'What Is Otherwise Infinite' asks for granular honesty in our search for meaning

 

'What Is Otherwise Infinite' asks for granular honesty in our search for meaning

Isolated¹ and fatigued² by the pandemic over the last two years, existential questions have consumed many of our minds. What is the meaning of our lives? How should we be spending our time?

Poets are great at ruminating³ on these questions, and Bianca Stone is one of them.

"I think it's a human condition to search," the poet says. "With so much happening in the world right now that is unfamiliar⁴ and confusing, I think we're trying to figure out, 'what next?'"

Stone's fourth poetry collection, What Is Otherwise Infinite, delves⁵ deep into this internal search for meaning. And to know what we want from our lives, Stone says we need to get really, really honest with ourselves.

"There's nothing wrong with wanting to move towards a better version of yourself," she says. "But I think that it can become very insidious⁶ and destructive if we don't look around at what's going on in our life and who we are."

Here's an excerpt⁷ from her poem "Routine" —

Some days I get up to go for a run

but instead just sit in spandex

and write poems about the fog.

Is the fog lifting or the trees rising?

Who cares. Nature transfers her blood

into the air. We are her lung cancer.

Her trans fat. Her addiction⁸.

Some days I get up to write

but instead clean —the great lie

that I am doing something.

The poet calls this poem a direct response to the "obsessive⁹ hole" that one can get into when thinking about routines, habits and, as she says, "reaching your full potential."

"It can be kind of a form of masochism, trying so hard to fix yourself and to be this great ideal self," she says.

Stone's poems reframe the search for meaning by addressing the self-care and self-perfection complex. Because even though it's natural to want to "fix" our lives — sometimes obsessing¹⁰ over our lives can work against us.

"One thing I've learned [in writing this book] is that there's often several different selves in us, and they're incongruous and at odds," she says. "And accepting the different parts of ourselves is an incredible gift."

So — we may not know "what's next" but perhaps we know that we want to work as well as rest, or run as well as eat "dirty, dirty chocolate layer cake" (which is an image from one of her poems).

Of course, Stone acknowledges that reconciling these contradictions and being honest with ourselves can be really frightening.

"But the good thing is that once you are, you're free, and there is a kind of infinitude to that freedom," she says. "Where you're not beholden to societal expectations about how you should be spending your day."

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1 isolated   

adj.与世隔绝的

参考例句：

• His bad behaviour was just an isolated incident. 他的不良行为只是个别事件。
• Patients with the disease should be isolated. 这种病的患者应予以隔离。

2 fatigued   

adj. 疲乏的

参考例句：

• The exercises fatigued her. 操练使她感到很疲乏。
• The President smiled, with fatigued tolerance for a minor person's naivety. 总统笑了笑，疲惫地表现出对一个下级人员的天真想法的宽容。

3 ruminating   

v.沉思( ruminate的现在分词 )；反复考虑；反刍；倒嚼

参考例句：

• He sat there ruminating and picking at the tablecloth. 他坐在那儿沉思，轻轻地抚弄着桌布。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He is ruminating on what had happened the day before. 他在沉思前一天发生的事情。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 unfamiliar   

adj.陌生的，不熟悉的

参考例句：

• I am unfamiliar with the place and the people here.我在这儿人地生疏。
• The man seemed unfamiliar to me.这人很面生。

5 delves   

v.深入探究，钻研( delve的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• That delves the grave duly. 误不了你的洞房。 来自互联网
• The exhibition delves deep into the physics, aromatics and even the timbre of flatulence. 此次展览向人们介绍了人体物理、气味甚至肠胃胀气的声音等各方面知识。 来自互联网

6 insidious   

adj.阴险的，隐匿的，暗中为害的，（疾病）不知不觉之间加剧

参考例句：

• That insidious man bad-mouthed me to almost everyone else.那个阴险的家伙几乎见人便说我的坏话。
• Organized crime has an insidious influence on all who come into contact with it.所有和集团犯罪有关的人都会不知不觉地受坏影响。

7 excerpt   

n.摘录，选录，节录

参考例句：

• This is an excerpt from a novel.这是一部小说的摘录。
• Can you excerpt something from the newspaper? 你能从报纸上选录些东西吗？

8 addiction   

n.上瘾入迷，嗜好

参考例句：

• He stole money from his parents to feed his addiction.他从父母那儿偷钱以满足自己的嗜好。
• Areas of drug dealing are hellholes of addiction,poverty and murder.贩卖毒品的地区往往是吸毒上瘾、贫困和发生谋杀的地方。

9 obsessive   

adj. 着迷的, 强迫性的, 分神的

参考例句：

• Some people are obsessive about cleanliness.有些人有洁癖。
• He's becoming more and more obsessive about punctuality.他对守时要求越来越过分了。

10 obsessing   

v.时刻困扰( obsess的现在分词 )；缠住；使痴迷；使迷恋

参考例句：

• Why is everyone obsessing over system specs right now? 为啥现在人人都对系统配置情有独钟？ 来自互联网
• A nitpicker, obsessing over dimes, is too stiff to place orders. 一个连一毛钱都舍不得亏的人，因太过拘谨而不能下单。 来自互联网