Below are the 9 most recent journal entries recorded in EM Candela's LiveJournal:

Sunday, January 1st, 2006
4:43 pm	Happy New Year Dear friends, I am now living in New York City. I apologize for my long sabbatical. The truth is that writing is difficult for me. It is like exercise. Something I know is an important part of a healthy life but something so easy to fall out of the habit of and difficult to begin again. I am composing this short announcement in an Internet cafe on new 42nd street. This is Times Square. My announcement must be short since I haven't paid for much time. My announcement is simple. I am back. I resolve to begin writing again. Please be patient with me as I shake the rust out of this forlorn pen. M (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, April 27th, 2002
3:10 am	Two Parables There was a young physicist, he wanted very much to gain the esteem of his peers. He was extremely competitive and was always looking over his shoulder in fear that his colleagues would outdo him. He worked day and night in order to beat them. He became obsessed with the idea that others were not better than him. He placed himself in a mindset where people being better than him makes sense. He feared that he might really not be great. And all of his associates were very much the same. This led to back stabbing and viciousness. Finally one of them did make the discovery and excellence was made. One of them received a trophy. For him that trophy was more than the discovery. For the others they had no trophy and no discovery. They were failures. They all died. The Will to Power. Then there was a young Mathematician. He never thought once about what others knew, except when he could talk to them about mathematics. He would sometimes spend all night reading his text books while his friends were sleeping. He did this because he found mathematics beautiful. Others marveled at him in class because he always seemed to know what the next result would be. A lot of his classmates even became jealous of him because he was so competent. And yet he never paid any attention or even realized their attitude. Not once did he ever look over his shoulder or even think about his grade in the class. He only did what he loved. And he created excellence. He spent his whole life like this, giving up a lot along the way. And made many contributions to mathematics until the day that he died. And people said, "he lived a beautiful life". The Will to Love. M (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, April 25th, 2002
7:45 am	Some Thoughts Concerning My Existence There was a time in history when men did not live so long and endured a substantial amount of suffering. Many of those men believed in something greater than themselves and created great works of art and thought. Some of them are left unheralded -- the workers and the farmers and the peasants. But even they had their faith and their integrity and the reality of their own lives hard spent. And here I am in the twenty-first century. As I sit here I know very little discomfort. But also as I sit here I have nothing to account for the years Ive been given. I am a writer with nothing to write about. A center of experience without a history. I have known some genuine suffering and it has been a great blessing. In a future entry I will write about this suffering and the blessing that it became. But right now, this moment, I am just fat with comfort and it makes me sick. If I died today would there be any echo at all? Could you find my footprints anywhere? I comfort myself by thinking that language is the substance of our being. Then possibly, if we have ever expressed ourselves, we may persist like water marks within a mind. We may subsist as an impression on a heart. Even the most ordinary life must find itself in many hearts and many minds. A cascade of ideas within ideas. Am I a locus of experience, or is this some useful and temporary illusion? It would be tempting to liken myself to a geyser; my life to an eruption -- a fountain of ideas. But I know this isn't accurate at all. If I am anything whatsoever in this metaphor, then I cannot be the geyser for I am not sufficient in myself. However the fountain of ideas erupted, I am not like it, but like a droplet in its mist. And so we float upon the wind. And so some say we will evaporate. But I retain the hope that I might find a petal of Truth to land on, and to live in. M (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, April 23rd, 2002
12:13 am	Again I have not made an entry in some while now. This is typical of me; to slip into dry spells. It seems I dream of climbing mountains. I pack my bags delightedly, carefully, making certain I have every provision. I know where everything goes. I chart my course. I chart some novel variation of the last course. I set out with a genuine ambition. I whistle as I hike. The foothills foster optimism. And all my thoughts are on the summit - how crisp the air must be - the wonder and the view I'll see. I reach the mountain and I scale it, this time I will scale it. It gets dark. The rope breaks sisyphus: What are you doing up here again? emcandela: I'm seeing how high I can get. sisyphus: You said that last time. emcandela: I know why I slipped now. sisyphus: You said that too. emcandela: This time it's different. sisyphus: How? emcandela: You ask too many questions. sisyphus: You think so? emcandela: I don't have time for this. Greatness is at the top of this mountain. sisyphus: Who told you that? emcandela: There you go again. sisyphus: There ain't nothing up there but clouds. emcandela: Then what are you doing here? sisyphus: Im the personification of futility. emcandela: Then how did you get on this mountain? sisyphus: Hell if I know. How did you get here? emcandela: I don't know either. sisyphus: But you want to get to the top of this thing huh? emcandela: I do. sisyphus: And what are you going to do when you get there? emcandela: I'll rest and enjoy the view. sisyphus: Well that isn't going to entertain nobody. emcandela: Is that what you think life is about? sisyphus: Are you forgetting who I am? emcandela: I don't know what I can find up there, but I believe it is Good, and I will find a way to it. I will find a way to it. sisyphus: You will keep on slipping half way up. emcandela: I will find a way to it. sisyphus: Vanity of vanities. emcandela: So everything is meaningless in this life? sisyphus: Not if you love pushing boulders. M (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, April 8th, 2002
