I've decided I need to move forward on many fronts. I've stagnated too long, and have spent too much time thinking and waiting, rather than learning, doing, and getting all the crap in my head out into the light where I can do something creative with it. I keep having the urge to develop my creative abilities, without really knowing what purpose it will serve. I enjoy writing, just like I enjoy music, but I don't know if I like those things for their own merits, or if I'm trying to use them as tools to figure out another problem. I worry that if it's the latter case, I won't be able to stick with it long enough to really create anything of value, but I think I still have to try. I'm paying more attention to my writing - amount, frequency, and quality. Yesterday afternoon I started writing what may be a long term project. I'm not quite sure what it is yet, but it's grounded in my own experience and will likely be largely autobiographical. While I want to tell some kind of story, calling it fiction would be a stretch. I've never approached a major project like this before, and I think I need to spend some time in developing my ideas for characters and story - really decide what I'm writing, and maybe more importantly, why.
On the music front I'm considering taking some classes when I get back to school, probably some kind of composition class along with regular musical theory. I'll also probably find some way to take piano lessons, and hopefully bring the keyboard from home to New York.
I'm going to use my time to create things.
I'm tempted to post what I've written so far, but I'm going to refrain and actually take this thing to a conclusion and polish it first. If it ends up being multiple chapters, maybe I'll post as I go. I'm still working through basically everything about this story - I really have no idea what I'm doing. At the moment I want to just see where my ideas take me and pass judgment later, but it's extremely slow going without really knowing what or why I'm writing. I think I will work on character development first. I wrote two things about the main character at the end of the page, and I think I'll see if I can find more things about him that will flesh out his character. Though honestly, I may just write it as if he is me, or hell, just write it from first person. Dunno yet, but here's what I wrote:
- He has conversations with himself. Whether there are people around or no, it's a rare thing when he isn't talking with himself.
- He creates symbols, and he knows it.
Anyways, time to call it a night. Got silly Chinese class to go to. Funny how I always end up trivializing where I am, even in freakin' China.
One more thing. I'm thinking the time has come for me to speak to a counselor of some sort, maybe seek some sort of medical help for what I've finally admitted is likely clinical depression. I don't know exactly how I feel about all of this yet, but I've acknowledged the fact that I refuse to have another semester or year like the last one, and something needs to be done, even if that something requires more than just my personal effort.
I'd welcome all of your thoughts.
- Bryan
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Friday, December 12, 2008
May - June, 2005
I should be asleep.
I have a final interview tomorrow, and unwritten papers to attend to by the beginning of next week, which doesn't change the fact that I've utterly wasted the past couple of days playing video games and feeling as little as possible. But I don't know why. It's as if somewhere along the line recently I decided to close my eyes and just deny my circumstances up and down until they went away. As if I could crawl into a video game for hours on end and feel happy. I haven't even been able to write anything decent enough to warrant a blog entry, and I honestly haven't cared to take one glance inside myself for the better part of two weeks. But I don't know why. Maybe I'm tired from all the useless soul-searching I've been doing this semester, which is partly due to this blog, and the fact that I've found few things more rewarding than having fun with my friends and doing everything in my power to pretend I'm 15 again. I'm 21. Fuck. 15 is a long time gone, never to return.
Anyways.
I don't know how I'm going to drag myself out of this, but I think I have to, for the sake of my sanity (and my grades). Which brings me back to the start.
Circles do that.
I should be asleep. But as I was lying there listening to music, I felt strangely compelled to look back at some of the stuff I wrote as personal reflections back in high school when I wrote nightly. I found a lot of bad poetry, granted, but I also found some things that sounded terribly familiar. Circles again.
I could talk more about the themes in these reflections, why I chose these particular ones to share, and who they're written about...but I won't. Maybe later.
The following were written between May and June 2005, and I haven't changed a word.
