on desire,

‘L’appétit avec conscience de lui-même’ - ”Appetite with knowledge of himself,” was the definition of desire for Spinoza. Indeed, in its universal definition, the desire is a particular tendency to want to get something to satisfy a need, a desire. In philosophy, the longing/desire to seek recognition of others and demonstrates a lack. It is a condition of human life that can register its existence in time, because the desire is inseparable from the projection into the future.

Living without releasing your desires is to live like a stone. In an ancient text describing conversations with his pupils, Socrates thinks that a life incontinent, that is to say without restraint, is a dissolute life and inconsistent. Using a metaphor, Socrates shows that such a life is absurd because it amounts to fill barrels drilled. Callicles responds that it is precisely this inconsistency is a source of pleasure and excitement. ”The man with casks has no pleasure,” because happiness is not in possession and comfort, but in the excitement of the conquest and the alternation of pleasure and pain.

As Rousseau said, “It excites the imagination and nourishes (…) desires” and who attribute to the object, qualities he did not. The reality is often disappointing because it does not coincide with what I had imagined and the expectation of appointment is sometimes more beautiful than the appointment itself. Rousseau concludes, “we enjoy what we get less than what we hoped, and we are happy to be happy than before.“

Life without desire is the life of a death in life. This amounts to show that even the desire is inseparable from life. So the real reason emerges from the struggle between the desires. So the desire is part and parcel of human life; an essential faculty of human life. It is constitutive of individuals and allows them to move forward in life because a desire is constantly renewed by another and so on … The people, through desire, seek to fill a lack - a flaw. And we do not mind, one bit.

January remnants

More photos from winter adventures in January.

Here's our buddy, Fred:

birthday weekend

I turned twenty this past week.

Spent the weekend with some friends (minus Shantel and Myra, unfortunately).

(death of Jenga tower)

Ended the day at David's Tea with Georgia, MJ, and David!

tumbl'n back

Shantel and I have Tumblr accounts now. Well, I had one two years ago and then forgot about it and made another one a few months back. Shantel, on the other hand, made hers a couple of weeks earlier, and she's already got more substantial content than I do!

Also, there's a new e-mail address where you can all direct your questions/further comments: holdhandsbreathelight@ymail.com. (Apologies to those who have e-mailed us and did not receive a response! For some reason, the old hotmail was sending them all to the Junk folder and then deleting them forever into cyber abyss.)
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Today's featured photo is of a less snowy and less hazardous Queen's Park, taken on a relatively warm day earlier this month. (It's difficult to make out, but there's a girl walking on the path a few distances away, wearing such a beautifully bright red pea coat.)

misgivings

"Hatred is like a long, dark shadow. Not even the person it falls upon knows where it comes from, in most cases. It is like a two-edged sword. When you cut the other person, you cut yourself. The more violently you hack at the other person, the more violently you hack at yourself. It can often be fatal. But it is not easy to dispose of. [..] Once it has taken root in your heart, hatred is the most difficult think in the world to shake off."
— Haruki Murakami (The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle)

Things to note as the end of January approaches:
1. Lazy mode should not begin now.
2. Catch up with sleep. It misses you dearly.
3. Go home more often.

It seems like I can't catch up with time, because I have so many goals set for this year, I don't really know how to organize them properly. Maybe I'm just too lazy to start, or too eager to multi-task. I don't think it's the later option, either.

a relay of sorts - January

from my neighbourhood walks, taken a few weeks ago

Last week was eventful  in comparison to any other school week. As I've mentioned in the previous post, Monday was stressful due to school applications for abroad. And consequently, Twitter was bombarded by obscenities fueled by frustration and despair, mainly directed to the university and its unreliable tech service. But at the end of the day, all was well after being cheered up by two of my favourite people and finally having my application go through successfully (eight hours later). Now, all I can do is wait until April! Fingers are continually crossed.

The following day was much better. I had some alone time before my 3-hr class, so I picked up my reserved copy of the latest issue of Lula (featuring Charlotte Gainsbourg on the cover). Lula always manages to put together a visual dream in material form. I feel like floating whenever I flip through the pages. (Take a peak here.)

And that night, my friend Amanda and I had an interesting time with The Vaccines. At one point, Freddie and Pete were singing "Blue Jay Way" by The Beatles to us for no given reason. They played a pretty good albeit short set at the Horseshoe. But the highlight of the night was definitely going home to a mass of tweets about "Angles" - The Strokes' fourth LP. I was restless all night and couldn't sleep. I sent so many people delirious text messages that I ended up receiving a slew of concerned responses in the morning.

Wednesday to Friday ensued with much gushing and excitement. (The Strokes have that effect on me.) Saturday came, and Shantel and co. picked me up for a joyride to the west. We had an impromptu snow adventure at High Park, where Shantel, her brother, and her roommate went tobagganning down a very steep hill that led to the lake. I opted out of the tobagganning venture, though, and was perfectly happy to assume the role of audience for the feat. It was also bitingly cold. I feel like it's been -35degrees since last week with non-stop snow since Thursday. But I've actually been enjoying bundling up and dressing warm. Layers all the way!

consideration.

