Lord Byron was a British poet during the Romantic period (early 1800s), and was Romantic in every sense and breath of the word; in fact, he helped give it its definition. A complicated figure, he was often misunderstood, and was once described by a close female acquaintance as being “mad, bad and dangerous to know.” Critics cited him for being bold and crass because (amongst other things) he described feelings and actions that were taboo subjects during his time; but did he care? Pffft, no. He did what he wanted.

Here he is in his "exotic" Albanian attire. A lot of people thought this was really weird, but look at him, look at that face, he is owning this outfit.

Despite his obvious flaws, his writing propelled him into the national spotlight and he became one of Britian’s greatest celebrities. I wrote a paper for one of my English classes titled “A Rock Star’s First Kiss: Hedonism and Moral Reform in Lord Byron’s ‘The First Kiss of Love.’” In the essay I talk about why Lord Byron became such a huge phenomenon. His rockstar status got to the point where there were even Lord Byron collecter’s edition plates made–yes, this guy was a big deal; it is no exaggeration to call him one of the world’s first major celebrities.

In case you have ever wondered what exactly it is that an English major does during his or her four years of college, here is the introduction to my essay about Byron that I wrote last summer:

Often hailed as “the first rock star,” the Romantic celebrity Lord Byron’s fame came from both his literature and his life. In her essay, “Tainted Love and Romantic Literary Celebrity,” Clara Tuite defines celebrity as “the point at which the public figure engages interest at the level of private life,” and she establishes Byron’s celebrity through his notorious “love life” (60). Coined “Byromania” by his wife, Byron’s life and literature were peddled fodder to the gossip-hungry, scandal-starved British public. With the public’s interest engaged, his personal life entered theirs. In awe, his many critics (both in and after his time) have wondered what exactly it was about this man that ignited a nation’s—and eventually a world’s—avid interest. The answer: unabashed hedonism. Incubated in the liberal precepts of the romantic period, and schooled in the life of hard knocks, the Byronic Hero emerged, cranked up the literary volume, and shattered the mold of canty, prude prose perpetuated by the enlightenment, harbored by religion, and worshiped by tradition. One of Byron’s earliest poems, “The First Kiss of Love” (1806), written in his teenage years, evidences his budding hedonistic propensities and his brazen angst with the culture’s restrictive mores. Byron wrote during a period of great political, societal, moral, and religious change; and while his readers may not have openly shared his sentiments, they were enthralled and captivated by them. This captivation led to fanaticism, creating fans, and giving birth to the first “modern celebrity,” something Mark Bostridge equates to “the modern rock star” (1). As a result of his literature, the ensuing public interest in, and fascination with, Byron’s debaucheries exhibited a shift in social morality, and a tolerance for decadent behavior that was formerly unspoken taboo. A close reading of, “The First Kiss of Love,” not only establishes Byron’s unabashed hedonism, it hint’s at his generation’s moral restlessness, appetite for relinquished religiosity, and desire for a liberated life, even if it is to be lived vicariously.

Good stuff right? Now I bet you’re just dying to read the rest of the essay. In any case, Byron was awesome. Like one of my other favorite literary heroes, Oscar Wilde, Lord Byron was a unique individual that broke all of society’s rules, and in doing so he helped pave the way for progress. He was hated and loved by many, but he was talked about by all. He became a scapegoat for many of society’s problems, yet in doing so, he gave society permission to talk about those problems.

In my film class I learned that it is through conversation that we arrive at comprehension. The problems of anyone’s time are not going to be solved unless they are discussed. This goes with our personal problems as well. So often we feel that we have to conform to what we think society wants us to be that we lose sight of who we “really” are. How refreshing would it be to just do and say whatever you wanted? Not in some crazy “f*** you world!” fashion, but in a healthy way, one that promotes communication, honesty, and trust; a way that cultivates a culture of tolerance and un-jedgementalness, where we can be who we want and not fear the fiery wrath of our harshest critics: our friends and yes, sadly enough, our families. So, thank you Lord Byron for just being you, the good and the bad, because we learned a great deal from both.

We love you Lord Byron!

