#indefinable

[deepwaterwritingprompts]

Deep Water Prompt #2648

“Where is the water?” she asks, using one sharp finger to prod at my stomach. “We know you’ve got it in there, somewhere.”

[j-august]

He breathed deeply, savouring the heady, herb-scented air of an Aegean dawn. The salt tang of the sea, the drowsily sweet perfume of honeysuckle, the more delicate, sharper fragrance of mint all subtly merged into an intoxicating whole, indefinable, unforgettable.

Alistair MacLean, The Guns of Navarone

[whats-in-a-sentence]

Most indefinable of all was dao, the "Way" that Daoists follow:

The Way that can be spoken of is not the true Way;

The name that can be named is not the true name . . .

Both may be called mysterious.

Mysterious and still more mysterious,

The gateway of all subtleties!

"Why the West Rules – For Now: The patterns of history and what they reveal about the future" - Ian Morris

[winterfable]

Indefinable

Look, it cannot be seen - it is beyond form. Listen, it cannot be heard - it is beyond sound. Grasp, it cannot be held - it is intangible. These three are indefinable; Therefore they are joined in one.

From above it is not bright; From below it is not dark: An unbroken thread beyond description. It returns to nothingness. The form of the formless, The image of the imageless, It is called indefinable and beyond imagination.

Stand before it and there is no beginning. Follow it and there is no end. Stay with the ancient Tao, Move with the present.

Knowing the ancient beginning is the essence of Tao.

[inkwell-god]

Emotions are an odd thing. People always define them so simply; joy, sadness, anger, love. But I've never felt like that. Emotions are a thing only in so much as vegetables are a thing. You can point at some broccoli and say, Yep, that's a vegetable, but it's not. It's a flower. Emotions are like that. I can ride a powerboat and think, Yeah, I'm happy, but that's not quite right. I don't have the words to describe how I feel. The people around me scream with ecstasy as water splashes over them, but I, don't. The boat lurches, spins, and tosses, I'm having a good time, but I can't tell you how I feel. Is happiness the right word? I don't have my dictionary right now, so I can't look it up. Is excitement the right word?

How do you even define an emotion? Each one is so different. I know there are hormone and chemical processes involved, so would you use an equation? This much, mixed with a little bit of this, equals happiness? But how would you check it? Would I need to do a piss test when I want to know how I feel?

I can tell when I'm feeling something I've seen someone feel. Like right now. I can empathise with whatever movie character that is from whatever road trip movie, looking at trees flying by, music playing but not being listened to. That's an emotion. I've felt it, but I don't have a word for it.

And what about inorganic emotions? Writing this out fills me with the same contented togetherness I felt when I read @diamonds456 post a few months back. We're all here, we're all feeling things, but what are we actually feeling? I mentioned a feeling just now, contentment. It's a word that means so much to me, but I couldn't define it. Well, I could, but "the state of being contented" is a shit definition. That doesn't convey the depth this word holds for me. 

Contentment is sitting next to an open window, watching a candle flame while listening to the rain, snuggled deep into a beanbag, covered in a handmade quilt, talking online with someone scared of storms, and just chatting, laughing through the night, joking about soup, taking about nothing and everything. 

Contentment is the feeling I get when I sit down with a good book, and just exist.

 Contentment is when I trade puns with some friends. 

Contentment is when I'm waiting for my coffee at the Bond and Bevel, and I settle down onto the soft leather couch, enveloped by the warmth and smell of my favourite shop.

A single word shouldn't mean so much, but still be indefinable.

Nervous is a word. When I was learning to drive, they asked me if I was nervous. I said no, because nervous was the wrong word for what I was feeling. I hadn't been behind the wheel before, but I understood the mechanics of the task. I knew what pedals did what, and what all the different levers were for. I knew what to do. So I wasn't nervous. But I also wasn't confident. I hadn't been behind the wheel, and so I didn't know how to drive. When I messed up turns, I would get, flustered? My heart rate would increase, and my ability to make decisions would worsen. I would make a mistake, leading to more heart racing leading to more mistakes. My instructor didn't think flustered was the right word, and insisted I was nervous. His insistence annoyed me , leading to me being distracted and making mistakes. And the cycle would repeat itself. 

Is joy eating a bowl of ice cream while standing in the rain?

I don't know where this is supposed to be going. 

I'm two hours away from the ocean. I'll probably feel things there. Awe, wonder, contentment, anger, annoyance, joy, eagerness, and humour. Is humour an emotion? When I laugh at or make a joke, am I feeling humour? That's not the right word. The situation may be humorous, but that's not what I'm feeling. 

The difference between a maintained forest and the glorious wonder I'm passing feels important. Miles and miles of trees, all taller than my home stacked on itself. Green needles on the outside, facing me, the road, and the sky, but bare branches inside, winding together to form a space separate from people, safe for animals and underbrush. Conifers intermingled with deciduous trees, forming something so different from forests I passed a while back. I grew up going through the same section of forest four times a year, and so I thought I was tired of seeing conifers. I thought they were so boring, but they're beautiful. The same forest, when spread across hundreds of miles, has shown me so many different faces I was never aware of. DEER. A mother and two babies walking along the highway. 

