| Asking Directions |
[Sep. 17th, 2007|09:54 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  anxious | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Susie Suh - Seasons Change | ] |
Strangely enough, things are finally becoming somewhat clearer to me right now, as far as what the hell I'm doing with my life.
I am interested in Environmental Science. I am. Really.
HOWEVER. It's not the meaning of my life. I'm glad I'm aware of issues in E Sci, I'm glad that I know what over-fishing is doing to the coastal ecology and I'm glad that I can justify my slow and gradual transition to Only Organic as opposed to vegan or vegetarian. Organic, locally farmed, shade-grown is the absolute ideal, other than tilling it myself.
My coffee days might be over soon, actually. Starbucks hasn't just taken over the cities, it's quickly knocking down the rain forests as well. I don't know how to do shit with coffee, but I suppose it's time I learned and bought some organic, shade grown, fair-trade coffee.
Ack. The artificial economy and the natural environment are very much at odds with one another right now.
I digress. But, as proven, it's an interest. Human population is another hot topic, not just fish kills and mercury in the soil.
But nothing inspires euphoria quite like Botticelli and his contemporaries and his successors.
Right?
Doubt, and the benefit of it are biting me in the ass again. True, I loved every step I took on European soil. I loved the smell of the centuries-old panels of wood and the stale, ionized air of the austere museums that held treasures such that I'd only read about. It was like fairy tales were proven to me with every breath I drew. Here is the place Savonarola burned for his offenses against God and humankind, but mostly humankind. Here, Lorenzo the Magnificent strutted on his way to one of his many palazzos. Here is were he died.
In this church, this very Cathedral, Alessandro Botticelli made his confession.
One might as well have presented me with Cinderella's glass slippers and the gold spun from Rumpelstiltskin's straw.
Here is Ulrich Zwingli's helmet, still with the hole that killed him. Here is Martin Luther's study, as see where he threw an ink bottle at the wall where he thought he saw the devil. Here the Church kept its religious prisoners and in the cells, they sang hymns to the glory of God. Here is Giotto's tower and Vasari's monstrous and terrifying depiction of Dante's Inferno emblazoned in fresco on the underbelly of Brunelleschi's magical dome. Here is where Cosimo the Elder found Michelangelo as a delightfully precocious and intelligent child. Here is where Verrocchio vowed to never paint again when his young apprentice, Leonardo, created an angel of superior quality and divinity. Here is where Donatello had the freedom to create his provocative and alluringly sensual David. Here is where Artemisia Gentileschi proved them all wrong about what a woman could do and what a woman could paint. She's more famous than her father!
AH. It's all just so beautiful! Down to the gypsies crowding on the corners and pretending to be lame and the smarmy young men, so full of confidence and testosterone! And the pigeons! Oodles of pigeons! You'll never see so many pigeons as Piazza San Marco! And the Basilica di San Marco is literally paved with gold! Such splendor! Such excess! Such beauty! Ah, the sights, smells, and sounds of Italy! If only I could wander the streets as an aimless and beautiful young boy, feet in jeweled slippers and stockings of finest silk in my velvet doublet and funny felt hat! No one would dare challenge this little prince of the Mercato Centrale! Women had no such luck, hence the transsexual nature of this departure; however, they were gorgeous and captivating, these beauties in every colour and shade imaginable. And smart!
Ah, but what is history by a documentation of the women that cleaned up after the destructive nature of men. I personally have long since handed that slop bucket to the destructive nature of men.
Where do I go from here? The cold and paltry discoveries of science seem so wrong after the rich, gilded hair of goddesses and the soft murmur of the lilting Venetian Italian in prayer in San Marco, or even the reserved Florentine Italian in Santa Maria Novella.
And I am rather openly not Catholic. As a matter of fact, every now and again I get pretty royally pissed off at Catholics and go on a 2-hour ranting rampage about how the Catholic Church ruined everything to do with the the woes of the world today. Ask anyone. There's a certain beauty in the rituals of Catholicism, don't get me wrong. Crossing oneself is a beautiful way to prepare for prayer, and rosaries hold a strange and special fascination for me, not to mention of course the legions of art in and for the Catholic church.
However, I'm about as un-Catholic as they come that still claim Christianity. My dead ancestors are still kind of pissed about the Inquisition and the atrocities committed them in the Reformation.
In the end, what is it that is indeed beautiful? Could I sit through hours of lectures on the nuances of Renaissance Italy? Could I read dry and dreadful texts, such as Dante's Divine Comedy? Could I learn the liltingly Romantic Italian language?
Have I not already proven that I could? My harsh, German-trained tongue softening into rolled R's and wave-like words full of syllables rounded enough Italian to order gelato (GELATO!), per favore, and find a bathroom. I've read historical fiction of the era, I know it's not the same thing, but it's still a cultural introduction (Viva Amadeo! Viva Lestat! Viva Marius!) Oh, but the Inferno, why? WHY SO MUCH SUFFERING? Why is the Inferno the longest and most famous of his trilogy? Why not Paradiso?
ACK SEE I'M DOING IT AGAIN! I'M RAMBLING ABOUT THE RENAISSANCE WHEN I SHOULD BE READING THE BIBLE. NO REALLY, I HAVE BIBLE CLASS HOMEWORK.
WHAT AM I DOING HERE AS AN ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE MAJOR? WHAT IS IT THAT I'M DOING, PRECISELY?
*Sigh* Making a security net. No one needs a M.A. in Art History. It's about the least marketable degree in the world. I'd love to teach, to get all passionate and rile up my class and get them excited about the precision of Botticelli's lines and Titian's colour palette and of course Michelangelo and Leonardo and Giotto and Vasari and Artemisia.
Oh beauty. Oh love. Oh God.
Environmental Science will be marketable. I can get a job with an E Sci degree. I'd love to work with educating women about birth control and education in general to help control population growth. Believe it or not, there's a correlation between the number of women who get an education and a decrease in population growth (not a decrease in population, but a decrease in population growth). God forbid! I can't believe that one women have dominion over their own bodies that they would choose to wait to have children! What a novel fucking idea! Women! With education!
Dear Christ, we are but a stupid species. Honestly. God for-fucking-bid women decide when they want to get pregnant. God forbid there's more to life than popping out kids and hoping against hope that there'll be food enough for them all. And if their mothers are educated, then the daughters will be educated and then THEY'LL wait to have children and have fewer children.
See how this is a good thing? There are way too many fucking people on the planet. Literally.
USE A CONDOM.
Condoms are easier to change than diapers.
See? Torn. But ultimately Botticelli will win me over.
Now dammit, UVA. You all need to be clearer about your graduate programs... |
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