In my classic lazy-writer fashion, I will end with a quote. This is Lord Byron trying–like we all do–to describe what is quite often undescribable: himself. Like my other post on “life”where I quoted Emerson, here Lord Byron is explaining how he can and does change:

‘People take for gospel all I say, and go away continually with false impressions . . . I am so changeable, being everything by turns and nothing long – such a strange melange of good and evil . . . But there are two sentiments to which I am constant – a strong sense of liberty, and a detestation of cant, and neither is calculated to gain me friends.’

Lord Byron

The word “cant” as Byron uses it means “hypocritical and sanctimonious talk, typically of a moral, religious, or political nature.” The cant that Byron is referring to is that petty, judgmental small talk. The kind of talk that only seeks to label and destroy someones character, but it’s a talk done in a sanctimonious manner; often hypocritical, and always with the sneer of jealousy, insecurity, and trifling defamation. I know of one “culture” in particular that uses religion to justify criticizing others, as if it’s okay to talk about and slander them because they are an example of what not to do. Yes, let’s criticize them for their mistakes and label them a wrongdoer, that will make everything better! When really all is does it make us feel “better” about ourselves.

Returning again to the idea of change, or us being afraid or unwilling to change. So often we label change as bad. We have an idea about ourselves and the world that we perpetuate, “this is just how it is.” So we actually try not to change, and we stop others from doing it; yet, can’t change be good too? Don’t we have to change to evolve? Yes friends, yes we do, and evolve we will once we can free ourselves from the shackles of “self:” that person we think we were born as and have to be, the person that others expect us to be, that person we hate being sometimes, but submit in times of crisis to the phrase, “It’s just who I am.” That is rubbish. You are who you want to be: the good and the bad. And guess what, just like they did with Lord Byron, people will love you for you, the “good” and the “bad.” Because when it comes down to it, as humans, we are made up of both. But even just to use the labels “good” and “bad” feels wrong. So I will rescind my statement and say that, when it comes down to it, we are just one big grey area, a big grey area that really just needs and desperately wants to be loved and accepted for who they are, but quite often feels continually judged for being anything but white. Well, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m grey. Will you love me anyway?

(I thought it was appropriate that I end Byron’s post with a rhyme)

As life passes events expire and I learn stuff. That’s just how it happens. Truthfully, a lot of the time I don’t even want to be learning, but life, like any good mother, makes sure I’m being fed. A combination of recent events brought on a feast of learning and now I am stuffed and lying in bed at one in the morning typing this post on my iPhone in a lazy attempt to regurgitate some of the knowledge.

While I can’t say all that I’d like to (mainly because my thumb is already getting tired), I would like to say this: life is what you make it. As Hamlet says, “For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” In this scene Hamlet is talking about how he feels like the city of Denmark is a prison to him, his friends disagree, and then he delivers that profound line above. Hamlet is aware that his unhappiness is a product of his mind–his thinking.

You would be surprised how little credence people actually give this idea. It’s not to say that there isn’t good or bad in the world, there is, but what Shakespeare is getting at is that the mind is both a prison and the key out. We shut ourselves up in our mind with our ideas about the world and how we think it is and should be. Once something comes along that challenges those beliefs we usually react in two ways: we either allow it to open our minds (acting as that metaphorical key) or we view it as a threat, something that is “bad,” and we immediately label it as such. In doing the latter we put ourselves in a (to complete the metaphor) prison of ignorance and unhappiness. Life is both the good and the bad, and there is learning to be had from both.

This doesn’t mean we go through life embracing the bad just as we do the good, but instead, we stop slapping our labels on everything. We slow down a moment and look at whatever it is we might initially see as “bad” straight in the eye and say, “wtf, I don’t understand you, but I’m going to try.” If we can resist our urge to instantly run off anything we deem “bad” with our judgmental shotgun of “good,” we might discover that things weren’t exactly as they had appeared to us originally. In labeling things we limit their meaning. If you think something is bad, then it will be bad.

Life is what we make it. People are what we make them. Our experience is neither good or bad, our thinking makes it so. The mind is a powerful tool for good, but far too often we allow it to trap us in the bad, and we lock ourselves up, like Hamlet, in our individual Denmarks.