Rocks are something, aren't they. Do you know what a batholith is? There are giant slabs of rock under the earth that used to be magma chambers. Over time, they rise up due to tectonic movement and push through the surface. I'm over parts of a batholith right now. The basalt sometimes peeks through the soil, and I can just stare at the gorgeous grey stone. It's so different from what I've always known. Iron oxide has always been a defining feature in the large rocks I see. Red mountains, red canyons, heck, even a red lake (It even dyed my shirt red.)

Stopped at a deli for a sandwich. An hour to the ocean. Saw a river and some goats. Off the freeway now. Fewer trees, more grass. There's the river again, beautiful. A lovely cottage, red walls, dry yellow moss on one side of the roof. Over the river again. 

It's summer, but the trees on that hill have orange leaves. The conifers have green needles. 

Factories are beautiful. I know this one exists to destroy the beauty around me; that's why the trees are dying on that hill. But it's still pretty. Piles of dark mulch, clean, industrial lines, utilitarian construction. Nothing wasted, every inch serving its purpose.

New hills now. Prairie grass and towering deciduous trees. A sprawling vineyard. An empty field. Another deer. DEER. Interesting.  Autocorrect thinks I should yell about the deer. DEER. An old grey pickup. A lone red house high in a hill. Trees slowly creeping back toward the road.  A slow creek. A hill covered in young saplings. 

I've gotten pretty far from emotions, haven't I? I want to keep writing, but I don't have more to say. Lincoln beckons from the floor, but I don't want to return there yet. 

I feel old. My bones creak and ache, my spine crackles when I move, I can't ever quite get comfortable

Green grasses now, and larger trees. An abandoned property with a bright blue pickup. A little greenhouse. A white sheet metal wall hiding nothing. Magenta flowers covering a hill. Back on the freeway. A clear cut hill. A gravel embankment. A basalt canyon, formed by men, carving a path across the land. Two dozen brass gnomes on a bench in a field.

I can see where forests were removed for lumber and then replanted. Swathes of land, with only a hint of growth, of recovery. 

A bear told me the air is clean today. We're not on fire yet, and the view is amazing. I can see so far. A beautiful boulder, a riveting riverside cliff wall, more miles of forest than I could ever hope to traverse. More magnificent magenta flowers. An anarchy flag flying in a clearing. The trees are taller here. Towering from the river bank six metres below, up a dozen more overhead. Another babbling brook. A town called Remote out here in the middle of nowhere. A country fiddle. 

Another forty miles to go. More magenta. 

I should stop staring at this screen and open my book, Lincoln is waiting, but I could think of something to say the moment I open the page. If I wasn't writing, you would never know about the fire coloured barn or the continuation of the magenta flowers.

What would you call that feeling when a song comes on, and the first few notes fill you with more joy than can be attributed to the song? It's not a special song, not something you remember well from your past, it just was there, an ordinary song you've heard many times before, but something about it just hit you like a truck, and you're left grinning like an idiot for the few minutes it takes for the song to end. But when the same song plays a week later, you feel nothing. You sang along to the words, but it was only for those three minutes, that one time, that this song took you somewhere else.

A rock farm, ripe for the harvest, a hillside cemetery, a field of cows, a yellow-daisy covered road, a lone crow. A lumber pond, filled with logs larger than semi trucks. A flat plain several miles long. A lumber yard. A beautiful abandoned factory, white sheet metal pocked with rivulets of rust. Nature is so grand. Even the areas that make me think of the Lorrax hold so much grandeur. The drama, the mystique, the feeling that I am so small in comparison to this mass of trees that existed before I did, and will continue to exist after I'm gone.

Well, I've arrived at my camp site. Still one mile from the coast, but I need to stop writing.

Walked down to the coast. The ceaseless grey waves slamming into miles of grey shore are amazing to behold. I picked up a rock. It's small, only slightly larger than my thumb. It's smooth and black, but not completely. There is a crevasse on one side that's the same size as my nail. Following the crack around the back, there's a burst of grey streaks. It's slightly oblong, but still turns easily in my fingers. It's a nice rock. I dropped it just now, and it closed my writing app. Maybe it's not such a nice rock after all. 

It's night now. I long to be down on that beach, strong, cold gusts of salty wind pushing me back, stars peeking through the clouds overhead. I could gather some driftwood, and after clearing any flammables from my vicinity, I could start a small fire, just bright enough to read by. I'd settle in, and work through this anthology. It's been pretty good so far. The first story was 120 pages long, and discussed what would happen if everything that could think got suddenly smarter. The one I'm on right now is about what would have happened if Lincoln hadn't died. 

Well, I should get some sleep, so this is the real end of this document. It's already 1800 words anyway; I won't be able to type here for much longer. Goodnight y'all.

