Drunken Epiphany

So last night was Halloween - I made some pumpkin risotto which turned out well and we hosted a great Halloween party. Originally the plan was to begin drinking here then go out on the town, but we didn't even get that far. Long story short it was a great time with a lot of good friends... however, I had one of those moments where you get really drunk and let your own guard down on yourself... and admit something to yourself that is complicated and that you've been keeping inside yourself for some time: I think I know now what I want and although it is confusing and bizarre and fraught with potential problems and pitfalls, I think it's worth at least seeing where it can go. --- Years ago, I remember going to see "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" with a friend, and after the movie finshed not really being able to relate to it and not understanding what was so great about that final decision that Jim Carrey's character makes @ the end of the movie.... even up until maybe a week or two ago I held that same opinion, that progress must be linear, that you must forge on ahead and never look back, never re-read, never re-interpret and never attempt a do-over. For me, that implied pure and utter failure... To re-do/retry/rethink meant to go back on yourself - to, in a sense, be a traitor to yourself.... I'm not so sure about that anymore. I think I finally understand the validity of the decision that they both make at the end of that movie - my rhetoric course is also helping me to realize, albeit indirectly, that we do not live in a perfect world - we live in a world of contingence and accidence and chance and temporality - all of which interact to not only be a framework in which situations and truths occur but are part of the very fabric of those situations and truths- I oftentimes in my boneheaded desire to believe in transcendence and pure objectivity ignore all of this. Even if the world was based on contingence, it would only make sense that certain truths, certain ideas, certain movements are eternal and solid. They only seem contingent because they're debased to exist within our world....we should all follow Nietzsche's idea of eternal recurrence..... The problem with all of that is that it's not genuine - everything is ruled by contingency and circumstance - these "accidents" are part of the very truths we try to use to control and order their randomness - I know this makes no sense, but it does to me... There's an irony in all this - but at the same time, despite being melancholic today, I now know what I want - I summed it up in three simple words last night in answer to someone's question: "head over heels".