؜

Crumbling is not an instant's Act

A fundamental pause

Dilapidation's processes

Are organized Decays —

؜

'Tis first a Cobweb on the Soul

A Cuticle of Dust

A Borer in the Axis

An Elemental Rust —

؜؜؜

Ruin is formal — Devil's work

Consecutive and slow —

Fail in an instant, no man did

Slipping — is Crashe's law —

It's not an all-or-nothing proposition.

My dad was a cancer patient with severe chronic pain. Cannabis did not eliminate the need for opiates for chronic pain, but reduced the amount of opiates he needed by about half. Using cannabis actually allowed him to be MORE lucid.

If I become a duller and less complicated person, will I be able to more easily explain myself, and therefore less lonely? Absurd.

There are many ways to bond with others that are non-verbal.

Further, even if they are correct, to what extent is their response based on incorrect or insufficient information (which I strongly suspect)?

"Everybody asks me what things mean in my films. This is terrible! An artist doesn't have to answer for his meanings. I don't think so deeply about my work - I don't know what my symbols may represent. What matters to me is that they arouse feelings, any feelings you like, based on whatever your inner response might be. If you look for a meaning, you'll miss everything that happens. Thinking during a film interferes with your experience of it. Take a watch into pieces, it doesn't work. Similarly with a work of art, there's no way it can be analyzed without destroying it."

- Andrei Tarkovsky

Andrei Tarkovsky: Interviews, pg. 71 Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2006

Edit: as others have pointed out, my surprise at this parallel may tell you less about the uniqueness of Tarkovsky's world view, and more about my ignorance of Orthodox Christianity.

I work in a technical role and I miss my colleagues immensely. I feel best when I am around people I know, and when my job entails keeping a small group of people happy.

Working in sales, consulting, or relationship management is about working with strangers.... of balancing the joint demands of both your employer and the client. I get very self-critical and anxious in these roles.

"Another example of a purely mechanical feedback system — the one originally treated by Clerk Maxwell — is that of the governor of a steam engine, which serves to regulate its velocity under varying conditions of load. In the original form designed by Watt, it consists of two balls attached to pendulum rods and swinging on opposite sides of a rotating shaft. They are kept down by their own weight or by a spring, and they are swung upward by a centrifugal action dependent on the angular velocity of the shaft. They thus assume a compromise position likewise dependent on the angular velocity. This position is transmitted by other rods to a collar about the shaft, which actuates a member which serves to open the intake valves of the cylinder when the engine slows down and the balls fall, and to close them when the engine speeds up and the balls rise. Notice that the feedback tends to oppose what the system is already doing, and is thus negative. "

(https://archive.org/details/CyberneticsOrCommunicationAndCon...)

Gaining awareness of emotions is the first step in understanding how thoughts and conditions induce emotional states. This understanding facilitates ownership of one's own emotional responses. Harsh self-judgement shuts down this process, which is why narcissists are incapable of self-reflection.

I think you have it backwards.

Tarkovsky's films seem to exist in a different type of time orthogonal to our own, and the experience of engaging with them is difficult to describe. They are both powerful and ineffable.

From his writings, he could be mistaken for a practitioner of Zen. I would like to share my favorite Tarkovsky quote:

"Everybody asks me what things mean in my films. This is terrible! An artist doesn't have to answer for his meanings. I don't think so deeply about my work - I don't know what my symbols may represent. What matters to me is that they arouse feelings, any feelings you like, based on whatever your inner response might be. If you look for a meaning, you'll miss everything that happens. Thinking during a film interferes with your experience of it. Take a watch into pieces, it doesn't work. Similarly with a work of art, there's no way it can be analyzed without destroying it."