Boats Against the Current

“We live in time—it holds us and moulds us—but I’ve never felt I understood it very well. And I’m not referring to the theories about how it bends and doubles back, or may exist elsewhere in parallel versions. No, I mean ordinary, everyday time, which clocks and watches assure us passes regularly: tick-tock, click-clock. Is there anything more plausible than a second hand? And yet it takes only the smallest pleasure or pain to teach us time’s malleability. Some emotions speed it up, others slow it down; occasionally, it seems to go missing—until the eventual point when it really does go missing, never to return.”

—Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending

This was one of those novels I wanted to read as soon as I had the chance to do so. After receiving it in the mail days before Christmas, I dove in.

More than any other contemporary writer I’ve read, Julian Barnes is a British representation of Lost Generation writers. I think my fascination for their themes and styles exceeds reasonable measure to stay on topic here. Even though it’s not holistically historical fiction, Julian Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending plays with the very concept of time and history—defining and refining it while addressing its significance in the life of the narrator.

Written in first-person narration, the novella is branded as a psychological thriller. I didn’t expect anything haunting or scary as the term implied, but eventually my exposure to the genre definitely confirmed its meaning. At times, the narrator doesn’t allow the reader to cultivate empathy for him, causing the reader to have a disinterest in the narrator’s character, but not a disinterest in the story itself. With this effect, I only wanted to read more and more to see how the story would transition. Perhaps this is representative of the type of response that people generate when hearing of other people’s issues in a particular way, i.e. when being exposed to the temporary depths of how poor of a condition the person’s character, the person’s approach to the world, and the person’s stance on living is actually in. Although I’m speaking of only a fraction of the novel, the author definitely constructs this well.

The narrator often gave the impression of an average person with the passivity for two. At the onset, there’s certainly isn’t anything remarkable about his aim to maintain “peacefulness” in life; it’s simply an inflated word for being stubborn. What I think really matters here, however, is his insistence to seek truth. This was like a ‘coming-of-age novel,’ but built up with more than the typical dimensions and the average content that the term implies. The narrator is a British man that shows in his typical life that all actions—or the lack thereof—make a difference as people conduct their lives in the boundaries of human experience. Because whether we recognize them or not, life does have boundaries. (Feel free to ask me about this.)

For a while, the novel justifies suicide. And, for a while, this didn’t sit too well with me. But as I further developed an understanding of the narrator’s character as the novel unraveled, his willingness to justify the suicide of a friend only underscores his own insistence to take life as it comes, rather than taking action by either using or ending life, the gift that no one asked for. Because, in a sense, a passive life is a suicidal life. 

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MOVE Community Conference

I’m currently drinking chai while starting this blog entry in an airport. Since I have yet to leave, I’m unsure as to whether I’m able to possess a seasoned reflection on the experience I’ve had the past few days, i.e. to the extent of giving you a very tangible grasp on it through words. But blogging is an experiment after all.

In any case, I attended the long-awaited seventeenth TWLOHA MOVE Community Conference in Chicago this weekend. If you’re not familiar with this, the attendees discussed depression, addiction, suicide, and self-injury with two licensed mental health counselors along with some members of the TWLOHA team. As expected, the discussion was very dense. Some segments of the topics proved to be illuminating to me. It was also great to witness a licensed, well-experienced counselor efficiently facilitate a discussion on such topics.

What fascinated me the most, however, is the atmosphere that was cultivated there. Other attendees sharing their stories as we talked about the topics definitely kept me on the edge of my seat. I’ve never experienced people speak so openly and share so many ideas on the stigma of mental illness, the appropriate way to intervene as someone suffers, and exactly what recovery looks like for inflicted individuals. I would say the entire conference had so much sustenance that it deserved to be televised. (We did get a little coverage by a local news station though.)      

As far as experiencing the city of Chicago while the conference was not in session, I mostly hung out with some conference attendees from Florida. We went to some popular downtown restaurants, but I found myself devouring the food mostly due to an unquenched appetite rather than fascination for the food itself. My only prognosis for this is that since I’ve been eating New England food the past few months, the only alternative I would legitimately enjoy is that native Southern and Creole food. When I wasn’t eating, I had my very first experience with using subways.

Chicago definitely earns its name as the Windy City; as I found myself walking in different directions while lost with the Floridians downtown, the wind always managed to blow its chilled Lake Michigan vapor directly into our faces. Regardless of this, experiencing the Windy City was an ideal break from the world of academia before I take my exams to close the semester.

I would encourage anyone that enjoys discussing pertinent issues revolving around mental illness to attend a MOVE conference. Also, engaging in the conversation there could be somewhat like a homecoming for those who have overcome suffering. (At least I can speak for myself.)