May 12, 2005
Maybe the trouble is that I think too much about how to say things, when I just need to say them. There is an empty void between us, filled with silence. I want to bridge the gap, to bring her closer to me, close enough to know her like a real person. She’s a name and she’s a place, and she’s the hope I have for my life, but she’s always just out of reach. I could blame myself. What do I say? How do I act? Maybe there should be a connection already, and hoping for one to emerge is as hopeless as forcing yourself to fall in love. Or maybe it’s the same thing. I have only known that closeness once before, and in that instance I was consumed by my love for another. Where is the bond now? Why can’t I feel like I am actually saying something when I speak? It’s a mystery as deep and convoluted as my thoughts, waiting to be explored, but hopelessly dark. I dive down within myself again, for even clear water has its dark depths. Sometimes the casual exterior must fall for my true self to be evident, even to myself.
I sit with my back to the table, laying against it as I crane my head toward the sky. Stillness and clouds and vast blue sky. The breeze blows through the trees at the periphery of my vision, and the wordless question appears once more within my mind. A sense of reslessness, of desire, and of hope. I can’t help but laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. How the microscopic events unfold into earth shattering catastrophes all around me, and I am wholly unmoved. Save by the wind. Sometimes it blows through an open classroom door, and I feel life course through me like cool water. There is some energy and natural power in such a subtle force as a summer breeze…and more than anything else I know, it can bring me to my knees.
The sea breeze blows against my face, though I am now many years younger. A strange shade of sunlight colors my memories in the hues of nostalgia, and I feel the hum of some careless summer song reverberate within my soul. My consciousness brings me nothing but the image of the green ocean lapping against the beach, like the bittersweet sound of music played in the distance, carried by some sympathetic wind to my ear, and even years later…my heart aches to feel such carelessness and grace.
Maybe there’s meaning behind the darkness and quiet of my room this summer night. Maybe I can fall back into the recesses of my mind and let the darkness envelop me. I feel myself pulled toward some other place, where the fresh minted sunlight creeps over me as I sit at my computer. Typing. Breathing. Finding the words to say. Maybe I will turn and walk out of this place and into the nothingness between stars. And be totally lost to comprehension.
Ineffable
May 17, 2005
The night sky is a deep, luminous blue, shining through the silhouette trees onto my upturned face. A haze hangs around the moon, like it should on a still night like this. I walk with my friend, and talk of the future. What will become of us? It feels like I’m living a memory, as if I know I am experiencing a time to which I will reminisce many years later. I’ll be somewhere completely different. I’ll be someone completely different. But maybe, just maybe, I’ll remember what the night sky looked like, and how I walked beside my friend, back in the lost days of my youth.
May 20, 2005
Sometimes I’m surprised by the distance between places. Only two points exist on a path for me as I am traveling: the origin and the destination. But there are other places, people living entirely outside of my notice. People who I will never meet, who exist in the nothingness between points. Maybe someday I will realize that existence is a continuity, with my reality being constantly revised by where I am. Now, I am somewhere different than I was yesterday, even if I am in the same place.
I’m just passing through. The world swirls around me, but I am safe behind by the glass barriers separating my reality from the one outside, where there are nothing but plains and space. The sunlight here is like a sweet sickness, clawing inside me, at the walls of my chest: the affliction of sparse tranquility. Perhaps I am not as safe as I thought..
May 23, 2005
There are so many paths to walk, out among the vast expanses of nothingness, among the rolling hills covered in gold. There are so many silent oases, untouched but by the wind, which gently sways the trees to a rhythm unheard by anyone. I want to see them all, to pack up and leave. Pick a direction and go. Experience the quiet of the empty expanse between the limits of human knowledge. Many things can be cages. And many people are prisoners without knowledge of their bondage. My cell has invisible bars, sometimes only as thick as a pane of glass, but impenetrable. The bars are of my own making, built slowly over the passage of my life and heated and reinforced with every meaningless day that passes when I feel nothing. I hold myself hostage to something that lies ahead of me, something I can’t see. But sometimes, free air drifts into my prison, and I can feel again, if only for a short time. Then I think of far off mountains, strange faces, and gentle winds sweeping across oceans of gold.