“No days, perhaps, of all our childhood are ever so fully lived are those that we had regarded as not being lived at all: days spent wholly with a favourite book.” — Marcel Proust

Currently reading: The Reveries of a Solitary Walker, Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

These days, reading at home seems to be a great past-time. The weather constantly seems to dip, and leaves me blasting on the heat.
Me + Toasty room [bed] + Coffee in favorite mug = Time well spent.

Holiday cards '10

This past holiday, I made it a goal to create my own set of cards to give friends.
Using pages from an old French book and various cutouts from Ikea catalogues, buttons, deco tape, type letters, acrylic paint, etc, I came up with the following:

Next set to make: Valentine cards?

requiem.

Every exit is an entrance somewhere else.
It's not until you get to know people that you begin to find out what it was in the past that made them who they are today, and why they do things they do, or think the things they think.

You can choose to blame your circumstances on fate, bad luck, or bad choices.

Or, you can fight back.

Things aren’t always going to be fair in the real world. That’s just the way it is.
But for the most part, you get what you give.
The rest of your life is being shaped right now.
With the dreams you chase, the choices you make, and the person you decide to be.

The rest of your life is a long time.
And the rest of your life starts right now.

dancing on my own

"Remember: the time you feel lonely is the time you most need to be by yourself. Life’s cruelest irony."
— Douglas Coupland

I blame exams, failed relationships, and laziness, as the main reasons why this blog has halted into a stand-still. However, things are looking up. Things will blossom again.

Kingston

Last weekend, MJ and I went to Kingston to see Myra and other high school friends.
We spent Halloween there -- an interesting time to explore the town and the Queens campus.

It's a lovely, quaint place.

irony in freedom

He stood, a point
on a sheet of green paper
proclaiming himself the centre,

with no walls, no borders
anywhere; the sky no height
above him, totally un-
enclosed
and shouted:

Let me out!

- Margaret Atwood, Progressive Insanities of a Pioneer

Postcrossing!

A little over a month ago, I decided to sign up for this international postcard exchange project called Postcrossing. Basically, you sign up and are given an address from a random part of the world. Once the person receives it, they register your postcard #, which would then enable you to start receiving postcards from someone else from another part of the world - what a concept!

This week, I finally received my first batch of postcards. One from the US and the other from Finland!

The second photo above is of my first batch of postcards that I've sent about a month ago. I'm excited to start sending again. You should give it a try!

remnants of summer

I'm pretty much on the same boat as Shantel about not really missing summer. But I sure do miss the time of liberty. Last night, I finally set aside readings and overall feelings of uni lethargy and got around to uploading my remaining photos of summer.

The above photo's a favourite of mine. Georgia and I went for afternoon tea at a place on Queen West back in June/July. We loved it there so much, we just had to go back!

Notice the water in the glass seems to be almost translucent in colour - that's because they add cantaloupe in the jar to add some flavour to it. Neat-o.

12.

Suffering … is not just lots of pain but pain amplified by distinctly human emotions such as regret, self-pity, shame, humiliation, and dread.

If you have not read the works of Michael Pollan, I suggest you work your way into a book store, as soon as possible.

Autumn is here, and I don't miss summer one bit.
Cheers.

To see a world in a grain of sand...

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
-William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

quiet loss

I've noticed there are times in the night when everything appears to be crystal clear - when thoughts and ideas just sort of tie in smoothly with one another, and everything just seems to make sense. In these fleeting and rare instances of time, it's as if Life momentarily gives you a taste of the answers that you've sought after for so long, just as you are about to doze off. But trying to grapple onto such moments of clarity, while fighting the urge to surrender to slumber, is never easy.

And then, the next thing you know, the morning sun is greeting you once again with a promise of a fresh start of a new day.

Yet there's also that quiet lingering feeling inside as if you just lost something. You can't really put your finger on what it was, but you're kind of sure it was there...

changing seasons

Not too recently, I've been interested in all things philately, so expect a tonne of future posts from me relating to snail mail and such. For the meantime, we all recently got back to uni, hence an even more sparsely updated blog.

Temperatures are gradually dropping each day, and the leaves from the rustling trees are prepping up to change hues. Fall is among us, and I couldn't be more thrilled. I was never fond of the previous season - with all the sweltering heat and pesky mosquitoes it never failed to bring about. And not to mention the overall feel of lethargy that seems to take over everything. Don't get me wrong, I love the freedom summer brings, but its overall romanticism just seems to get lost whenever the season is actually upon us. Nevertheless, my summer went well. I spent a bit of it in East Coast America, which was neat.

There was a family of hawks nesting in the neighbour's pier when I was in Woodbridge, VA.

78

"Seclusion is the price of greatness."

School has already begun for some of us.
My coffee-induced sleep patterns will be just as whack as it was in the summer.
However, I couldn't mind - autumn is right around the corner, and I cannot wait to buy myself a pair of warm boots!

Breathe a good, long sigh of relief, after finishing up your back-to-school errands. Make this year, a memorable one.

Homes don't matter.

[...] We could live in any home, in any city, in any country, in any century, and be happy, as if the world were just what we lived in.

- Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close