Now my thumb really is sore; alas, I must stop. I will end with an excerpt from an essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson titled “Self-Reliance.” The entire essay is really long, and all of it is really incredible, but for the sake of space and your attention-span I have only included a few pertinent paragraphs. The point Emerson is making here is that far too often we limit ourselves because of how we see ourselves, because we care about how others see us, and because of our fear of breaking with conformity, or the popular or “normal” way to see something. Basically he is saying, to hell with your notions of what is socially acceptable or not, I don’t have to see it your way, I don’t have to adopt your notions of good or bad, I become great by using my mind to think and act for myself. If I want to change, then I will change, and I won’t let any notions of who I think “I am,” or who you think I am, stop me by limiting me and scaring me away from my personal evolution, my climb upward to a better, greater me. Enjoy!

“What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. . .

“The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a reverence for our past act or word, because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them.

“But why should you keep your head over your shoulder? Why drag about this corpse of your memory, lest you contradict somewhat you have stated in this or that public place? Suppose you should contradict yourself; what then? It seems to be a rule of wisdom never to rely on your memory alone, scarcely even in acts of pure memory, but to bring the past for judgment into the thousand-eyed present, and live ever in a new day. In your metaphysics you have denied personality to the Deity: yet when the devout motions of the soul come, yield to them heart and life, though they should clothe God with shape and color. Leave your theory, as Joseph his coat in the hand of the harlot, and flee.

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — ‘Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.’ — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”

Holden Caulfield, The Cather in the Rye

October 14, 2009

things that I like

coke

reading

doing this

Friday, February 13, 2009

Some of My Favorite Things

 These are black Vans, my favorite shoes.
Size thirteen, dirty white souls, holes and tears.

Can these letters get any bigger?

Because who wears that stuff anyways, and why? Isn’t it just to show the world something? How rich, or stylish, or cool, or gay, or good-looking or whatever they think they are and want to identify themselves to the world as.

Yet if I’m to progress as a pilgrim through life and its vanity fair, I’ve got to get to that higher plane of thought. Yet higher in what sense? Higher than what? Than others? No, it’s not that. It’s not a competition. Competition smacks of pride and stinks of fear. This is better than that. This is higher in terms of my previous thought—my previous self. Higher implies progression: a vertical climb to better understanding. Just look at the definition of evolution:

[ev-uh-loo-shuh'n]
noun.
A process of continuous change from a lower, simpler, or worse to a higher, more complex, or better state: growth.

The opposite of this is a horizontal shift. An attempt to become what you see around you. This is not progression. It’s imitation. It’s stagnation. It’s an abomination of human potential. You want evolution? I’ll evolve, but I’ll do it away from the crowd, and into myself.

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express,
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

Lord Byron

Petrarchan Love

One day in class my professor used a term to describe a type of love, “Petrarchan.”

Have you ever “fallen in love” with someone you can never have?

Maybe it was a crush on the popular boy or girl in your high school or maybe it’s an obsession with a celebrity that goes beyond fandom, in any case, we have all probably felt that kind of love before. An infatuation with a person that is more than perfect, they are every fantasy you have ever have personified and walking the earth.

I researched the term “Petrarchan” and discovered it is derived from a fourteenth century poet named Francesco Petrarch. This man is amazing

Petrarch

Petrarch lived in the early fourteenth century and had a passion for literature. His father wanted him to become a lawyer, but Petrarch felt that the legal profession was “selling justice” and refused to practice. Instead he became a priest in the catholic church and spent his days reading and writing literature. He was not allowed to marry and never fell in love during his time as a priest.

This is where the story gets good…

After leaving his profession as a priest he was in the church on Good Friday, it was a beautiful spring day and he was 23. In church, he saw a 17 year old girl named Laura; it was love at first sight. She was already married to an older man and refused Petrarch because of that, but did that stop his love? Absolutely not.

Laura became the inspiration for one of Petrarch’s greatest works, a collection of 366 poems called Il Canzoniere. Here is an exceprt about the day he first laid eyes on her…

It was on that day when the sun’s ray
was darkened in pity for its Maker,
that I was captured, and did not defend myself,
because your lovely eyes had bound me, Lady.

It did not seem to me to be a time to guard myself
against Love’s blows: so I went on
confident, unsuspecting; from that, my troubles
started, amongst the public sorrows.

Love discovered me all weaponless,
and opened the way to the heart through the eyes,
which are made the passageways and doors of tears:

so that it seems to me it does him little honour
to wound me with his arrow, in that state,
he not showing his bow at all to you who are armed.