The first I saw of her was her bare shoulder, as we were led to the booth across the walkway from hers. I sit next to the wall, and glance in her direction just in time to notice that she has turned her head away. We talk and laugh and eat. The mood is easy, but there is some apprehensiveness within me whenever I glance over. She is beautiful. Impossibly so. I wanted nothing more than to talk to her. Hear her voice. Ask her name. And sometimes I would feel her eyes upon me, maybe wondering what my name was. Whenever I noticed, a warm happiness would spread through my body, and I would smile like a fool, though no one else noticed. We ate and talked, sneaking looks between conversations and pizza. If only we had met somewhere else, without our parents, where we could have become friends, but I had no hope of talking to her with her family so close by. My happiness had abetted by the time we stood to leave, and the realization that we would never meet again dawned on me. I saw so many possibilities, so many futures fall away at that instant when I started walking toward the door. But I couldn’t resist another stolen glance, and so looked one last time. She was looking right at me, and she was smiling so warmly I felt as if I knew her. All of my happiness spilled out in the smile I gave her, and I was sure in that instant that she was sad to see me go, just as I was sad to leave her. That smile would be the only thing we ever shared. Sometimes fate can be so cruel.
May 31, 2005
Sweeping fields lay before my feet as the sweet melody of my journey sings softly in my ear. Faroff is the subdued flute, with its blossoming tones of beauty. But rising up like a wave to carry me forward is the vast symphony of freedom, resonating through me, bringing me in tune with the universe, like the air in my lungs brings life within me. Brings the outside within. The vast spirit of everything interconnected, moving through me and around me, speaking through me to craft this music. I am at once the tall mountains and the wide valleys; all are encompassed within me as the whole is reflected in the part…existence reflected in my soul.
The most beautiful music is the most melancholic, for that is the deepest emotion. It sounds almost like the noises a soul makes as it cries for its loneliness, with its rhythm and sorrowful movement, but with the deepest expression.
June 5, 2005
There is nothing between me and the sky as the wind rushes through my hair. Sun glints off the windshield, as I trace the contour of the glass until it reaches into infinity. My consciousness expands toward the sun as I am enveloped in sublime joy, joy of such depth that I could drown in it, dive so deep that I never emerge again. Joy the color of the late afternoon sun that sounds like hazy, reverberating guitar mixed with rushing wind. It has the texture of childhood innocence, bittersweet and delicate, and fades when I try to hold on to it. Reality fades into a twilight of dream and nostalgia, bubbling up within me and washing across my soul until I am filled with the shades of red and orange cast across the clouds. My consciousness evaporates in the haze, my body becomes a conduit to the vastness of existence, everything becomes clear. But the secret slides through my fingers like water until I am left with only my thoughts.
June 6, 2005
All of a sudden, she was far back in the past, staring out across the beautiful valley, with the clear, blue ocean on either side, and the sun sinking behind the horizon. Such relentless beauty and infinite promise, laid before her feet, all those years ago. Now the light shines in slits across her face, filtered through the blinds, as the sun sets behind haze and city lights. It seemed like reality was anchored to her worn face, and her sad, questioning eyes, wondering where the time went. How did I get here? I saw her again for the first time, surreal and startlingly poignant, standing far down the path from where she had once stood, looking back to where she had once been looking forward. Autumn falls across her eyes, and the sun sets a little lower, damningly slow, casting shadow across what once was bright, welcoming the night, and the cold, saddening light shines as the day grows old.
I have a final interview tomorrow, and unwritten papers to attend to by the beginning of next week, which doesn't change the fact that I've utterly wasted the past couple of days playing video games and feeling as little as possible. But I don't know why. It's as if somewhere along the line recently I decided to close my eyes and just deny my circumstances up and down until they went away. As if I could crawl into a video game for hours on end and feel happy. I haven't even been able to write anything decent enough to warrant a blog entry, and I honestly haven't cared to take one glance inside myself for the better part of two weeks. But I don't know why. Maybe I'm tired from all the useless soul-searching I've been doing this semester, which is partly due to this blog, and the fact that I've found few things more rewarding than having fun with my friends and doing everything in my power to pretend I'm 15 again. I'm 21. Fuck. 15 is a long time gone, never to return.
Anyways.
