Finally bought Tarkovsky's Stalker. To me places have feelings which I can't put into words and seem attached to mysticism. As I've gotten older I've noticed it less, perhaps for the usual reason of being too locked into memories of the past to completely take in my present surroundings. Still I watch Stalker and get this feel of that generalized area of the world. I'm reminded of my visit to Kazakhstan. All of Russia comes together with this feeling, all the Russian writers I've read. The few movies I've seen. All presents this feeling which I can't explain. Something positive about it. Sort of like the UK and my strange feeling I was meant to have lived there, although nowhere near as strong.

The beginning sequence of making it into The Zone feels like a dream, not quite realistic. Reminds me of Sleeping Child's Play.

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Finally switched to just one night shift a week instead of 3. This should be a huge positive in my life. The really bad part of working nightshifts was the days off, spent up all alone through the middle of the night. Just couldn't switch my sleeping back and forth that much. Hopefully switching for a single day won't be so bad.

An intelligent student at work said I could speak online to people in Asia, etc at night. My response was a bit too derisive really. It just came out too quick. Was very tired by that point from a hard day plus have such an incredibly negative outlook on internet interactions now.

Has been good to blog for me though. Hard to go back over old posts. Hard but I think very good. So hard to remember my unhappiness. But brings it home that I want a future within which I can look back on the past and not have the feeling I have now. I want to look back on positive memories.

But how positive can they ever really be in dystopia?

I can't unknow that this is a dytopia. It's like mowing the lawn. Recently reading a book (Edible Estates) which talks in great detail about what a pointless negative thing lawn mowing is. Yesterday as I was mowing the lawn I was thinking about how I've always known this. Since I was 11, 12 years old. I've always understood this despite it back then taking place in a manner that I couldn't articulate. I've no problem with hard work provided it isn't a ridiculous utter waste of time. I can't forget how retarded lawn mowing is and in the same way I can't forget this is dystopia and so how happy can I ever really be?

Trying to fall asleep last night and wanted a happy thing to think about. Had to stay up a bit and sleep alone to get ready for single night shift tonight. I used to sometimes try to think happy thoughts about a person I knew who lived in the UK. That person's made it extremely difficult for me to continue thinking happy thoughts about her.

Eating green vegetables, blueberry smoothies and daily running really help with sleeping well. As does thinking happy thoughts while falling asleep. This knowledge I have, that this world is a dystopia, which I guess others don't have, much like apparently most people enjoy mowing their lawn, it can be forgotten if I'm focusing on people for whom my interactions have been positive. It doesn't work with my wife because she's right here. There's nothing missing to fill in with imagination.

The missing though... so easy to fill it with negatives though. Especially with a strong imagination and a life already quite full of negatives. It's perhaps dangerous to deal with people whom have too much missing info.

About lawn mowing though, so much pain in this world, so much unhappiness that can't be avoided. We ought to have fun when we can, and so what do people do?

They make sure their land has only one single type of very boring plant on it and make sure each frond is exactly the same height by spending a very loud hour or two of each of their precious few days off from work cutting it. They're overworked to begin with and so this is what they do with their free time.

They might as well just go back to work on Saturdays instead.

You point out how ridiculous it is and how do they respond? They make up crap. About a horde of snakes overtaking the land and so on. Humans are hopeless. I suppose they're evolved into this, this creature that wouldn't know what to do with it's self if it wasn't doing some drugery.

Another thing about work, was thinking about the whole 'how are you? I'm fine. And you?" exchange. It's not only that you have to say you're fine even if you aren't because the other person actually has no real connection to you and couldn't do anything even if you weren't. Even worse, saying you're not fine makes it sound like you're unstable and maybe a liability as an employee there. Again, the fake smile. In dystopia everyone is smiling. And everyone's fine. Because those who aren't smiling, those who aren't fine, are dangerous, unstable, not to be trusted with jobs, etc.

Yet still I also ask people how they are. And I'm sure they lie and say they're fine when they're not. To not do so would be so rude. It would be seen as me saying, I'm not even going to pretend that I give a damm how you are. In truth I want to really give a damm. But you know, no one's going to say they're not fine, except for maybe an annoying cold, etc.

Saw The Watchmen. Was really good. Maybe by the same person who made the story of V for Vendetta? I don't know. Will find out later. The two best movies I can recall seeing in a long time. ..better than Tarkovsky; who is the only other good stuff I've seen lately.

The character Rorschach(sp) follows truth no matter where it leads. Even if it means destroying world peace. Even getting himself killed. An idea that obviously interests me. Dr. Manhattan also in "reaching" truth and to me anyway it had seemed finding it not such a great thing really. And then I suppose same idea with The Comedian also. The Comedian and Dr. Manhattan both realizing just how awful humankind is. Rorschach still searching for uncompromising truth even as he's going to get killed for his trouble.

Packed into an entertaining story. The sort of thing I guess I'd like to do. Might as well keep it something that people will actually want to read the whole thing. It is possible to do so while also having meaningful ideas.
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Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev: Did they really need to set a cow on fire and push a horse down the stairs? Well whatever.

"The pressure Rublev is subject to is not an exception. The artist never works under ideal conditions. If they existed his work wouldn't exist, for the artist doesn't live in a vacuum. Some sort of pressure must exist. The artist exists because the world isn't perfect. Art would be useless if the world were perfect, as man wouldn't look for harmony but would simply live in it. Art is born out of an ill-designed world. This is the issue in "Rublev." The search for harmonic relationships amoung men between art and life, between time and history." Tarkovsky

This is either obvious-almost a tautology-or, depending on how you construe it, not necessarily true. Maybe ultimately just too generalized. Like his movies, perhaps a little too open to you adding whatever meaning you want to it. Which, is the same for endless other artists of course.

But I guess a nice thing to keep in mind while having the pressure of censors or just stuggling through a prolish existence.