Imagine a love so intense and real that the idea of that person alone inspires hundreds of poems. Petrarch’s love for Laura was unceasing and although it brought great inspiration, it caused him even greater agony. He had contempt for men who persused women and wrote poems exclaiming Laura’s beauty and magnificence rather than love poems to woo her to him. Petrarch put Laura on a pedestal and glorified her name with his writing. He loved her unconditionally and that love was real, even though he was never able to have her.

Petrarch loved Laura until the day she died. She died at the age of 38, meaning Petrarch loved her for 21 years. Upon her death he experienced extreme grief and never loved again.

That is Petrarchan love.

Petrarch wasn’t and isn’t alone. My professor used “petrarchan” love to describe the feelings of many modernist writers, Matthew Arnold being my favorite. The poor guy fell in love with a girl that didn’t love him back…

We were apart; yet, day by day,
I bade my heart more constant be.
I bade it keep the world away,
And grow a home for only thee;
Nor fear’d but thy love likewise grew,
Like mine, each day, more tried, more true.

The fault was grave! I might have known,
What far too soon, alas! I learn’d–
The heart can bind itself alone,
And faith may oft be unreturn’d.
Self-sway’d our feelings ebb and swell–
Thou lov’st no more;–Farewell! Farewell!

Arnold struggled with isolation and quite naturally a woman occupied his thoughts. Unlike Petrarch however, many of the modernist authors did not embrace their unrequited love, but bemoaned their loneliness and complained about their circumstances.

In our day we are no different than Petrarch or Arnold. Whether we like to admit it or not we all fall in love. We have to fall in love. In many ways Arnold mirrored the attitude of John Donne’s idea that, “no man is an island entire of itself.” As hard as we try to tell ourselves otherwise, we can’t, and don’t want to be alone. It helps to know that through the ages, people have felt just like we do.

So the next time you fall in love with a cute boy or girl you always see in the library, don’t feel so bad facebook stalking them, Petrarch or Arnold would do the same.

But first, a little bit about Saint Jude. I took this handsome little excerpt from ourcatholicprayers.com (Note their excellent use of logic proving prayer actually works):

Are you faced with a desperate situation? The prayer to St. Jude printed below helps remind us that nothing is impossible with God, even help when you’re at your wit’s end. Considering that thanksgiving notes appear in newspapers to this patron saint of desperate cases, praying to him must have some effect!

St. Jude was one of the twelve Apostles. Mark’s (3:18) and Matthew’s (10:3) gospels refer to him as Thaddeus (a surname meaning “amiable or “loving”), possibly in part to distinguish him from Judas Iscariot, our Lord’s betrayer! John’s gospel refers to him in the last supper as “Judas… not the Iscariot” (14:22).

Here is my Saint Jude candle:

St. Jude, not to be confused with that ignominious betrayer Judas!

Here is the prayer printed on the back of the candle:

Most holy Apostle St. Jude, faithful servant and friend of Jesus, pray for me. I find myself feeling desperate during this time of great need. I beseech you to bring me noticeable and prompt aid. I promise you Saint Jude, that I well ever be mindful of this great favor and I will always honor you as my most powerful guardian (concentrate on your desires). Amen.

Fight Memoir

Its 3:13 am and I cant sleep. I thought of you blog.

I’ll tell you a story. So there was this time I wanted to be a cage fighter. I found a gym and I began training. Oh I trained hard. I would run everyday and spend a couple hours in the gym every night. I trained in boxing, jiu-jitsu, and kickboxing. It got to the point where I could throw a mean right. So I felt ready to fight. I signed up for the local “Smoker Bouts” at my gym which are amature fights that the gym hosts twice a year. The matchmaker called me and talked to me about potential matchups. Matchmaker matchmaker make me a match, find me a find, catch me a catch. Boy did she ever. I was matched up with this scrappy Mexican kid named Jeremy or Jason or some J name. Tough guy. We would see each other around the gym before the fight and he made it clear he didn’t want to be friends. He would glare at me and I heard that he was talking a bunch of beep about me behind my back. Saying things like “Im going to murder him” and “I feel sorry for him when they lock us in the cage.” Hes so tough. I wasn’t afraid though. I was taller and better looking, and I have a mean right.

