another song that i like -- it might be more appropriate to say that i like the lyrics, since i've never heard the song. for me, it's tied up with the the story Irresistible Poison, an excellent fanfic by Rhysenn, which can be found at Irresistible Poison. the song ~ Give You Back, by Vertical Horizon.

I need to know if you were real
'Cause I've been known to get it wrong
When the memory comes
I'll say I'm always in the dark
You got me now

[Chorus]
I want to give you back
I want to give you back
Somewhere out of here
I want to give you
I want to give you
I want to give you back

I can't remember how it went
You looked like everything I wanted
And as you came along
Slowly everything began to change
I got you now

[Chorus]

That's enough
Just talking about it
I don't mind
I don't mind no I
Laugh enough
Just dreaming about it

I need to know if you were real
I'd hate to think that I'd been fooled again
And as the vision fades
I'll say I was blinded by your eyes
I felt them burn

[Chorus]

i take that back, what i wrote in mi last post. truth can be untold and denied - even though it's true, or reality (spare me the philosophical argumentation about whether or not there is truth, and what such truth might be, for the moment), because what matters is people's perceptions of what you tell them. they could be told the truth, clear and cold, like the slashwound left in a fallen icicle's tracks, but what matters is how they perceive it. someone tells me Truth; i perceive it in a way that makes it a Lie, and in such a situation -- was the Truth told? yes -- maybe. if someone then proceeds to explain to me the Truth in a way that i understand it, then the Truth (although it's already been told), or at least mi perception of it, has been repaired, retracted. it is possible to go back. what might be more accurate to say is that perceptions can't be retreated upon. once you perceive something, even though it might be corrected later on, you can't un-perceive or go back.

i'm beginning to think that there is no external reality, aside from very few things. what i think is 'reality' is how i choose to perceive and understand the events that occur every instant of existence, and those events are shaped by mi perceptions and the perceptions of other people. i see a dog running across a field and i think, 'ah, dog is chasing frisbee.' another person turns and thinks, 'aaaahh! dog is running at me!' and once the person turns to flee, perhaps the dog decides to run at the person, abandoning the frisbee. if it was ever chasing the frisbee. mi perceptions, other people's perceptions, they're not the same. and since perceptions determine what's happened, or at least what I think has happened, the lack of uniformity means there is no uniform, no external, reality that's the same for everyone. very few things comprise an external reality. reality and truth, therefore, are subjective.

i realize the contradictions apparent in this post - i differentiate between truth and perception and say that truth can be retracted, but a perception that's been made can't, and then i say that reality/truth is, essentially, built of perceptions. so can truth and preceptions be retracted, once revealed?

--------------

today's song of the day ~ from the musical Miss Saigon, by Boubil and Schonburg. the lines divided by '/'s are sung at the same time - the words on the left by Kim, the words on the right by John

JOHN
I'm not here as a friend
I have a job to do
it's strange to find my work
should lead me here to you
Chris knows all about you
I have shown him all this
but I think that it's time
you know all about Chris

KIM
please, don't you see that's all I live for?
I have him and nothing more
at night, everything that's not him
disappears behind my door

JOHN
please, he went crazy when he lost you
spoke to no one for a year
then he finally said "I'm home now,
my life has to go on here"

Kim, let me finish talking, please
that was three whole years ago

KIM
yes, yes I know
I know how pain can grow
when the rock you hold onto
is a love miles away, listen:

please, I already know the story
take us to the USA

JOHN
when we finish here, you'll see him
Chris arrived with me today!

KIM
oh Tam! He's here!
he is here, he's so near
we might breathe the same air tonight!
your father's here

KIM               JOHN
I dreamed so hard    /    I can't tell her like this
I kept my faith    /    I should not be the one
and now it's true    /    Chris must come see his son

please,    /    they don't say
don't you see we've been   /    in the files
watched over?    /    there's a woman in love
as we crossed    /    here
the wildest sea?    /    what sustained her for miles
even god wants us together    /    Chris still knows nothing of
can I end this journey,    /    can I end this journey
please?    /    please?

