Yes, the Ever-lasting contrast. Since existence has known, the 'fight' between good & evil has continued. Obviously, this fight can never end. Good things turn bad, bad things become good. My fav. contrasting symbol, because it is so true & means so much – the battle between good & bad never ends… Here we ponder on the tragedy of Dylan Klebold.
Images
Here is your collage. I hope that you like it, Semper Fi
Aww, thank you for making this for E-C’s 5 year anniversary, love. 💖✨💖✨ I’m deeply touched ! ☺️💕
With the number ten, symbolizes heaven and perfection as well as eternity. In Jung, the antithesis of the square (lowest state of man who has not achieved inner perfection), standing for the ultimate state of Oneness, with octagon in between. Circle of Necessity: birth, growth, decline, death. Defense against chaos, formlessness. Related to Ying Yang – and oh yeah, basically the Everlasting Contrast dualistic Dylanosophy. 😉
The never-ending cycle is represented by the sign of the serpent that eats it’s own tail known as the Ouroboros, symbolically representing an endless loop with no beginning and no end, basically eternity and infinite existence in cycle of creation and destruction. The figure symbolizes the paradox of existence because it contains both circular and linear logic: Linear, because a beginning and ending our shown; circular because the end offers a new beginning, and the figure itself is in the shape of an eternally recurring and unbreakable ring. Like the Phoenix or the Scarab, the serpent’s end leads only to the beginning. Binary opposition as with the beginning and the end and the heads and the tails and the union of those opposites in an endless circle. The Ouroboros is akin to the FIgure 8 Infinity symbol and sometimes the serpent consuming itself is shown as the Infinity symbol instead of just one O.
Dylan’s O appears to be a similar symbolic representation of the endless journey on the infinite Lost Highway where ‘here’ to ‘there’ is on a continual loop or his endless plunge into the vortex-like abyss of The Downward Spiral then becomes an Upward Spiral ascent within the center of it’s threshold.
The end is the beginning is the end. Up is down and down is up.
There is also the Alchemic, mathematical equivalents in the Celtic symbol of the Annulus, or Tenth Knot, a ring-like marking also called an “O” or zero.
Incidentally, I remember the Ouroboros was the symbolic motif for the nineties television series Millennium – a huge favorite of mine.
Okay, I think that’s all..for now. Thanks to @acinnamon-girl for starting off such a provocative post and opening up a can of Ouroboros worms for me. lol
With the number ten, symbolizes heaven and perfection as well as eternity. In Jung, the antithesis of the square (lowest state of man who has not achieved inner perfection), standing for the ultimate state of Oneness, with octagon in between. Circle of Necessity: birth, growth, decline, death. Defense against chaos, formlessness. Related to Ying Yang – and oh yeah, basically the Everlasting Contrast dualistic Dylanosophy. 😉
My sister doodled this for me a few years ago. I was iffy about posting it here, or anywhere else for that matter, fearing criticism (I would have withered if I saw snarky comments on Dyl’s behalf). I was terrified, but now I think it’s the right time for the big release lol since it took me years to build up the courage.
Beauty that Dyl emits has me in awe, every time, for I am infinitely in love.
A while ago I red that Dylan Klebolds favorite number was 5 and It immediately reminded me of something… In my favorite book „the invisible apple“(only available in german) the author Robert Gwisdek describes the quadrature of the circle the way I sketched it above.
Number 5 is the centre of the downward spiral.
The core.
The heart.
Where everything starts and where everything ends.
You hit the nail on the head or at least veeery close to the mark as far as his affinity (or should I say infinity?) with 5. 😉
It’s interesting how Dylan never seems to draw the 5 at the center of the spiral. You’d think he’d overlay the two with 5 being the center of the spiral..but perhaps that was too blatantly obvious for him to be so literal. lol
but in addition to NINs The Downward Spiral there is this song – which he does loosely reference in the above quote: “The End Is the Beginning Is the End” is a Grammy Award-winning song by American alternative rock band The Smashing Pumpkins. It is the first full-band song released as a single by the Smashing Pumpkins in the aftermath of their 1995 album, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.
I think what you’ve pointed out definitely represents one of a few of his synchronous ‘signs’ echoing the number’s significance to him. The end of the spiral is the end of his life but also the beginning, a rebirth into the next, the beyond. Into the 5th dimension. He needs to end in order to truly begin. You’re right that the center of the spiral is ‘the core, the heart’. It is the Apex focal point place of all true meaning of ‘The Everything’. The end of the drain where the duality of life and death meet as one. It is metaphorically a transitional birth canal in which the spiral pattern represents to him the need to go down this spiral rabbit hole (or is it really spiral up?) to die and end so that he can be reborn back into a state of purity. To begin again.
There is a kind of lachrymose beauty to it which brings tears to my eyes.
“What fun is life without a little death?”
Upward and downward In and out End and beginning…. is the end.. is the beginning…infinite loop
One cannot exist without the other in the duality that is the Everlasting Contrast.
