Back in the 70's, the Bee Gees wrote a song called 'Words' that pretty much captured the heart of every teenage girl. Well, at least the ones I knew. Ok, fine - mine. I've never forgotten that song, and like most unforgettable things, I've altered the lyrics in my mind, to fit my own ideas. This morning I've been thinking about the Gibb Brothers crooning,

'It's only words, and words are all i have - to take your breath away.'

Except the real lyrics say 'heart' instead of 'breath'. I like breath better though. It's bigger and less about fantasized romantic love - more about encompassing and universal thought.

I've been reading words all week that have literally taken my breath away. I feel like I've both discovered and come home to a world where I'm already fluent in the language. But it's a language I've found so rarely outside my own head, I thought i was basically a solitary freak.

I've started reading about artists and writers, and haven't nearly begun. Their tortured psyches mirror my own. I've never understood that somewhat crazed part of me, outside of well, latent psychiatric issues, ok, fine - they're not latent, or having killed off too many brain cells from enjoying too many psychotropic recreational drugs as a teenager...

I'm also reading the philosophy of Nietzsche, and have only just begun. And to think I ditched Philosophy 101 because I was so uninspired with the wannabe hippie professor. He unfortunately, had me thinking that philosophy is only about arguing the existence of an orange based on it's invisible molecular structure. My gosh, I was done before i ever started. Granted, I was pretty smug too - I'd had my head immersed in great poetry and was writing and asking questions about the meaning of life, death, fate, chance, god, illusions and truth at 17. And if that prof was a philosopher, I was having nothing to do with him...

My best friend Grace & I, instead pondered how to translate of the 'deep meaning' of the poster on the back of her bedroom door, to our unenlightened group of friends.

'We the seeing, led by the knowing are doing the impossible for the ungrateful.
We have done so much with so little for so long, we are now capable of doing anything with nothing...'

(It was the acid that made us think we could do anything with nothing. None of those kids ever enlightened. Some went to jail though.)

Following those erratic years of musing, I stumbled in to the world of EST & self actualization for more of the same. And then in to religion. And then into self expression through painting. Expression through painting is almost the same as expression through poetry, which meant getting as close to the fire as possible without burning up . Ok fine - i did burn up. But every one of those places has added to my collective perspective and I wouldn't dispute their value.

And now, here again, full circle - Philosophy 101. Literature 101. Art History 101. Well, not real classes - cuz I still think I'm too smart for them.

But oooooooo, I love this place.