12:30 am	I have a dream of writing something so clear and so lucid that golden light seems to be flowing through the page, and Truth is known like a Beatific vision. Something so resplendent that the heart palpitates and the reader must step back for a moment in order catch his breath. Truth is when the predicate is contained in the subject? Truth is a coherent reduction to the level of tautology? Truth is a correspondence between language and the heart of God? Mathematics, Music, Poetry, Silence? I have a lot to do and it isn't going to happen tonight. Again. M (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, April 5th, 2002
4:32 pm	Days Without Sleep Last night I put off studying, in preparation for my spanish exam today, until after midnight. So I've been up all night again, downloading a chapter of spanish into my brain. I expect I did well on the test, but now, having gone without sleep for quite some time, Im very tired. There's a lot to be said for sleep deprivation. I feel so much more sensitive. The green on every leaf consumes me. Reality is intense and here and NOW. I look at the bricks that make up the buildings and they seem to be singing. Everything is singing. And it all conveys love. Love. Love. The hours and hours without sleep have worn away the walls around my heart. My mind is much to tired to make categories of the world. Everything is passionate and unfiltered. What if I could hold on to this state of mind and always be so filled with wonder? Would that be either wise or desirable? Everything that is beautiful is magical for sure, but sadness also finds my heart unguarded. Every sort of feeling made more potent and more pure. I wager that it would be, and I pray for sensitivity like this to stay with me. To create a certain subtlety in how I think, and gentleness in how I understand. Thank you Lord for blessing me. Diminish me. Provide me always with these tired eyes. That I might see more clearly once I see beyond myself. And through me all I witness might expand. M (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, April 4th, 2002
6:50 pm	Well I have a significant amount of studying to do - estoy aprendando espa?ol - so I won't be able to get carried away with this entry. I thought for the sake of consistency, and for the sake of my own momentum, I should make at least a small effort. No. I really don't feel in the mood for any serious thoughts. But then again that isn't quite what journals are for is it? I suppose it is nice and acceptable to have some serious reflections, but I've been told by trustworthy sources that there aren't any strict rules or protocols to this journal writing business. What is most on my mind? I suppose what is most on my mind at this instant is just how big a mess I create for myself sometimes. I haven't been to my differential equations class in weeks. How does that happen? How does it happen that you do things which you know aren't good for you and which the more rational part of you is strongly opposed to? Concupiscence. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04208a.htm This is a major problem for me. Laziness, Distraction, and Procrastination. I think these are the greatest evils. For some it might be gambling, or greed, or one of the other deadly sins, but for me it comes down to these three. In future entries I would like to see what might come from analyzing them meticulously. But not today. (See that's procrastination right there.) I don't suppose it would hurt to be a little open here, a little personal, since it might be relevant to what I've said. When I was in Junior High I was a trouble maker. Nothing very serious, nothing more nefarious than entertaining the class at the teachers expense. Actually, I ought to say, this is how I have been since kindergarten -- culminating in me being kicked out of Sacred Hearts during spring break in sixth grade. I went to the public school after that, where they can't kick you out. But the truth is that I just enjoyed making people laugh. It's a shame that had to frustrate my elementary teachers so much. But in any event, by the time I was in Junior High the teachers had a new weapon in their arsenal -- A.D.D. Attention Deficit Disorder. I was pulled out of classes and given tests (interesting tests, and quite a bit more fun than the stuff we were talking about in class as I remember) for my intelligence and behavior and who knows what else. I did pretty good on those tests, and I got the impression that the people who administered them rather came to like me (which I think frustrated my teachers quite a bit). I was sent to psychologists outside of school also. One of them said I was just a smart ass. But another said I had Attention Deficit Disorder and so Ritalin was prescribed for me. I had to take these little yellow pills at recess. I thought that was rather