Since I have finally attended a conference, I am one step closer to bringing a UChapter to my school’s campus. I look forward to providing students not only a way to provide awareness, but also a way to present compassion and reality to those that are inflicted so they can realize that they are not alone in their struggles and that hope is as real as the pain that they’re experiencing. (Not to mention creating community on campus as well as getting involved in the local community.) I’m hoping the rest of the process of establishing a UChapter goes smoothly. With that said, I’m just keeping my fingers crossed.

With hope,

Dear Darrian

“Truth. 
It feels cool, like water washing over my sticky-hot body. Cooling a heat that’s been burning me up all my life. 
Truth, I say inside my head again, just for that feeling.” 
― Kathryn Stockett, The Help

Although a native of Mississippi, Kathryn Stockett wrote The Help while living in New York. In her epilogue, she mentions how this change in setting from the South gave her a more pronounced perception when writing the historical fiction novel. I suppose it’s only fitting that I’m writing this blog entry while off at school in New England. 

I read the novel during a stay in my hometown. I’ve been aiming to write this post for quite some time now, but I hope my distant recollections can do my experience reading the work justice. I noticed Stockett instilled the best-selling novel with chunks of history. Given that it’s relatively recent history, however, a learned reader can envision the world she unravels in a very defined fashion, which is certainly complimented by her gift of prose. I can literally recall places she mentions in the novel that I’ve visited quite frequently during my own childhood.   

Sometimes the work had so much clarity that I sought the need to decrease the pace in which I read the chapters. I’ve heard that some readers have had very negative reactions to the clarity of both the characters’ social interactions and the characters’ lifestyles in the work. These people fail to realize that it is a writer’s obligation to instill emotion in the reader. If the writer fails to do this, then their label as being one should be reconsidered. I’ve recently acknowledged my fondness for historical fiction, and I have to say there’s nothing more captivating than reading The Help while sitting in a Mississippi house built during that timeframe.

The novel also resonates beyond my ability to relate to the setting Stockett creates; the themes are well crafted, along with her communication of human behavior through the characters. The reader is reminded exactly how inflexible a person can be, either in regards to societal norms or a person’s own conviction of how society should actually exist. The reader is also reminded that a person may hold a conviction, but not necessarily hold it in the default shape of reason, i.e. there are different forms of ignorance, or different forms of rationality. Given the way in which these aspects take shape in the novel—treatment towards other races, marital conflicts, and others—the reader is left with dense—or even triggering or taboo—situations to recognize these matters.  

All in all, you know you’re reading a good book when you find yourself in the depths of empathy. Stockett gives the reader an optimism that is shared with characters of the novel—a profound optimism representative of the hopes of individuals of that community who sought—and currently desire—change.

With hope,

Dear Darrian

Just for an update on the American Giving Awards presented by Chase: TWLOHA won. I’m really looking forward to seeing the organization grow and also to continue to grow in it. My first experience with a TWLOHA event was a while back at their Lyrics and Conversation tour. At the time, I was just getting more serious about guitar and it was great to experience the live acoustic performers complement each other’s playing styles and contribute to each other’s individual songs. With each song played, stories were told by the performers and thought provoking questions were answered by the audience. The special thing about the event was the small turnout, causing a good atmosphere for discussion. The significance of the music itself, however, is that it’s a wonderful medium for stimulating reflection and discourse on the topic of depression overcoming trials of life in general. 

For awhile now, I’ve been a Street Team member for TWLOHA so you’ll see a fraction of the content on my blog publicizing the organization and its efforts, like The Water Under the Golden Gate is Freezing. For many reasons, the movement means a lot to me, and I’m excited to experience what my future holds with it. 

With hope,  

Dear Darrian

Apparently I wasn’t following the American Giving Awards correctly (because of the madness called ‘being in college’), but we eventually won, hehe. 

The Blog and The Poem

We as people have a natural tendency to speak in metaphors. Not only does this come from our inclinations to simplify an explanation from its excesses, but also to create a figure for an abstract idea to grasp a more wholesome understanding. In some cases, the idea may not be abstract at all.

I noticed this site is often used for re-blogging various things that may or may not resonate with a blogger that often have no correlation with anything else that is posted on their blog. But my purpose is different. This blog will be a truncated collection of my passions; this includes news I want to share about me, book reviews, music reviews, relevant morsels of inspiration, and as well as my take on on-goings in this universe that we share with each other.

I mentioned all of this with the intent to bring up my decision to name this blog after the poem Cadaver Canvas. Often quotes, songs, or movie titles are used as metaphors to amplify meaning of another entity. And that’s exactly my intent, but one may wonder what meaning I am implying because of this.

Acknowledging this tendency to speak in metaphors, Cadaver Canvas is about extracting subsistence, tension, pretenses, and truth from life experiences. The snapshots I give on this blog will be my intent to expose that. You’re more than welcome to join in; ask, comment, and share your ideas with me on any particular posts. I look forward to seeing this project grow.  

With hope,  

Dear Darrian