I?

The complaint was compromise. Β Pretense. Β The wriggling falsities of “fitting in” or “being useful” or “surviving” in the world of humans. Β In social groups and situations. Β In life. Β The feeling that what “works” or garners respect, interest, desire in the commerce of human beings is notΒ authentic to who I actually am. Β That what I am “liked” for is a misrepresentation, a partial product, a fabrication, a mixed message, does NOT “correspond to actuality, reality.” Β And is it possible to undo that? Β To live authentically in the variegated, unpredictable, situational and relative world of humans? Β And is authenticity of an individual even a potential actuality / reality?

This has prompted me days of thought. Β In effect it was relieving, releasing – my lover is exhausted of the “play of living” – the work of “fitting in,” “surviving with others,” “belonging” in ways that feel partial, inexact, false even, untrue, ALWAYS incomplete, inaccurate,Β inauthentic.

I felt freed to say my honesty. Β When I father, I pretend to be a father. Β I don’t know what I’m doing, I don’t know what I should be doing. Β I don’t know what it means toΒ father children. Β I love them, I care about them, I am frightened by them, I am exhausted by the responsibility, I gauge my activities based on parenting behaviors I DON’T feel comfortable with, or that I wished for…IΒ act, IΒ pretend I’m a man who knows how to love, instruct, “raise” children! Β I do not know what I’m doing. Β I feel inauthentic. Β Like I’m reaching, practicing, experimenting,Β trying to be what I think a good “father” might be.

For years and years and years and years I have “feigned” being a writer, a musician, a scholar, an artist (itΒ feels like). Β Yes, I’ve read a lot. Yes, I’ve studied, I’ve practiced, I’ve performed. Β Yes I think I “get” some things about the world and our human experience of it. Β Yes I LOVE writing words, mixing them up, crafting phrases and sentences with them, attempting to mate them to my internal experiences, ideas, emotions… but I almost ALWAYS feel an impostor not an expert, like I’m trying out voices, expressions, characters, compilations to FIND OUT if that’s how I think, feel, imagine?! Β So if ever I’m desired, complimented, responded to – I think it is an accident, a gratuitous kindness, a pitying. Β That I don’t know what I’m doing, I’m simply trying, groping in language in a thorough darkness.

As a lover, a partner, I have simply tried to please. Β To find out what is wanted and do, be, perform that. Β How does an intimate relationshipΒ “work”? Β I don’t know. Β Everyone is different. Β Nothing I learn to enact, behave, communicate, engage – is successfully effective in the next relationship (or, obviously, in the relationships ended before that!). Β Could I BE whatever mucky morphing “self” “living human organism” I am (at any given moment) and be loved? Β It seems so unlikely! Β I don’t even know what that is (the mucky morphing living individual human organism) to express or represent to the Other one… – do they? Β Does ANYone?

So do we ALL feel like we’re FAKING our way through being human? Β Adapting “roles” and “styles” and “opinions” and behaviors in order to survive? Β To be liked? Β To fit in? Β To feel good about ourselves? Β To feel useful? Β To BE?

Over decades, I have found that there are some things that steadily characterize me. Β I like to drink and smoke and read and write. Β I love to love and desire and be loved and desired. Β All of those things share the “actuality” and “reality” of being activities that I don’t understand. Β Things that seem to steady, nourish and keep me vital…and yet also damage, wound, hurt and make me vulnerable. Β That wobble. Β That trembling.

Identity

To my lover I responded theoretically. Β That my understanding of a living organism is that its “identity” in fact is created and activated in every moment’s situation and surround. Β That ALL of being a human is identifying oneself in relation to circumstance – a moment-to-moment relation and response to THOSE and THAT which constitutes its happening. Β That “living” involves trying style, voice, behavior, activity, vocation, perception, interpretation, thought after another after another – quickly realizing that in EVERY instance the “fit” is partial, inauthentic, somewhat true (what feels good) and somewhat false (what is uncomfortable) – that BEING ALIVE is a wandering experimental trial of sorts. Β That if we CHOSE or locked ourselves into an IDENTITY and attempted to be consistent in it – we would in fact deteriorate, become bitter – that the wisdom is NOT “I AM THAT” but “THAT IS PARTIALLY ME” for now, in this instance, at present…

????

The questions keep coming. Β We bemoan that when we take a job, a position, a role, responsibilities… we tire of them as we feel the constraint of structured, required, or expected behaviors and activities. Β When I compose a writing work – within pages I tire of its direction, its characters, its ethos – I canΒ feel where a thing is going and whether it’s interesting to me or not, I tire of it – feel constrained by what’s created, feel fake in pushing it in another direction…even innovation and inventiveness feel PRETEND.

Perhaps LIVING = the tension of partiality. Β Striving to “fit” to “belong” to “match” (be safe in, acknowledged, understood, allowed) means adaptation, alteration, invention, reciprocal construction, which would seem to inherently demand compromise, partiality, veiling and highlighting – what will seem / feel to be INAUTHENTIC, misrepresentation, “FAKE.”

And yet – it is through this wriggling tango that we also come to discover what “fits” us – what we enjoy, what our perspectives are, who/how/with whom we like to be, what feels “good” to us and what makes us afraid/uncomfortable/ and so on…

Cynical view: we’re ever pretending and untrue. Β Hopeful view: we’re navigating and discovering, becoming. Β And it seems that both are “real” and “actual.” Β Authenticity (maybe?) equals partiality and pretense for humans? Β Equals morphing and becoming? Β Equals uncertainty and acting (adapting)? Β Equals attempting to be?