23/06/23 : FRI
Do I like to travel
because I do not belong anywhere?
Or am I looking
for the perfect place to belong to
and settle down?
Just because I learned to move
when young?
Or because I’m good at it
and it is part of me…
---
I haven’t spoken to anyone, I haven't had a meaningful conversation with anyone - besides the usual ones on the phone with the usual people - but I haven’t spoken to anyone here at the campsite, not in town… did I want to? I tried to initiate a conversation with a couple of people but maybe I’m not good at conversing. It is also true that I have been happy just being alone, doing my own things, and observing others.
"The personal touch gives context, meaning, motivation, and personal drama. But by writing about yourself, the real you comes out which means that you discover what you really believe in. " - [I am sure I read this somewhere...]
I can start with my classical "there is" : there is a campsite down south which is clean and silent and hence I am not going to tell you which one it is nor where to find it.
[wrote something in Italian, quickly, which since I do honour Truth, here it is]
un elogio al silenzio, questo sconosciuto
sono stufa.
stufa di sentire le tue telefonate e conversazioni in viva voce
da blogger dei poveri
che non ci sono telecamere in giro che ti riprendono
stufa di sentire cacofonie musicali dissonanti
stufa di sentire bambini che schiamazzano
e pure stufa di sentirli quando piangono
(lo so, sono bimbi, ma tu sei l’adulto, dunque fa’ qualcosa…)
stufa di sentire la tua televisione a tutte le ore
stufa di sentire le tue litigate per strada
ai crocicchi
negli androni
sotto casa
sul treno
al museo
stufa di vedere che ballonzoli
e pure fuori tempo
con l’anima del tiktokere da periferia
stufa di dover partecipare gioco-forza alla tua vita
stufa di sentire che tiri su col naso perché non sai cosa sia un fazzoletto
stufa di sentire i tuoi vittimismi che hanno rotto i coglioni
stufa di questo teatrino pubblico di motori che scoppiettano,
accellerate inutili, frenate soprattutto inutili,
tutti afflitti dalla “Sindrome da Pene Piccolo”.
sono stufa.
I went to the Pitt Rivers Museum [HERE] because my dear friend JP told me "I should" and there, as you enter on the left, I saw a mother reading the labels of the exhibits to her disabled teenage daughter and that made me have faith again in society. I felt moved and that I was intrigued by the situation but also not belonging to this perfect almost hushed meeting. Like when you open a door onto something that you know you shouldn't have seen and you back off, apologetic. I then had to stop and admit that I found that I was fascinated by the people, as in the old large statues, almost more than the artefacts : who were these people?! What were they thinking? I am perfectly aware of the inner working of my thinking and elucubrations and I am fascinated by the inner workings of the statues and the people who inspired those statues. What have you eaten that day? When were you scared? When was the last time you cried, or laughed? Have you ever, really, fallen in love? How was it?
These are people! People who lived and breathed, walked and felt... were! They were alive!
I have been thinking about my Polyhymniades: there is a line... always "there is"... There is a line. But I could not find my way today. I can only play with some words in my head: mapping / wayfarying / carnality of paper / psychogeography of a line... or by lines...
No, sorry, I have to add this : AGAIN here
Look at them! I have been playing with these maps since early 2020 when I started studying the concepts of sensory maps. Then, I revisited the concept in 2021 and now I am at the Pitt Rivers Museum and I physically see one on display. I felt tingling everywhere in my body, even in places you would not associate with maps [or, actually, yes! Def wayfaring!]. Anyway, these three images are 1. the map on display the Pitt, 2. my own take which I used in my The Third Insight art piece at York St John University, and 3. one of the images that started it all, this one from "Map, exploring the world" published by Phaidon in 2020. You see, how synchronicities are amazing! I am looking for something and I am literally sent by an "unaware" dear friend [almost an instrument of fate] to look at something that is all about finding and not getting lost; all about mapping. I am on a journey and this journey is pinpointed by coincidences that underly my journey. First, the Labyrinth and now this.
Back at the Bodleian, I am reading from the Phenomenology of Mood and the Meaning of Life by Matthew Ratcliffe on the distinction between feelings and emotions, where emotions are “judgements rather than feelings” and feelings are “merely bodily reactions” [350] and accordingly to Robert Solomon and his The Passions “emotions are the meaning of life”. And this is because “we are moved because we feel”. For Heidegger, moods are phenomenologically deeper than emotions [I do not know what this all means, now, but it will disclose itself at a certain point when I need it].
I am feeling the same as yesterday : I am here, I’m exhausted, I need to go, and it would be better if I went. I don’t want to leave. But it’s 6.12pm.
I am exhausted and I can't put two thoughts together that make any sense.
onwards + upwards,
mx
Following stats referring to the whole day:
Dates : 23 JUN 2023
Journey : car : 32 miles + bus : 3 miles
Steps : 6,695
Entrance : Pitt Rivers Museum : free