2024-09-06
I needed this. I've just seen Omoide no Marnie... I cried quite profusely. I always do, I suppose, when watching movies.
It seems like the world of film is so perfect. The characters can always draw; the backdrop is beautiful and the art too; the people are faulted only in a singular way; the tomatoes never fail; the weather is thematic; there is never work; there is never stress, never pressure; there is never the ugliness of the modern day and its additions, subtractions; there is a kind of beauty captured in the life that is imperfect in that perfect way, where joy and sorrow abound, never anger, frustration, annoyance; where morals are irrelevant and all is good; where there is never a computer to capture the words; where the diary is read and written; where letters are written, and calls are on the landline; where one is certain of the wild mushrooms, not unsure; where the dinners are meat and salads; where the knife cuts perfectly; where the times of the tide are known; where there is never oversleeping; where there is never tiredness at inopportune times; where the tears flow readily where appropriate; where it all is so very beautiful.
Yet, is real life of this sort? Could real life be of this sort? Or is it never of this sort? Am I the cause of it not being of this sort?
Do I think too much?
It's too perfect, but I would like to take away some horrifically corrupted aspects. In a way, my presence corrupts, my words and writing corrupt the beauty - and the film was beauty - and I never could write with beauty. I wish this world of mine, as experienced, was of beauty. There's a perfect beauty in the film; to borrow the words, it is the beauty of *eikyuu ni*. Where is that eternal beauty in reality? Imperfections are only present as the story allows. What is the story of life?
I want to write a proper diary. And if I could overcome my vices, would that not generate in a way that kind of beauty I desire?
And I draw, sketch, could I not create, find, seek, that kind of beauty I desire? For to cycle up to Old Leigh and to observe the sunset there would be a beauty I cannot imagine. A beauty I only wish I could imagine. I did want to, when I was younger, only several years ago, actually, go to Leigh, and observe the sunset from the benches atop Belton Way. Could I not? Would that not be magnificent? With the bicycle beside me and the sunset before me. The tide in or out depending on the hour.
Dreams. Reality is harsher; the roads are heavily motorised, and to cycle is scary, so very scary, and distressing, even though I am capable of it. It is merely uglier in reality. The emotion is harder to conjure. The view is uglier, the emotion is uglier, the person is uglier. There is no skill in my hand to sketch in that way. To think I must practise is an ugly mode of thought. It is all so ugly, in reality, and for beauty to prevail, there must be something else; a sense of beauty in the person, and I have lost all sense of beauty about my person. I am thinking in the mode of productivity; the mode of work; the mode of gains; the mode of routine and ritual; the mode of self-flagellation; the mode of lethargy; the mode of similarity; the mode of the grey sky, the grey man, the grey mind; oh, grey does represent it well! I suppose I desire a certain vividness; even pencil can draw vivid colour into the eye of the mind.
Then if I am at fault, then it is my fault; I've acquired this state unto myself, and have generated it for myself; I could generate a better state. I could undo any harms of the past years: the repression, the quietude, the inhibition, the moderation, the consequentialism, the double-checking, the control... if I were freer! Then I might drink wine with impunity and find it beautiful, where the taste is abhorrent; I might take to myself a bottle for the night, and enjoy it, so thoroughly, truly thoroughly! Is there more beauty in sobriety, or cider as I enjoy, or beer, or wine, or limoncello? I deny myself at each turn, that I think, I shan't drink wine as the taste is ugly, or, I shan't drink cider as it is bad for my sleep, or, I must go to the gym, and then treat myself horrifically with each day I do not go, and then have work, where I am given more than I can handle, and I want to cry. The movie allows me in this way to cry, but it is the beauty of the film, and the ugliness of life, that causes me to cry. What can be done to make life beautiful? Did I even find beauty in it as a child?
I find prosperity beautiful, yet despise the middle-class life; I find grandeur magnificent, yet despise the decadence; I find beauty, yet never where I am; am I the absence of beauty? Is it myself I find negates the beauty? Can I never experience pleasure of that magnitude, the sheer appreciation, the raw taking in, unbridled and unprocessed, of the beauty of a moment, of a thing, of a person?
I bit my nails even during the film. Odd, that I could not keep myself in the state I desire even when expose to the magnificent beauty. In a way then, I suppose it is myself that I feel is a thing lacking beauty, an earthly thing, a failed thing, a human thing... The movie never shows the bitter argument, the wrenching pain of an apology, the lack of clarity in one's chest... It never shows that you are not sure what to write in the card, or that the scene cannot be captured by the hand and the eye that measure it. These horrific things that constitute life are not there. I wring my hands at this, and desire a life of better beauty... Is it possible? Or am I complaining about fiction not being real?
I've to pick up my mother from the station tonight. The train will almost certainly be late... I would like to try something different tonight. I'm a little hungry. I did not eat last night, nor breakfast, nor have I eaten dinner tonight. I've surprisingly little appetite. In a way, it is wonderful not to need to eat. I always eat too much, that horrific vice. And at the same time, I want to go the gym tomorrow. It is strange, the lack of beauty in a gym. But of course, life cannot be all beauty. The problem I have right now, is that I've focussed on productivity and not focussed on beauty. I've lost the ability to see beauty. I haven't had the ability for many years. If I cease earthly stimulation, then I wonder if it is the sheer novelty that will then return the beauty, but if it will not be lost within that very moment... Much as the sexual passion behaves. The beauty of a Ghibli film then is that it does not have these kinds of passions, naturally, as it is a children's film. The beauty seems to last for longer. Yet, I wonder if I drew, and could draw, if the passion and the beauty of that would not become mundane also?
It's all very depressing. I think my life needs more beauty; the seasons cannot give me that, as we are in September already and will soon be in October, then winter... So, I suppose I must make do. I must try to find where beauty is again, and perhaps, just perhaps, focus less of the productivity, and the stress, and all those abhorrent things; just sit by the seaside, and focus on the movement of the waves.
Have a good one.