embarrassing and inhumane, as I would have to go to the office and ask for my pills. Sometimes I would just spit them out. But eventually the policy was that you had to take them there in the office and I generally did then. It's interesting. How some chemical in a pill can change you so much is somewhat frightening. It makes you wonder what you are, or how delicate a claim to existence whatever "you" has. But when I took those little yellow pills it was like a hurricane was squelched into a whimpering mist at the flick of a switch. Everything was quiet and all I wanted to do was behave. The teachers dream, a little yellow pill, that turns people into proper little students. It was sickening. My grades improved but I felt more and more like I was forgetting who I was. For a while I really did forget and the new ritalin-me started becoming acceptable. I shrugged it off. When I got to High School I quit taking the medicine. After a while I reverted to my old ways and took up entertaining my classmates again, but this time, in High School, I discovered a valuable insight: It is okay to entertain the class as long as you include the teacher in the fun. And that made quite a difference. My grades weren't very good though and I would go weeks without even showing up to school. I can't say why. I just can't. It's not reasonable in the same way that, perhaps, an agoraphobe can't give a reasonable account as to why they are afraid of open spaces. I just couldn't do high school. Not in consistent or large doses anyhow. Except of course during the football season. I think it is just unnatural. Who invented the cruel experiment of taking young souls in the very heart of their formation and locking them up together like cattle? Who's bright idea was it to force young adults to march in step, to battle for their individuality, and generally recreate the conditions under which, Hobbes would have us believe, we invented Civilization to escape from in the first place? High School is an evil man made monster. Some navigate it swimmingly, but for others I think it is entirely reasonable to get away from there. On rare occasion, now that I am a college student, I have the opportunity to listen to a young high school kid relay much of what I've tried to write here. I tell them this, "The most important thing for now is to survive, the real world may not always love you but at least it's what you make of it, so just hang on and don't give up, life really will get better." Wow, not only have I digressed but I thought I wasn't going to write so much. It might be somewhat challenging to bring this to a satisfying, unifying, "point". Oh yes. So I guess that I have A.D.D. But I am very suspicious that one person's disorder is another person's personality. Have you ever wondered where todays Einstiens, Newtons, Teslas, Mozarts, Shakesperes, and Sidharthas are? Hard to say. But these days we give them all a little yellow pill to quiet them down, before they cause too much trouble. Yes but even so, my pathological procrastinating has caused so much pain in my life and set me back so far. And if I will be honest with my self, if I were taking Ritalin now, I wouldn't have missed weeks of differential equations, I wouldn't be dangerously close to being hopelessly behind, and I wouldn't have failed to hand in all the little nickle and dime horse crap which says nothing about what you know, everything about how well you can jump through hoops, but which accounts for most of your grade. Can an agoraphobe summon the strength to just refuse to be afraid of open spaces? It seems like they could. It seems they certainly could for short intense durations, at least in theory. But could they overcome their irrational compulsions through the strength of their will and dominance of their reason, permanently? I don't know. But that is rather what Im trying to do within myself. Tengo que tratar. M (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 3rd, 2002
2:28 pm	Good For The Moment I've just come from a course I am taking on Modern Philosophy. Philosophy does something good for me, it rouses something exciting in my soul. To have a sudden realization that everything might be different than you thought it was - that's thrilling. The spice of life is in surprises. So Im tingling with new ideas and happy, if only for the moment, since up here where my mind is at Im miles away from mundane trifles and other worldly vexes. It is a matter of perspective. The other day my roommate was complaining about the injustices of the world. Or more correctly, about the injustices inflicted upon him since I doubt he is much concerned about the world. I listened to him as best I could; about how unfair school is, about how unfair life is, about his fears that he might not pass this class or that, or be able to graduate as soon as he would wish. Standard worries to be sure, though with him it was decidedly a conspiracy as well, since all these things were done to him and against his will. So I listened to him carefully, or at least made all the appropriate gestures and appearances of listening, which is effectively congruent in such cases. And as he went on, it occurred to me that I have many problems too, problems which when put this way seem terrible and heavy. Although my roommate tends to blame the world and I tend to blame myself; I've really made a mess of many things, have so much to regret, and can find plenty to be bitter about. Fortunately my roommates litany of evils was indefatigable. And as a consequence, my mind was given ample time to wander from this murky sort of thinking. I began to have the feeling that perhaps this whole thing was mistaken. I mean whole thing from