Fight day arrives. I don’t eat all morning because we have weigh ins at 1:00. I weigh in at 157, two pounds over, ugh im so fat. Im supposed to be back at the gym by 3:00 because we are the first fight at 4:00 and I need to get my hands wrapped up and warm up. So I stop by Café Rio and get a burrito and head home. I didn’t know what to do with myself when I got there. I mean, when your about to fight someone in a couple hours, but you’ve got some free time to kill, what are you supposed to do? I got on FB and checked my email and ate my burrito and drank some water, started chatting with people then realized I should probably get a little more serious about what was about to happen. Again I wasn’t sure what to do, so I turned on a UFC fight and did crunches while I watched it. Im so fierce.

Got to the gym, wrapped my hands and started to warm up with my corner man. He is one of the fighters for Throwdown that I had never worked with before but he liked my mean right and gave me a few pointers on how to use it better. Okay so its fight time. No one tells me so the referee guy keeps calling my name over and over waiting for me to come out. Finally I get word and run out and they played the killers Mr. Brightside for me as my “walk-out” song. Im so fierce! I get in the ring and do the normal tough guy run around and shuffle and I hear my friends yelling my name so I find them in the crowd and do that cool guy point at them and close one eye thing. Im loving it. Im ready to fight.

Jeremy or Jason or whatever his name is runs out and joins me in the cage and the ref calls us to the center and goes over the rules and we head back to our corners then he starts the fight. This is where my memory cuts out, but fortunately my friend recorded it and the events from the next few minutes aren’t lost to me forever. As I watch the video I see that the fight starts and like any good fighter, I begin to feel my opponent out. This means to gauge my reach and his and get an idea of a good distance between us. I throw a curious left jab and he leans away from it. He throws a left jab and I back up, but it catches my left arm and that prevents me from stopping his right hook. All that this means is that he punched me in the face super hard. I was knocked unconscious immediately and he tackled me to the mat where I hit my head like woah. The ref pulls him off me and I just lay there unconscious with my face bleeding all over. Holden Caulfield was there and he said, “It was a hell of a gruesome sight, it really was.” Im out for almost a minute and when I finally do come to (not that I remember it, but from what people tell me) they kept asking me if I had any friends there that could take me to the emergency room, I kept answering no. I did have like 7 or 8 friends there that night though (I guess my subconscious doesn’t consider them very good friends?).

What I first remember is I’m in the passenger seat of my buddy Zack’s car and I’m looking at my lip in the mirror. Then it goes black for awhile and the next thing I remember is I’m sitting in the ER waiting room with Zack and he is telling me I got knocked out and I don’t believe him. Its not just that I don’t believe him about getting knocked out, but I don’t even believe that I was in a cage fight. I remember the feeling, I felt like all my training was just a dream and that I had never done any of it. I ended up losing that argument though when it finally started coming back to me and I remembered I had a fight that day. I started laughing so hard! It was hilarious to me that I had gotten knocked out and that I “came to” in an emergency room. I was giddy. I was a chatter box with all my nurses and the doctor that stitched me up. The cut on my lip was crazy! It wasn’t just on the outside, my lip was cut all the way through and I could put my finger through it! I got 6 stitches and an MRI and then I asked to have my ribs x-rayed too (I had a previous injury from a couple weeks prior where some oaf threw me down and landed on me and I thought one of my ribs cracked, but it didn’t).

I went home and took a bath then some of the friends that went to the fight came over and we talked about it. They said they were freaking out when I got knocked out because I was seizuring. Seizuring! Such a good night.

Well that’s my story. I wish I could say it ends there, but its never ending! Surprise! Apparently my concussion was pretty bad. I tried to go on with life for a couple weeks but when I couldn’t understand what I was reading in a textbook one night I knew I needed to get my head checked out. I went to a specialist and got Alex, a good looking concussion rehab doctor. He rides a motorcycle and has perfectly messy hair and talks like a mix between Dr. Phil and a surfer. I kind of hate him. I couldn’t drive for awhile and I had to do crazy things to my life like move home, drop classes, and not use my brian. Im still in rehab and Alex would kill me if he knew it was almost 4:00 am and Im still up. He wants me in bed by 11 on week nights. Oh Alex, it’s because you care!

Here is my story in pictures

Walking out to Mr. Brightside

I'm so ready for this

"You guys know the rules? Okay, touch gloves and lets have a good clean fight."

I can still win at this point

Unconscious-bleed-all-over-the-mat-sezure-time

The word to describe that wound on my face is "gaping"

I really don't know how this picture could be any more awesome

It's like it never happened!

Oh wait...

Oh no!

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