30 vii. 2002 - 23:49 - verba27

This is part of Alchera's multipartite fourth project option.

You've chosen to throw yet another suitcase overboard. This must have been a difficult decision.

But yet the captain comes to you again and says, "I know I've already asked you to throw two of your most prized possessions overboard, but I regret that I have to ask you to throw over one more suitcase. There is only room for one case per person. Please take a quick moment to decide and board a boat with one suitcase."

Now, you must make this decision: what one thing in your life means more than anything else? What one thing can you manage to live without? What one thing can you not live without?

Please make this decision and repost, noting all three items you chose to throw overboard. Once you have done this, write a reflective piece on what thoughts supported your decisions, and what (if anything) these choices made you realize about yourself and your life.

So here we go (again - twice), copy and paste:

I do not walk in this world so much as I walk in spite of it. This, a reflection of my tendency to trip into everything and keep my weight balanced just before the balls of my feet, ready to spring into flight from the man who will be my undoing, puts everything else in my life after it.

What then is the thing most important to me in my life? At my tender age, it is not the material things or so much the ones of daily ritual which my mind wears smooth. Rather, it can be expressed as a task and as a category, thus.

It is the concept of music, but in this case of a very specific sort: music of the European tradition from about 1200 to the present day, that music commonly known as 'classical' although in truth, the term is used better to describe the music of the period 1750-1800. Music is a force in my life, both as I perform it and as I listen to it; as long as it is with me, as long as I can call readily to mind great pieces and play them also, I am human, with the capacity to feel, with the capacity to touch the minds of the men who wrote the music. Just as language is the final test of my reason, music is the final test of my emotion.

I eliminated in the first round the discovery of my identity as it relates to the family. Now, in the second round, I've eliminated the discovery of my identity as it relates to myself, leaving only music and language. Finally, I eliminated the capacity to learn language and to smith words.

In these years, my primary task is to define myself in terms of what I do and what is important to me; thus to begin with I had the four suitcases, in two of which I have invested my emotion and reason. In the other two lies the task of finding out who I am, as an individual and as a member of the group --

So, first to go was the discovery of who I am in relationship to the group. This, I think, is the least important, because in theory, I could go now into seclusion for the rest of my life (cave, padded cell in an asylum, etc.), and although it wouldn't be the healthiest thing for me, I believe the other three things are more important. So the first thing is basically that I have to live with myself always, even if there aren't always people around me. In addition, this process of discovery isn't controlled by only me -- from the reactions of other people, I can glean things, so that it is probably the least important to be focused on how I am related to them socially.

Second to go was the task of finding out who I am as an individual. Looking at it, my reasoning makes no sense to me now, but when I was writing the entry, it seemed that, to a large extent, the other two suitcases (which symbolize neatly my capacity to reason and my capacity to feel) were much more important to a maintenance of an 'I' than the actual drive to figure out exactly who I am. I think, so long as I remain able to be moved by music, that I can get by without knowing exactly what sort of God I believe in and what sort of morality belongs to me.

The last choice was the hardest, because it forced me to choose between (with my current mind) maintaining my ability to reason or my ability to feel. You'll note that I chose feeling over reason, which for me is odd, considering that the desire for more and more varied knowledge is one of the forces that gets me awake every day. But it seemed to me that pure reason without feeling would have been... a trifle cold, of course purely from the with-feeling viewpoint of, well, me.

Feeling doesn't separate me from a beast. Nor, particularly, does reason, although there are some who argue that only because it's so highly developed (?) in us are we really different. But given the choice between the two, I'll take feeling, and music, just because I'm fond of my emotions, and I'd rather have this reassurance than the other one.

Wow, my arguments make no sense. But if you catch me someday, I might be able to explain it to you a little better in person.

Would I choose the same way if I were asked to do this over again? Would I even come up with the same categories? I have the feeling I'd come up with generally the same categories, even if I think now I'd better combine the 'discovery' suitcases into one so that I have space for something else. But I think it would come down to the representations of my reason and my emotion each time. Between these two, I'd say it's an equal contest, and it really depends on my mood. The question of whether I value emotion or reason more, however, is one that will certainly be keeping me up at night for at least a few more months.

There used to be
four
and then there were
three
and then there were
two