[yorkcalling]

EP Review: Cabus - Psycho

EP Review: Cabus – Psycho

Psycho is the debut EP from new, up-and-coming alternative pop artist Cabus. Hailing from Dallas, USA, Cabus has pitched his EP as a journey through his world, his heart and the real-world issues that surround him and his audience. (more…)

[wordsmusicandstories]

Tranquillo Cremona -  Killed by His Favourite White

Tranquillo Cremona –  Killed by His Favourite White

In the two posts about Love and Mothers I included the image of Tranquillo Cremona’s painting “Maternal Love” (1873) in which a mother tenderly embraces her child.Tranquillo Cremona (10 April 1837 – 10 June 1878) was an Italian painter born in Pavia. As a young man he lived in Venice and then he moved to Milan where he became the exponent par excellence of the Lombard “Scapigliatura”. This…

[rottmnt-residuum]

The Blitz starts Monday and updates every day till Saturday for a total of 6 updates in a week :)

Tw for the blitz: Police Brutality, Bruising, Knives, Guns, Sedation, Abduction, PTSD, Blood, Death, Drowning, Dismemberment, Major Character Death, Corpses

[raspberrydraws]

I told my bf it's Zoro's birthday and he was like "oh no another scorpio" and then he said HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE FUCKING BEAST so yeah same happy birthday you beast

[paperlovesadness]

No, because I'm not over processing "Now & Then" and freaking out about what a perfect epilogue it is for the Beatles, but also what a perfect homage it is to John & Paul's friendship. And how much it feels like destiny.

The words "Now & Then" have so many strange ties to these boys. Because:

-> John's last words to Paul (during a meeting that no one could expect was their last) were: "think about me every now & then old friend".

-> John was murdered in December 1980. In February of 1981 a friend of Paul's - fellow musician Carl Perkins spent a week with him, participating in a recording of a song for his album. To thank him and Linda for their hospitality during the time, the night before he was meant to leave, Carl sat down and spontaneously wrote them a song titled "My Old Friend". He played it to them the next morning and Paul started crying and had to leave to gather himself. Linda McCartney then assured Carl it was okay and thanked him for helping Paul, because he had problems facing his emotions about the attack before that. And then she stopped and asked him "but how did you know?" and Carl had no idea what she meant. She explained that the only people who knew what John's last words to Paul were was her and Paul himself. And then she revealed what those words were. Carl had no idea, but he ended up accidentally including them in that song.

The chorus of that song went as follows:

My old friend, Thanks for inviting me in My old friend, May this goodbye never mean the end And if we never meet again this side of life In a little while, over yonder, Where it’s peace and quiet My old friend, Won’t you think about me every now and then

Paul then insisted on recording that song with Carl Perkins, which they did - and recalling that story later Carl said that Paul felt like that song was sent to him by John through Carl.

-> By now we all know the story of how this "new" Beatles song came to be - After John's death, Yoko found a demo tape of songs he never completed, that she then handed over to Paul so that him, George & Ringo could record the last new Beatles songs in 1995 as part of an anthology that was being released. (they wanted to record new material, but had promised never to do so without all the members included. So using these demos was the only way).

There's lots of places that claim the tape with the demos had "For Paul" written on it by John - but admittedly, I haven't actually seen a source quoted. Still - the fact that one of the songs on that last demo of new material they ever got from John was titled with some of the last words he ever said to his best friend? The lyrics of that song being what they are? Come on.

(It very much also just felt like a song for Paul to me. With how complex that relationship was - how intense all the emotions were - through love and diss tracks to still calling each other best friends while they weren't on good terms. Missing each other).

Then - destiny working the way it did, not allowing them to record that one track in 1995 because of the awful quality. Making it so that it was their actual last song in 2023. Because only now did the technology allow for seperating those vocals and fixing them up so that they can actually be used.

Like are you kidding me??? It was that one. The one that felt most special.

-> Bonus fact. The back of the record sleeve has a photo of a special art piece on it - from George Harrison's collection. One that provides another serendipitous moment in connection to these words:

Image source: [x]

And I'm just supposed to be alright with all of this?????????

[deepwaterwritingprompts]

Deep Water Prompt #2650

I go to watch the Melting alone, despite the danger. “I don’t know why you even want to see it,” says mother, not looking at me, “it’s so horrible.”

[random-human-being2311]

this doctor who fanfic solving The Gay Fanfic Dilemma of same-pronoun vagueness by having the doctor go exclusively by they/them is the best way to go about it.

[the-gayest-tree-you-ever-did-see]

i have to give it to jasico shippers, yall will draw the boys kissing SO HARD its impossible to believe they arent canon... like if they just kiss hard enough theyll transcend it all

[gender-luster]

we have got to expand our ideas and categories when it comes to types of close interpersonal relationships. because as it is, we only really have three (romantic/sexual [counted as one because they are still considered pretty much inseparable by society] familial, platonic) when there is just so much more nuance to the human experience than can really be accurately contained in those three (really four) labels

[lcpmon]

Ppl need their childhood friendships or ships in general or whatever but the twins being a safe adult friendship for eIesa as a teen is literally peak u don't even understand mang. Nobody gets it

16-18 y/o eIesa excited to get her first big girl commission from the twins for their new uniform when they step up and become the new masters and finally start discussing the battIe subway plans legally

[sordidacogitationesetmagis]

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