I don't know how I'm going to drag myself out of this, but I think I have to, for the sake of my sanity (and my grades). Which brings me back to the start.
Circles do that.
I should be asleep. But as I was lying there listening to music, I felt strangely compelled to look back at some of the stuff I wrote as personal reflections back in high school when I wrote nightly. I found a lot of bad poetry, granted, but I also found some things that sounded terribly familiar. Circles again.
I could talk more about the themes in these reflections, why I chose these particular ones to share, and who they're written about...but I won't. Maybe later.
The following were written between May and June 2005, and I haven't changed a word.
May 12, 2005
Maybe the trouble is that I think too much about how to say things, when I just need to say them. There is an empty void between us, filled with silence. I want to bridge the gap, to bring her closer to me, close enough to know her like a real person. She’s a name and she’s a place, and she’s the hope I have for my life, but she’s always just out of reach. I could blame myself. What do I say? How do I act? Maybe there should be a connection already, and hoping for one to emerge is as hopeless as forcing yourself to fall in love. Or maybe it’s the same thing. I have only known that closeness once before, and in that instance I was consumed by my love for another. Where is the bond now? Why can’t I feel like I am actually saying something when I speak? It’s a mystery as deep and convoluted as my thoughts, waiting to be explored, but hopelessly dark. I dive down within myself again, for even clear water has its dark depths. Sometimes the casual exterior must fall for my true self to be evident, even to myself.
I sit with my back to the table, laying against it as I crane my head toward the sky. Stillness and clouds and vast blue sky. The breeze blows through the trees at the periphery of my vision, and the wordless question appears once more within my mind. A sense of reslessness, of desire, and of hope. I can’t help but laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. How the microscopic events unfold into earth shattering catastrophes all around me, and I am wholly unmoved. Save by the wind. Sometimes it blows through an open classroom door, and I feel life course through me like cool water. There is some energy and natural power in such a subtle force as a summer breeze…and more than anything else I know, it can bring me to my knees.
The sea breeze blows against my face, though I am now many years younger. A strange shade of sunlight colors my memories in the hues of nostalgia, and I feel the hum of some careless summer song reverberate within my soul. My consciousness brings me nothing but the image of the green ocean lapping against the beach, like the bittersweet sound of music played in the distance, carried by some sympathetic wind to my ear, and even years later…my heart aches to feel such carelessness and grace.
Maybe there’s meaning behind the darkness and quiet of my room this summer night. Maybe I can fall back into the recesses of my mind and let the darkness envelop me. I feel myself pulled toward some other place, where the fresh minted sunlight creeps over me as I sit at my computer. Typing. Breathing. Finding the words to say. Maybe I will turn and walk out of this place and into the nothingness between stars. And be totally lost to comprehension.
Ineffable
May 17, 2005
The night sky is a deep, luminous blue, shining through the silhouette trees onto my upturned face. A haze hangs around the moon, like it should on a still night like this. I walk with my friend, and talk of the future. What will become of us? It feels like I’m living a memory, as if I know I am experiencing a time to which I will reminisce many years later. I’ll be somewhere completely different. I’ll be someone completely different. But maybe, just maybe, I’ll remember what the night sky looked like, and how I walked beside my friend, back in the lost days of my youth.
May 20, 2005
Sometimes I’m surprised by the distance between places. Only two points exist on a path for me as I am traveling: the origin and the destination. But there are other places, people living entirely outside of my notice. People who I will never meet, who exist in the nothingness between points. Maybe someday I will realize that existence is a continuity, with my reality being constantly revised by where I am. Now, I am somewhere different than I was yesterday, even if I am in the same place.
I’m just passing through. The world swirls around me, but I am safe behind by the glass barriers separating my reality from the one outside, where there are nothing but plains and space. The sunlight here is like a sweet sickness, clawing inside me, at the walls of my chest: the affliction of sparse tranquility. Perhaps I am not as safe as I thought..
