Hey friends, I want to write something. Probably should be sleeping, but what the hell - can't always do the smart thing. Shouldn't always do the smart thing. That's strangely reassuring.
I've once again run into the problem of having a lot to say and not knowing where to start. It's too bad my last post was so hastily written and posted, despite how genuine it was at the time. The truth is that there are glaring similarities between this big city and the other big cities I've been to in the West. I think we can chalk that one up to globalization and "modernity". But the truth is that there are a multitude of differences, and I've found many of them to be extremely endearing. There's a kind of energy here I don't come across often in other places, the willingness to simply be out in the street and bustling around without necessarily having a place to go. Even more than New York or especially Los Angeles, there are always people out on the street. Morning, noon, and night I hear voices coming up from the street, and, every once in a while, music played by a passing vendor. Of course, the sounds of car horns reach me just as easily, and from what I can tell Beijingers all love their car horns. I suppose it goes in tandem with the fact that cars, bikes, and pedestrians do whatever they want on the road whenenever they feel like it, damn the torpedos. It's a kind of sincere self interest which has been at times both endearing and irritating: people generally handle their business with not a whole lot of concern for what else is going on, possibly as a result of having to constantly contend with many many other people. It could be taken as impolite, but even since I've been here I've come to appreciate the necessity of being able to drown other people out for a while. And their car horns. Seriously, at least in the case of traffic everyone simultaneously tries to go where they want to go - only to find everyone else doing the same thing. Cue the horns. I'm not sure if they are surprised to be constantly confronted by this situation, or if they just like honking the horns.
Anyways.
Every few days there are thunderstorms. I'm writing this in the dark, and about once every minute a flash lights up the room. Sometimes it rains too, and I can hear it blown against the windows of my tenth floor room.
Last week was vacation week. The few plans I started to make up in my head were all unsatisfactory - nothing short of completely unscheduled travel alone would suffice, and as a result I ended up staying in Beijing for lack of train tickets and a nod toward my safety. It certainly wasn't a waste, since I got to see many different parts of the city on my own, which I find to be the most fulfilling part of traveling anyways. I would much rather try to experience some approximation of ordinary life in a place rather than seeing all the famous sites. Maybe I simply lack the imagination, but I'm hard pressed to find a lot of meaning from monuments or ruins, or at least not when I can't see them for all the teeming crowds in the way. I hear the Summer Palace is gorgeous, but I wouldn't really know for all the tour groups between me and the scenery. Made Disneyland look empty. But another interesting aspect of the break was that everyone else who I've been spending my time with here had left to travel, either to other parts of China or to other countries, leaving me absolutely alone for about 6 days. In that time, I did not see or speak to a single person who's name I knew, at least not in the flesh. I've never really known what that was like.
I wrote this on the tail end of it:
--
Why do I write? And what do I write? And, while I’m thinking about it, who’s even writing? Who’s the author here? Who’s the me inside all the flesh and appendages, wiggly fingers in the wind? I can’t see with bad eyes, but my mind seems so clear. My. Me. Reduce reduce reduce, looks like reproduce. How clever.
So where is the me? Oh please don’t say we’re one and the same, I would hate to agree with you, this time. You can be so obtuse.
--
Well, it's getting late. I've got more to say, so I'll write it out tomorrow.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Vitriol Breaks the Silence
I just want to be a fucking artist.
I mean, here I am, with all this raw feeling, pure stinging emotion, boiling up from every glance and thought, driving me day and night, moment to moment from comfort toward something...other, and I still can’t come up with a poetic, thought provoking quotable to save my life. Hell, I’ve crossed the whole fucking world, gone from big fish in little pond to tiny little hors d’oeuvre in the People’s Republic, and all I’ve got is this stupid money with Mao’s face on it to show for it. Not like it’s any different from the green backs I’m used to. IT BUYS BEER JUST AS WELL, LET ME TELL YOU. But GOD DAMN if these people aren’t trying their damndest to be just like us and every other western ORIFICE of youth culture. Ha. I’ve crossed half the world only to show up at another damn bar and club scene, imagine my surprise if you please. And it’s only those little girls, those three little girls who came to tell me wo de yanjing hen piaoliang that keeps me from condemning everything that’s ever touched the West, including this whole damn country. I guess people my age are idiots no matter where you go.