the bottom up. When I reflected upon my life's unfortunate state, it really did seem sufficient cause to be depressed. But with respect to what? When we are complaining about how horrible things are, we seem to choose the narrowest of contexts. At first it seems like such a cause for grief that I have allowed myself to slip so far behind in my homework and my studies. I have a tendency to learn things at my own pace, always in time for the exams, but rarely in keeping with procedure. The voice within my head will scream, "Why didn't you just apply yourself?!". And I can't think of any reason that I shouldn't have. I regret allowing things to pile up through neglect, to the point that now, my grade will not reflect my competency [Im sure I understand things well] as much as it will reflect my lack of devoted energy. It really does seem horrible, it really is tempting to blame it on the way things are set up (like my roommate tends to do), and it really does make life the way it is - compared with how it could be - seem like a great traffic accident. ? Qu? lastima ! But why and with respect to what? As I divided the hemispheres of my brain, attending to my roommates problems and my own, it started to become unreal to me. It was a koan moment. All these various things were only issues in their little realms. I realized that I only extended the vision of my worry so far. Sure, my grades today effect my job tomorrow, or what grad school I can get into, things of that nature. But all of this also has no steam outside the game. And who's decided on this game? And how exactly could a person win a game like this, even if they wanted to? What a strange fiction it is which has the power to affect the mind, but has no mind of it's own. Only individuals have fears, ambitions, and loves. And so we set up the most imaginative of schemes in order to apply them. Civilization itself stands out as a particularly auspicious example, the rules of chess would be another. But it isn't until you lift yourself up, and out of your favorite game, that you see how arbitrary and absurd it is. It exists for you not you for it. As my roommate reached the end of his list of evils, I was tempted to mention something of these thoughts to him but couldn't find a proper way of doing it. I nearly mentioned to him that in some ways it didn't matter if he got accepted into grad school since, in the long run, all things considered, both of us would be dead. That seemed certain to be taken the wrong way, and my roommate isn't inclined to meditation, so I resisted. But I think there could be something in this which could be positive. I am far from free of fear, worry, or regret. But doesn't it seem promising to note that beyond the dictates of the Truth (however hard it is to know), there are no rules? What fear is there but imagined demons, what regret is there but false gods? I will take whatever I can from the dust and shadow on my way toward something Real. M (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, March 31st, 2002
7:57 pm	A first entry This is my first entry. I haven't written sooner for a variety of reasons, some of which are better than others. I do not think that I can write much now, but I am moved to write a little bit. There is something stirring in me, and that has to be taken advantage of or built upon. I am going to make this journal open to the public. I don't know about the wisdom of that, and I do not know how that might influence my openness. Today is Easter and I believe that makes it an especially good day for beginnings. A good day to begin writing a journal. I have just seen a short biography of Pope John Paul II. He is a unique and inspiring man whom I wish everyone could learn about. I mention this biography because it provoked certain emotions in me, emotions which are not new but which I wish I could make more consistent and less transitory. I have great feelings often but have such a fragile character. Why can't I maintain my focus, disregard distractions, and become what I will to be? I am talking about aspiration, truth, goodness, and a vigilant orientation toward something transcendent. There must be something. But I fall back, and I fall back. I make a hypocrite of myself and injure whatever honesty there is in my expostulation. I am a weak messenger. But I believe. I believe that I could realize something. To put forth a great effort, again and again, and each time coming face to face with the greatest of enemies. One's self. I will overcome myself. And that will be (or so I can imagine) something of a theme in this journal. That is, for me, a compelling reason for writing. I will overcome myself. Finally, and I know this will be something of a nonsequiter for anyone who's eyes may have passed over this quite disorganized array of half-thoughts, I beg the world's forgiveness. I have sometimes let my passion for ideas consume me. My love for those abstract things and relationships, which though I still believe are most real, are no excuse to hurt another soul. It does no good to trample over someone's heart in a race to change their mind. I believe the stakes are high, and a war really must be wagged, a war within the spirit and upon the landscape of understanding; but nothing can be gained by destroying in the process, the reason for the struggle. Please believe that I am sorry if I have ever hurt you. I've hurt myself. Today is Easter and I believe that makes it an especially good day for beginnings. Today I am going to start again, to compose the great drama each of us are given the responsibility to write. That is life. The drama in the gap between what we are and what we ought to be. M (1 Comment |Comment on this)