May 23, 2005
There are so many paths to walk, out among the vast expanses of nothingness, among the rolling hills covered in gold. There are so many silent oases, untouched but by the wind, which gently sways the trees to a rhythm unheard by anyone. I want to see them all, to pack up and leave. Pick a direction and go. Experience the quiet of the empty expanse between the limits of human knowledge. Many things can be cages. And many people are prisoners without knowledge of their bondage. My cell has invisible bars, sometimes only as thick as a pane of glass, but impenetrable. The bars are of my own making, built slowly over the passage of my life and heated and reinforced with every meaningless day that passes when I feel nothing. I hold myself hostage to something that lies ahead of me, something I can’t see. But sometimes, free air drifts into my prison, and I can feel again, if only for a short time. Then I think of far off mountains, strange faces, and gentle winds sweeping across oceans of gold.
The first I saw of her was her bare shoulder, as we were led to the booth across the walkway from hers. I sit next to the wall, and glance in her direction just in time to notice that she has turned her head away. We talk and laugh and eat. The mood is easy, but there is some apprehensiveness within me whenever I glance over. She is beautiful. Impossibly so. I wanted nothing more than to talk to her. Hear her voice. Ask her name. And sometimes I would feel her eyes upon me, maybe wondering what my name was. Whenever I noticed, a warm happiness would spread through my body, and I would smile like a fool, though no one else noticed. We ate and talked, sneaking looks between conversations and pizza. If only we had met somewhere else, without our parents, where we could have become friends, but I had no hope of talking to her with her family so close by. My happiness had abetted by the time we stood to leave, and the realization that we would never meet again dawned on me. I saw so many possibilities, so many futures fall away at that instant when I started walking toward the door. But I couldn’t resist another stolen glance, and so looked one last time. She was looking right at me, and she was smiling so warmly I felt as if I knew her. All of my happiness spilled out in the smile I gave her, and I was sure in that instant that she was sad to see me go, just as I was sad to leave her. That smile would be the only thing we ever shared. Sometimes fate can be so cruel.
May 31, 2005
Sweeping fields lay before my feet as the sweet melody of my journey sings softly in my ear. Faroff is the subdued flute, with its blossoming tones of beauty. But rising up like a wave to carry me forward is the vast symphony of freedom, resonating through me, bringing me in tune with the universe, like the air in my lungs brings life within me. Brings the outside within. The vast spirit of everything interconnected, moving through me and around me, speaking through me to craft this music. I am at once the tall mountains and the wide valleys; all are encompassed within me as the whole is reflected in the part…existence reflected in my soul.
The most beautiful music is the most melancholic, for that is the deepest emotion. It sounds almost like the noises a soul makes as it cries for its loneliness, with its rhythm and sorrowful movement, but with the deepest expression.
June 5, 2005
There is nothing between me and the sky as the wind rushes through my hair. Sun glints off the windshield, as I trace the contour of the glass until it reaches into infinity. My consciousness expands toward the sun as I am enveloped in sublime joy, joy of such depth that I could drown in it, dive so deep that I never emerge again. Joy the color of the late afternoon sun that sounds like hazy, reverberating guitar mixed with rushing wind. It has the texture of childhood innocence, bittersweet and delicate, and fades when I try to hold on to it. Reality fades into a twilight of dream and nostalgia, bubbling up within me and washing across my soul until I am filled with the shades of red and orange cast across the clouds. My consciousness evaporates in the haze, my body becomes a conduit to the vastness of existence, everything becomes clear. But the secret slides through my fingers like water until I am left with only my thoughts.
June 6, 2005
All of a sudden, she was far back in the past, staring out across the beautiful valley, with the clear, blue ocean on either side, and the sun sinking behind the horizon. Such relentless beauty and infinite promise, laid before her feet, all those years ago. Now the light shines in slits across her face, filtered through the blinds, as the sun sets behind haze and city lights. It seemed like reality was anchored to her worn face, and her sad, questioning eyes, wondering where the time went. How did I get here? I saw her again for the first time, surreal and startlingly poignant, standing far down the path from where she had once stood, looking back to where she had once been looking forward. Autumn falls across her eyes, and the sun sets a little lower, damningly slow, casting shadow across what once was bright, welcoming the night, and the cold, saddening light shines as the day grows old.
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