Conflict of the Soul

One thing that I've never really talked about directly on my blog is my poetry. Currently, it would be a "lack thereof" case, but there was a period of time where I regularly wrote a poem every few weeks. And I suppose that this is what precluded my blog, as far as a representation of me goes. Well, actually, no. Well, actually actually...to hell with it. Allow me:

The Only Thing I Could Do
My first anthology/batch/whatever of poems came throughout high school, and ten out of the thirteen that I ended up finishing and included in this particular Word document were about the girl I had a crush on at the time. Made for some real compelling stuff. A lot of it was just a crafty way to put all of my thoughts in words -- I remember telling one of my friends that I wasn't writing poetry, I was just putting thoughts together with awesome word selection. Which was exactly what I was up to - I got an idea in my mind and just ran with it, writing words down in my agenda book or something. I would never (and still haven't) spend a week writing one piece, because the thoughts would just not be the same from the moment I initially had them. (Editor's Note: Seems like a pretty prominent theme of this blog, huh?) Oh right, the title. I think I've talked about "The Journey" enough. Specifically here and here. That should be enough to draw some conclusions.

Pilgrimage to the Elements of Life
My General Religious Studies course was awesome. The professor lives in Watertown, I still chat with him whenever I see him on campus, and he had some really cool stuff to show us. When we got around to Christianity (after Judaism, Buddhism, and Islam), I remember this one passage from a book about people going on pilgrimages (the theme of the course) to a sacred place in France (Lourdes). And these elements of life that the book talked about were rock, light, and water. If my memory serves me well, of course. And having gone through Religious Studies, and then Philosophy in the spring, I was all spiritual and stuff, going to mass most weeks, thinking about stuff like that, and just embracing any uncertainties that I had. I wanted to name my second collection of poems after some goal, or something I was doing. Kind of like the first bunch. A pilgrimage to the elements of life wouldn't be about rock, light, or water. It would be about finding what elements were in store for me, on a mental, emotional, and sometimes spiritual level. It was a little broader than just navigating my possible spirituality, but I think that some of my best poetry is in there.

Love is a Verb
After my run with spirituality, and getting the fill of another batch of poems, it was time to move back towards the emotional expressions with words; something I had a little more craft with, instead of simply writing down my thoughts as they arrived. A lot of what's in here is kind of a storytelling affair, but again, with that careful placement of what my thoughts are and how they seem to me, how they resonate. I remember even now some of the surges I had that led me to these poems, and what I was doing, where I was sitting. I can picture some cozy winter night, bundled up beneath a blanket, sitting in front of words that just became incredibly meaningful. And having just said that makes me kind of crave winter. And I hate winter. (Actually, I've been less hating of winter since I got to college. Potentially more on that in a couple of days.) Coziness and comfort seems to just take away hatred, I guess.

Conflict of the Soul
I've been saying it a lot this month, but I totally mean it - soak in whatever philosophy is thrown at you; something will stick eventually. In my reading for class on Wednesday, I came across the idea that would eventually become Freud's iceberg, with the id, ego, and superego. And how the id (irrational desires) and ego (rational thoughts) are always at conflict with one another, creating a conflict of the soul. We've talked about the soul a lot in class, too. Not as something spiritual that moves on into the next life, but more of a being, an intangible existence within us. Something that needs to not be in conflict, essentially. After alternating between poems of love and philosophy for a few years, it feels like it's time to go back to exploring these unanswered questions. I can't think of nearly as many as I had freshman year, though. I also don't know what to do with the handful (if that) of poems I've written since my last official Word document. Maybe an EP? I just like this phrase, conflict of the soul. I want to let it linger in my mind for a couple of days and see what I can pull out from it. Obviously, if I blogged about it, something good will happen soon, since I had enough of an idea to put this together. Until then, we'll see...