Thank you for posting this! What you’ve shared feels like another piece to the puzzle which fits perfectly into place. 🙂
Oh, and, incidentally, I discovered this while perusing quotes in his journal: you can bet Dylan saw this as yet another echoing sign of the Number 5, pointing him to his True Love as he mentions in his suicidal love letter: “ This semester I still see you — rarely. I am entranced during 5th period, as we both have it off. To most people, I appear … well … almost scary, but that’s who I appear to be as people are afraid of what they don’t understand. I denied who I was for a long time. Until high school…. “
Dylan says he “denied who he was for a long time” and “people are afraid of what they don’t understand”.
“It is time. It is time. I love her, the journey, the endless journey started, it has to end. We need to be happy to exist truly. I see her in perfection, the halcyons. I await endless purity “ – DBK
In an excerpt from A Mother’s Reckoning, Sue Klebold discusses the time when her son hinted to her about committing the massacre at Columbine.
Later in February (of ‘99) Dylan and I had a conversation about his senior year coming to an end, and he mentioned a senior prank. Assuming the whole class was involved, I asked him for details. He smiles and said he did not want to tell me.
“Don’t even think about it,” I warned him. He said, “Don’t worry, mom. I promise I won’t get into any trouble.”
I do think Dylan was being a bit smug here with an inside joke of gallows humor that mom couldn’t even begin to guess what he was veiledly referring to. ‘Involving the whole class’? No, mom, more like involving the entire school.
“He seeks knowledge of the unthinkable, of the indefinable, of the unknown. He explores the everything… using his mind, the most powerful tool known to him. Yet, the more he thinks, hoping to find answers to his questions, the more come up.
After this so-called “lecture” the common man feels confused, empty, & unaware. Yet those are the best emotions of a ponderer. The real difference is, a true ponderer will explore these emotions & what caused them. Questions make answers, answers conceive questions, and at long last he is content “ “I will never stop wondering.”
– Dylan Bennet Klebold
——-
“The important thing is to not stop questioning. Never lose a holy curiosity. Don’t stop to marvel.”
“It is so clear, yet so foggy Everything’s connected, separated
I am the only interpreter of this”
“How everything is connected yet separate.”
–Dylan Bennet Klebold
Chillin’ with Dylan
This weekends offering….
On Dylan’s list: “Spacetime Continuum – Any Xpt SeaBiscuit
(any of their albums eXcept SeaBiscuit (he already had that one!)
Jonah Sharp alias Spacetime Continuum is a producer, remixer, and DJ of electronic music. After starting his musical career as a jazz drummer in London, UK, he moved to San Francisco, United States. During the 1990s Sharp released a series of albums on the Astralwerks record label. The first of these, entitled Alien Dreamtime, featured a live recording of ethnobotanist, writer and psychedelic researcher Terence McKenna delivering a series of lectures to the accompaniment of Spacetime Continuum music. Sharp’s subsequent albums combined experimental electronic music with subtle jazz elements and elaborate rhythm structures. His work has had a clear influence on contemporary psybient artists, such as Shpongle and others. Genres: Ambient Techno, Spoken Word, IDM, Psybient, Ambient
More lyrics scribbled by Dylan into his day planner, in the week spanning May 4-10, 1998. This song is Gave Up by Nine Inch Nails (released 1992), and it’s notable for a few reasons.
For one, the words are classic NIN, and ergo, classic Dyl. It deals with feelings of angst, isolation from society and others, and self-loathing. The protagonist’s response to these feelings is self-destruction: “Gonna smash myself to pieces/I don’t know what else to do”.
The frenetic chorus that follows the introduction to the character’s pain and heartache is the portion Dylan copied word-for-word, suggesting it resonated the most. He even included a reference to his favourite number (5) beneath as though to underscore the relevance of the words. The repeated refrain “smashed up” evokes rage and violence each time. Note as well phrases such as “my everything” and “all that was true”. ‘The everything’ is a concept consistently repeated in Dylan’s writing, and he uses the word ‘true’ frequently and reverently as well.
I understand the everything. I am the god of the everything.
Secondly, the music video for Gave Up was shot at Trent Reznor’s studio at 10050 Cielo Drive – the address where the Tate murders took place on Charles Manson’s orders. In November, 1998 – six months after copying down these lyrics – Dylan wrote a paper on Charles Manson for his creative writing class, and was possibly (probably?) aware of the link between Manson and Reznor. The video also features a different Manson connection – a cameo from Marilyn, who would come under public scrutiny after the Columbine tragedy, and go on to immortalise Dylan (and Eric) in his song, The Nobodies.
In another example
of kismet, director David Lynch played Gave Up on repeat on the set of Lost
Highway, Dylan’s favourite film, to set the mood for the actors. It was a
fitting choice. Psychologist and researcher Peter Langman has observed, “The
film is notable for the way it shatters reality and identity; Dylan’s statement
that the film sounds like it’s about him suggest that his identity and grasp of
reality were deteriorating”. These themes are mirrored in Reznor’s lyrics; Dylan in turn found his own reflection in both of these creative works.
… Or are you referencing Zero?
The Everlasting Contrast 