JOHN
there's only one thing I can do
I must bring Chris here to see you

that song's lovely. i listen to lea salonga sing kim's words, and the longing and desperation, the suppressed emotions, in the pure tones of her voice are heartbreaking, especially with the audience's wider knowledge of what's happening in the musical. what it must take to survive for three years as a prostitute, dreaming of a husband torn away. the prospect that he's finally here, nearby, is the fulfillment of three years' worth of torturous, life-sustaining fantasies.

an interesting view of truth, from Dorothy Dunnett's Game of Kings:

oh, nothing better [than candour]--in the right place. 'It's only right that you should know'--I wonder how many that classic betise has driven to the river and the dagger and the pillow in a quiet corner. Truth's nothing but falsehood with the edges sharpened up, and ill-tempered at that: no repair, no retraction, no possible going back once it's out.

interesting, ain't it? 'Truth's nothing but falsehood with the edges sharpened up' -- truth is a knife wielded to wound and stab...and unlike lies, it can't be untold or denied once it's revealed because of its nature as being the truth.

in order to forestall indignant cries that i should update mi blog, i'll post...i don't necessarily post when i have something important to say, some grand inspiration, or a burning desire to set down words on the Web - stuff like that doesn't usually happen to me (what important thing is suitable for posting on a blog? can't remember the last time i had an inspiration on anything, grand or not. and as for burning desires...hah.). i post when i feel like it, i spose. when something amusing happens, when i'm feeling particularly maudlin, when i'm bored, when I want to work out mi thoughts by writing them down, etc. or when there're thoughts crammed into mi head until i want them to start leaking out of mi ears, just to take the pressure away. i can't push the thoughts out of mi ears, but writing them somewhere has a calming effect. the blog can function like a Pensieve, sometimes.

so. on to the entry proper...

lately i've spent the majority of mi time reading in mi room. reading, and thinking. the times during the summer that i'm actually at home for more than 3 days tend to be spent in that fashion, reading and thinking. reading mostly fantasy, the summer reading list, Classics-related stuff, fiction, Harry Potter, Dunnett, the odd Foucault file, more Harry Potter... and as for thinking? to sound utterly egocentric, i think mostly about miself. after all, i spend mi time holed up alone in mi house, little contact with the outside world, so it's natural, isn't it? (for those of yall who don't know - when i'm at home during the summer, i'm at home. That is to say, i don't leave the house, v. few people come over, days will go by and i'll see no living people other than mi family.) it's an environment conducive to self-analysis. i take mi mind and dissect it, slide cross-sections of mi personality and identity under a mental microscope, and turn up the magnification. and what i see there...

i've found out this summer that some of the flaws that i hate in other people are the ones that're in me. i dislike it when people are clingy, when they whine without looking for solutions to their problems, etc. and those are all characteristics that appear in mi cross-sections. i don't deal very well with mi faults, and so it's a rather large chunk of hypocrisy, ain't it? [[if this paragraph doesn't make a whole lotta sense and seems to lack a point, don't worry...i think i'm babbling and i'll come back and fix this entry sometime. sometime soon, hopefully.]]

and i love people for being what i'm not. i was talking to one of mi friends about this the other day, and he responded, "if that were true, you'd love in me the fact that i'm a jackass." ::grin:: so let me clarify that statement a little - i love the good qualities in people, the good qualities that i lack. it makes me wonder, sometimes, if i'm simply using mi friends without giving them anything of miself in return, without being equally as much of a friend. the friends who listen to mi complaining, the friends who tolerate mi rotten temper, the friends who're kind and generous...what could i ever give them? i wonder if i'm as much of a friend to them as they are to me, what benefit they could ever get out of their relationships with me.

yargh...this isn't going anywhere. this post is about as confused as the thoughts that twist and contort themselves in mi head. must. fix. bleh. urk-k-k.