#ask meta things

[metaandpotatoes]

I HAVE ASKS THAT NEED ANSWERING :U Can you please answer the following from the Studio Ghibli asks tag: My Neighbor Totoro, Whisper of the Heart, Princess Mononoke, Secret World of Arrietty, and The Tale of Princess Kaguya :3 thanks

I answered Totoro and Whisper of the Heart in my previous post ^_^

Princess Mononoke: What elemental sign are you? (fire, earth, air & water)

I wish I was fire or water, but I am definitely earth. I am steady and unyielding without the right tools, which translates to stubborn as a bull. I like green things.

Secret World of Arrietty: Tell me about the most beautiful place you have ever been.

Ooh. I have to think. I am going to divide this into two so I can have my cake and eat it: Man-made and natural.

Most beautiful manmade place I have ever been: Amiens Cathedral. This cathedral is absolutely massive—it is the tallest complete cathedral in France. I am not Catholic or Christian or even particularly theistic, but standing in front of and inside this cathedral, you truly understand what it means to reach to heaven. It is a wave of multiplicity: its arches and spires and columns and figures repeat again and again, building on each other like an orchestra to reach inward and upward toward something greater. Inside, the cathedral feels even taller than its facade—to see its rose windows, which break even the sunniest day into millions of fragments that fall into the interior like the light of dawn, you have to bend your neck so far back it feels like you will fall over. But that light is really what makes it: The entire place is made out of this fabulous almost-white stone, which almost gleams when the sun strikes the facade. Inside, though, the building is so tall that the small spaces are cast in shadow. The brightest parts are highest above; by the time the light reaches the humans below, it is lesser, muted. In some of the alcoves, the stained glass is so brilliant and dense that the entire space but for the windows is dark. It is wonderful to sit and meditate on how that is possible; to be so close to light and yet be unable to see.

Most beautiful natural place: This is so hard. Between Ko Phi Phi and Koyasan’s pilgrimage route and Møns Klimt in southern Denmark and sunsets on the Great Plains and the redwoods, I think I have to choose Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park. It’s a lot quieter than Muir Woods, a lot smaller, but the trees are just as majestic and big and beyond comprehension. Everything is muted by the softness—the softness of the forest floor, of the bark, of the people moving in almost necessary reverence. Meditating on a caldera of redwoods, arranged like a crown in a departed predecessor that might have lived for thousands of years, is like nothing else. Watching the bright banana slugs slowly devour the forest floor into nutrients those redwoods use to become so massive—again, like nothing else. I am in awe of the infinity the redwoods have made themselves.

The Tale of Princess Kaguya: What folktale/wives tale from your childhood stuck with you your whole life?

Oh geez, this is hard. I had picture book versions of Greek Mythology and Shakespeare’s the Tempest when I was little. These aren’t folktales or wives tales, but I was way too young to comprehend most of it; the images, though, of Prospero on his island and Atalanta with the apple in particular always stuck with me.

[metaandpotatoes]

Totoro & Whisper of the Heart <3

These are meandering, introspective answers, because I thought that’s what these prompts would produce (and why I wanted to answer some):

My Neighbor Totoro: Favourite mythical creature?

Oh man, 6- to 14-year-old me loved unicorns. Now, though, I think kitsune or sphinx would have to take that title. Kitsune, though, are barely mythological, which is the beauty of kind of folk tale/practical demonology type creatures created to exist mundanely alongside us.

Medusa is also cool as fuck.

Whisper of the Heart: What are you most passionate about? Why?

Ah, this question. I distinctly remember having to do a project over my passion in the sixth grade, and feeling utterly perplexed by the prompt; the concept, even now, makes sense to me on a logical level—it’s something you want to pour yourself into, that you want to define you—but not on a personal one. 

Back then, I chose the answer I thought made most sense: Figure skating. I did it every day of the week, 50-odd weeks a year, for 2+ hours, so I figured (ha!) I was passionate about it. But I didn’t necessarily feel like it defined me or that I would be less if I stopped doing it, so I felt odd claiming it was my “passion” and I think the subsequent 

I think my friends would label me a very passionate person about a number of things. In no particular order: Being right (many exes), doing things well (coworkers), righting injustice (friends), attempting to say things clearly and as accurately as possible (again, many exes, downtrodden after wandering into one too many “arguments” about a topic they thought was mundane and settled), understanding a topic as thoroughly as possible (ditto)…etc. etc. I don’t really see these as things people usually count as contenders for a “passion” though…

I think, however, all of them (and this answer) have a common theme running through them that gets somewhere near my passion, which maybe on an every-day level could be labeled “writing.” I think I mostly just want to figure things out, and I think, despite all my existential gloom and tendency toward nihilism, I am most passionate about understanding the world that I am alive in, because I am equipped to understand it and because I am alive in it. The nihilism sneaks in anyway, though, because I think this is an impossible undertaking :) 

Tl;dr, for some reason, I am most passionate about figuring out why the hell I am (we are all?) alive.