I started reading the first chapter of a book that my friend renee gave me called narcissus and goldmund by herman hesse. The description of the back cover reads
Narcissus and Goldmund is the story of a passionate yet uneasy friendship between two men of opposite character. narcissus, an ascetic instructor at a cloister school, has devoted himself soley to scholarly and spiritual pursuits. one of his students is the sensual, restless Goldmund, who is imediately drawn to his teacher’s fierce intellect and sense of discipline. when narcissus persuades the young student that he is not meant for a life of self-denial, Goldmund sets off in pursuit of aesthetic and physical pleasures, a path that leads him to a final, unexpected reunion with Narcissus.
The first chapter really only establishes the two principal characters, and to be honest, when I first was given the book I thought it seemed an awful lot like Sidhartha, the only book by Herman Hesse that I’ve read. I was more excited about the fact that someone had given me a book to borrow (because I really think that giving people books or music or clothes, or letting them borrow those things are some of the nicest small gestures that anyone can do) than about the actual book, but I’ve been thinking about the book and I’m more excited about it.
I’m interested in the book because I like the idea of people having a fairly established world view, or lifestyle, or personality, or personal inclinations, and having those things make people very different from each other, even conflicting with each other, but that such diversity ultimately is what makes people be able to coexist and maybe the world a bit better.
I started thinking about this while I was making a mix cd of bands that were playing in bton this month. I wanted to put a Dave Dean song on it, and all I had was the two dean crew 7″ that he made with his brother. I put the song risk on the cd because I remembered him playing it at shows. The song talks about the safety and routine that can be found even when doing interesting things like playing music and contrasts that with someone who isn’t neccessarily “productive” in terms of making records or zines, but who seems to live life more spontaneously.
I can’t really tell if the song idealizes the romantically reckless lifestyle or if Dave just goes out of his way to vividly and endearingly describe his friend because some of the way she does things are the way that he doesn’t do them and he feels like being aware of those differences is a good thing. These days I’m surrounded by people who I feel like are pretty different from me in terms of personalities, personal capacities, and temperment and who I also find to be terribly aspiring. And I feel like I’ve changed a lot since I’ve known these people, but that awareness of change also brings up the nagging idea that maybe it could be possible to adopt little bits of the things that I like so much in my friends and stuff them into parts of my personality. This is a stupid idea, but it’s also real attractive.
When you start thinking like that, it’s scary because you realize how much you are yourself. I went to ryan’s art show‘s opening and a party afterwards with ryan and a few other friends from bloomington. I kept looking at ryan’s paintings and thought about how he’s the kind of person who has enough of an idea about what he wants to make that he can make these beautiful finished paintings where I feel like a lot of the time I get excited about ideas, but they’re loose and I quickly lose the energy to make much of them. He also has this confidence in his ability to make things that he can re-make things, or set them aside to pick up later, or throw them away entirely until he’s happy with them whereas I’m so excited at making *anything* that I worry that, if left to my own devices, I’d settle a bit too much on the quality. And I think that I’m not like my friend Justin who can get a little drunk and walk around a party with a tape recorder talking to art ladys. Or he can start off a conversation saying how he learned from school how to bullshit and then we can have this nice, quasi-philosophical conversation on the drive home that seems to make some sense, but could all be just for amusement. I don’t mind that, but I worry that I put to much stock in conversations like this, in hearing my self talk, like I put too much finality in the things that I begin to figure out hearing myself talk, or arguing with a friend. And listening to Justin talk, I feel like the conversation is fun and lively, but that he’s got so much going on in his head and that’s the reality of his life, and the things he occupies himself with and not the things that he converses about.
The thing I have to remember though, is that doing the things the way that I do them has worked out pretty well for me. I’m pretty happy, which isn’t to say that I should try to define who I am and stick with it, but I think it’s also reason enough not to embark on a crazy self-improvement regimine. Is proximity to different, challenging people, that make you feel a little self-conscious enough? Do you have to try to throw yourself into their world a little bit? Or are the things that you figure out for yourself the things that count?