Why is it that poetry is so much more appealing to me at night? Perhaps it is because I’m a night owl. The noise of the day all behind me, I can take in the words on the page before me in quiet. Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs de Mal is on the bedside table, next to Dumas’ The Count of Monte Christo and Gunaratana’s Mindfulness in Plain English. I have a revolving stack of books next to the bed because I’m always reading multiple books at one time, given my short attention span.

Lately Baudelaire has made me sink into the nights of summer, quiet and still except for the bugs buzzing, chirping and whistling outside my window. And Barthes has made me giggle with his awkwardness and insecurity, trying to figure out life like the rest of us, like this from A Lover’s Discourse, which is my thoughts on the phone precisely:

My anxieties as to behavior are futile, ever more so, to infinity. If the other, incidentally or negligently, gives the telephone number of a place where he or she can be reached at certain times, I immediately grow baffled: should I telephone or shouldn’t I? (It would do no good to tell me that I can telephone- that is the objective, reasonable meaning of the message- for it is precisely this permission I don’t know how to handle.

What is futile is what apparently has and will have no consequence … Was it an invitation to telephone right away, for the pleasure of the call, or only should the occasion arise, out of necessity? My answer itself will be a sign, which the other will inevitably interpret, thereby releasing, between us, a tumultuous maneuvering of images. Everything signifies: by this proposition, I entrap myself, I bind myself in calculations, I keep myself from enjoyment.

Bless him for also being phone phobic, or atleast more awkward than necessary when faced with a little speaker to project into, hoping that your words don’t sound mangled or slurred or that there’s a bad connection. But then again, I’ve always been more than partial to Barthes. But reading such passages as these reminds me that no matter what I’m worrying about, chances are, someone else somewhere is worrying about it, too.

The same thing can be said for the realm of art/craft. As currently I’m toiling away with a couple of new projects, hoping that I can finish them before someone else finishes something similar. Or that once I finish them, someone doesn’t present me with scores of the exact same work rendering my own somewhat less enticing.

But that’s always the way with anything, isn’t it? In grappling with new ideas, old fears, failed relationships and future goals, we not only figure out more about ourselves (and people’s perceptions of ourselves) but more about the world around us and how we can best help it become a better place. As well as ourselves better people. Or atleast that’s the hope I have for everyone, anyway.