Schema

Immanuel Kant once wrote: science is organised knowledge, wisdom is organised life.

To say my life is organised is in some ways an understatement and an overstatement. I don't know at the moment how I'll ever get out of my parents house, whether I'll ever earn enough to get a mortgage or if I'll ever get a full time job that is worthy of my abilities and my 5 letter qualifications. Perhaps it is better said that I should be worthy of it. That's how the job market works these days, how are you, the applicant, going to be useful to us? My rights or entitlements or desires seem secondary to everyone else's, especially the person with the power.

Other ways my life is fairly organised. I have enough reading material to last well within my 50s in the form of audiobooks. I'm presently putting my energies into creating a playlist for the coming year. I call it the 2011 playlist. It is furhter subcategorised into four broad categories which basically sums up my music interest:

• Black metal (Includes depressive black metal)
  
• Indie/rock/pop/ - normal people music (includes punk)
  
• Classical (includes schoenberg)
  
• 'Gothic' and related genres - camden people music (includes heavy metal)

In wittgensteinian fashion, these categories have further subcategories. I'll give you an example: gothic and related arbitrarily includes heavy metal genres but not black metal. I see black metal as too autonomous from heavy metal in my playlist. Heavy metal is party music and fun music. For me, black metal is closer to classical music in its darkness and how it stares into the depths of the human soul, like say, the Essays of Montaigne or the books of Nietzsche.

I think that makes me what people call an 'intense' person. Black metal as I see it has various subgenres:

• Ambient Black metal
• Atmospheric Black metal - sometimes labelled as atmospheric doom, or black-doom
• Post-rock black metal (more avant-garde) - sometimes identified as 'experimental black metal)
  
• Black thrash (sounds like rockn'roll) - sometimes called thrash'nroll
• Blackened death metal: death metal with black influences - although the two genres are quite seperated in terms of their fan base, they would sound musically similar superficially in the fact that they are harsh sounding, and pride themselves on how 'extreme' and distorted it can be. I think the difference is as large as say, the attitude stereotype between the archetypal european and the archetypal north american
  
• Depressive and Suicidal Black Metal
• Avant-garde metal
• French Black metal
• National socialist black metal
• Discographies (whole playlists of the output of particular bands, like opeth, cradle of filth etc)
• 'True' black metal - this genre as far as I understand it tries to go to the 'roots' of black metal, even though ironically it is considered as an 'offshoot'. It is an offshoot that is a response to the fact that black metal has offshot soo much. Such is the way of musical authenticity notions
  
• Symphonic black metal
• UK black metal
• Unsorted - things I can't classify or are too specific to put under a genus concept (like norweigian viking folk metal - or something)

So that makes a set of 12 divisions in a single schema. Even within this (arbitrary) schematisation that I have constructed, I have established subcategories and the potential for even further subcategories. At the moment I'm trying to work out the most organised way to schematise the rock music. I think punk is the biggest subcategory to establish as a single autonomous subgroup from the rest of the generalised rock tracks.

In my head I can organise things but in my life I cannot. In my head I have the authority to command what is the case and what is not by means of applying concepts to objects. A thought that I had last night that was really scary, and in a sense is the essence of what many of my dreams have been, is to say that I'm stuck between two worlds. A world in my head or a personal world where people really know me ,or where I can be most myself; and a world where people know the 'social' me. The social me is awkward nervous and unemployable. The personal me is similarly a powerless and feckless individual.

Normally people jump between two worlds to find empowerment. People go into subcultures to discern a notion of identity which fits more to their self concept, either as a descriptive notion or a normative notion (namely, pertaining to how they think that they should be as a person). In my world, the normative conception ofmyself is implicitly critical of what I am now. I jump between two world but do not find more empowerment but more exasperation from a lack of control.

Perhaps the only power I have is from within.

Earlier today I was thinking to myself: why should I bother to get out of bed today? I was thinking in my head that if I stayed in bed later I could find some inner resolve that would make me strong and able to face the day, or the laternative was to get out of bed and face the cold and the pain and the drowsyness that I felt, facing the day knowing that I didn't feel emotionally strong or particularly resolved.

Years of depression and learning about myself has taught me that the perception of a better me always seems to be tangible and possible, but distant, ever distant. The temptation is to chase that tangible self, but I end up living more in my head, and not doing anything. Or I could get out of bed and face the cold, brush my teeth, shave and so forth. It is through this kind of action that real life occurs. Not some fantasy notion of 'happily ever after' whereby I become Aeneas suddenly after his moment of clarity in the underworld and everything goes right for him.

Real life isn't like that. Real life is the emotional hangover. Why is it that I feel hungover when I didn't drink anything? I think that's a sign that I shouldn't drink. I have enough problems sober. Real life is stress, getting things done in a struggle and hoping for the best.

My life is constant rejection, constant refusal to see any worth in me and there seems to be no pot'o gold at the end of the rainbow. I must recognise that my schedule is the one thing keeping me going, and it is exactly the schedule and all the job searches and applications what will move me forward.

Today is technically an 'off' day. I'm supposed to see my sister later. In addition, I might see some friend.s Just like me to want to tackle the big stuff. I wish I saw more of the good in me. Sometimes a good day means just not making things worse. What I want right now is a fix hit of chocolate sugar in my blood stream, and maybe a shower. I can smell my putrid odours.

I feel better after writing this post. I was worried that I wasn't going to be articulate. Sometims the best way to clear the air is through some analogous discussion. Because schema can be isomorphic.