vianegativa | What LJ Means To Me, Pt. the First: Via Negativa

Look, it's occurred to me recently that people reading my journal take it far too seriously. My journal is all mental static and white noise; sometimes something solid, perhaps even rational emerges from the background chaos, but otherwise it should just be appreciated that this is me drowning in my own stream of conciousness.

I don't agree with everything I write in my journal. Sometimes entries originate from rage, or playfulness, or just ambient stupidity. This journal is often my unfettered emotional outlet. I'm not selling a cause, I'm not telling people how to live or what to do. By no means do I think I'm doing a public service and I've broken all my soapboxes. If you think that by reading my journal I'm preaching to you or telling you How Things Should Be, you're dead wrong.

I don't want that responsibility; it's not why I bother with this journal.

Look at my name: via negativa.

By one definition via negativa is a philosophical term that essentially means defining a thing or concept by that which it is NOT. In Latin it literally means "The Way of Negation", or more simply, "The Negative Way". When I first heard this term, it struck a chord in me; maybe it seems a bit more morose and gothic that it did, but there you have it. Years later, in a dour mood, when I first put pixel to pixel it just came at me from nowhere.

Yes it seems depressive; no, I'm not a depressed person.

I kept my username because it seemed an allegory for my life at times. When I explore things mentally I will allow the most alien or absurd concepts to roost in my skull, so I might poke at them with a sharp stick until I find the idea to be valid or worthless. I keep my own Devil's Advocate on a continous loop in the back of my head. I will ask questions like What Kind of Furry Persona Do You Think Is Me NOT because I'm going to become a furry, but rather because its interesting to see how readers of my journal may perceive me personality wise. I will try to define myself by that which I am not.

At times "The Negative Way" seems appropriate because I'm the best builder of my own roadblocks in life. I do seem to choose the most peril filled method of getting from place to place in my life as my second nature.

Sometimes vianegativa works because I take the Left Hand Path; I'm selfish, thoughtless, arrogant or just plain dumb.

My username isn't a stigma to me. It doesn't bring up images of Goth Girls with clove cigarettes sitting in a Daenny's at 4 AM for me; doesn't paint me a picture of some crazed zealot writer, lit by a halogen bulb, furiously typing away in some basement with a manic look settled on his face.

To me, vianegativa is a very positive thing. It means that I will be burned pure and made whole in the forge of that which I am not.

And maybe, just maybe I'll finally be able to know my real self through the devout conflict of tearing away at myself to find out what I am and am not.

Rah, rah, go me. That is all for now