Monday, March 24, 2008

Impetuous

I love the word impetuous. I associate it with the very young and the very carefree. I don’t associate it at all with me. It’s a question that keeps bugging me these days. When was the last time I did something impetuously… on an impulse (and I don’t mean picking up that expensive skirt at Mango). Frankly, I cannot remember.

I try and analyse this. At the end of the day it is about a certain quality of fearlessness. It is about not giving a damn about what people – your mother, your neighbour, your husband, your boss - will think about you. About not caring if you will end up looking foolish. It is about doing some things purely for yourself - like staying back in office for that half hour of pictionary or shutting the world out for a book. About not drawing the boundaries between what is the right thing to do and the fun thing to do. It is about an ability to be irresponsible – about admitting that the world is not going to come crashing down if you go awol for one day or sleep in and miss that all important meeting. It is about not having guilt come in the way of pure pleasure. It is about giving in to your heart, without your head coming in the way.

I am not impetuous.

9 comments:

UL said...

Not me either...not right now anyway...may be once upon a star..!

You are right, young and impetuous go together often. It is even accepted in the young, but in grown adults it is seen as irresponsible..

Anonymous said...

WOW! Could so relate to this post. Me neither. I want to be though. I always feel that when I see people dancing.

BTW have a lil something for you on my blog.

Anonymous said...

sounds like a case of middle-aged life's-passing-me-by angst...hey, it's fine if you're not "impetuous" and "carefree" - odds are you're not about to turn into britney spears overnight. you are what you are, and lots of people appreciate you for just what you are, you know!
the things that you talk about are such ordinary pleasures, though, i'm surprised you even bring them up - can't sleep in for a day, play some pictionary? what slavedriving world do you live in??

Anonymous said...

I know the bottom, she says. I know it with my great tap root;
It is what you fear.
I do not fear it: I have been there.

Is it the sea you hear in me,
Its dissatisfactions?
Or the voice of nothing, that was you madness?

Love is a shadow.
How you lie and cry after it.
Listen: these are its hooves: it has gone off, like a horse.

All night I shall gallup thus, impetuously,
Till your head is a stone, your pillow a little turf,
Echoing, echoing.

Or shall I bring you the sound of poisons?
This is rain now, the big hush.
And this is the fruit of it: tin white, like arsenic.

I have suffered the atrocity of sunsets.
Scorched to the root
My red filaments burn and stand,a hand of wires.

Now I break up in pieces that fly about like clubs.
A wind of such violence
Will tolerate no bystanding: I must shriek.

The moon, also, is merciless: she would drag me
Cruelly, being barren.
Her radiance scathes me. Or perhaps I have caught her.

I let her go. I let her go
Diminished and flat, as after radical surgery.
How your bad dreams possess and endow me.

I am inhabited by a cry.
Nightly it flaps out
Looking, with its hooks, for something to love.

I am terrified by this dark thing
That sleeps in me;
All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.

Clouds pass and disperse.
Are those the faces of love, those pale irretrievables?
Is it for such I agitate my heart?

I am incapable of more knowledge.
What is this, this face
So murderous in its strangle of branches? ----

Its snaky acids kiss.
It petrifies the will. These are the isolate, slow faults
That kill, that kill, that kill.

Anonymous said...

I know the bottom, she says. I know it with my great tap root;
It is what you fear.
I do not fear it: I have been there.

Is it the sea you hear in me,
Its dissatisfactions?
Or the voice of nothing, that was you madness?

Love is a shadow.
How you lie and cry after it.
Listen: these are its hooves: it has gone off, like a horse.

All night I shall gallup thus, impetuously,
Till your head is a stone, your pillow a little turf,
Echoing, echoing.

Or shall I bring you the sound of poisons?
This is rain now, the big hush.
And this is the fruit of it: tin white, like arsenic.

I have suffered the atrocity of sunsets.
Scorched to the root
My red filaments burn and stand,a hand of wires.

Now I break up in pieces that fly about like clubs.
A wind of such violence
Will tolerate no bystanding: I must shriek.

The moon, also, is merciless: she would drag me
Cruelly, being barren.
Her radiance scathes me. Or perhaps I have caught her.

I let her go. I let her go
Diminished and flat, as after radical surgery.
How your bad dreams possess and endow me.

I am inhabited by a cry.
Nightly it flaps out
Looking, with its hooks, for something to love.

I am terrified by this dark thing
That sleeps in me;
All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.

Clouds pass and disperse.
Are those the faces of love, those pale irretrievables?
Is it for such I agitate my heart?

I am incapable of more knowledge.
What is this, this face
So murderous in its strangle of branches? ----

Its snaky acids kiss.
It petrifies the will. These are the isolate, slow faults
That kill, that kill, that kill.

small talk said...

wow anonymous... i wish you wouldn't remain anonymous.

Vineeta said...

:) I loved this post. I had better print this word out and stick it someplace I can see it :) often.

small talk said...

ha ha vineeta. i think i better do the same.

RG said...

Requires some courage, certainly, but also a suspension, momentarily/temporarily, of imagination.

Thoroughly enjoying your blog, great to revisit old favorites and look at new ones. Have been spending way too much time here, now I need to find the 'impetus' to get back to work.

Thanks for all this.

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