Edit: So this was written in about...a minute several nights ago after I'd come back from a rather lonely night drinking in a particularly Western oriented district of the city...so the vitriol might have been a bit over the top. While I stand by what I said, and it's certainly a perspective that's been troubling me since I've gotten here, it's not the whole story. That story would take much longer to tell, and now that I've got unimpeded access to my blog, I'll get around to telling it soon.
I mean, here I am, with all this raw feeling, pure stinging emotion, boiling up from every glance and thought, driving me day and night, moment to moment from comfort toward something...other, and I still can’t come up with a poetic, thought provoking quotable to save my life. Hell, I’ve crossed the whole fucking world, gone from big fish in little pond to tiny little hors d’oeuvre in the People’s Republic, and all I’ve got is this stupid money with Mao’s face on it to show for it. Not like it’s any different from the green backs I’m used to. IT BUYS BEER JUST AS WELL, LET ME TELL YOU. But GOD DAMN if these people aren’t trying their damndest to be just like us and every other western ORIFICE of youth culture. Ha. I’ve crossed half the world only to show up at another damn bar and club scene, imagine my surprise if you please. And it’s only those little girls, those three little girls who came to tell me wo de yanjing hen piaoliang that keeps me from condemning everything that’s ever touched the West, including this whole damn country. I guess people my age are idiots no matter where you go.
Edit: So this was written in about...a minute several nights ago after I'd come back from a rather lonely night drinking in a particularly Western oriented district of the city...so the vitriol might have been a bit over the top. While I stand by what I said, and it's certainly a perspective that's been troubling me since I've gotten here, it's not the whole story. That story would take much longer to tell, and now that I've got unimpeded access to my blog, I'll get around to telling it soon.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Sine qua non
First, some thoughts on the movie X-Men Origins: Wolverine. No, I'm not going to actually talk about the movie, but there was a scene in particular that got me thinking. This isn't going to be much of a spoiler, but if you absolutely want to know nothing about the movie before going into it...tough.
After making his escape from the evil, manipulative government organization, Logan stays the night with an elderly couple at their rural home. During his entire time there, the couple call Logan "son", an innocuous acknowledgment of his status as their junior. The first few times they do this, the audience doesn't blink - obviously they're the elderly couple and he's the strapping, misguided youth out for revenge. And yet we are then given a scene at the dinner table where Logan mentions that his favorite make of motorcycle is a 1948 something or another, and the old man exclaims that Logan was extremely young to know or appreciate such an old motorcycle. Obviously, Logan seems to be a relatively young man, but as he blushes from across the table at the man's comment, suddenly we remember that Logan was more than a century old in 1948. In all likelihood, Logan is several times the old man's age. How strange that the other man still played the role of the old, fatherly sage to Logan's brooding youth when in actuality it would seem more likely for Logan to be sharing his more than a century's worth of life lessons to the old man. But no, the traditional roles are maintained, and never again in the movie are we reminded of his age. Instead he simply falls into the role of the hero with a troubled past, without the length or significance of that past playing any apparent role in his life as we are given to see on screen. Shouldn't he be wiser than we see him? After more than a hundred years of life, shouldn't he be acting less like a testosterone junkie and more like the kind old man who took him in and chided his lack of perspective on the tragedy that had befallen him?
I suppose action heroes can't be too worldly and wise or it wouldn't be a good action flick, but it raised a question.
This is my question: What would growing old be like if you never aged? What effect does physical aging have on the psyche, on one's conception of themselves? Is our confrontation of our mortality necessary for growth, or is simply garnering life experience enough to make us wise?
I suppose this is another indication of my concern for my own mortality. I want to do more with my limited time in this life, but I feel woefully ignorant of what I want out of life. I feel like I've elevated the importance of every moment to such a level that perhaps I only stand to be disappointed. Or maybe I really do need to completely change the life I've been living. Perhaps, like everything else, it's neither one nor the other but both, and likely many other things as well.
I had an idea a couple nights ago: within three years of leaving school, I want to pack up and move with whoever will go with me to another city somewhere else in the world. While there, we would support ourselves by whatever means we could find, learn the language, and really attempt to make that place home for however long we stayed. Like coming to New York for school, living in these different places would hopefully provide different perspectives on life, and at least remind us of the vastness of possible experiences. I hope very much that my friends come with me, but as long as I am able, I think I will do this by myself if I have to. And maybe I do have to.
I wonder how I will feel after going to those places, and when I will want to settle down. I wonder what, and who, I would miss and perhaps be unable to do without, even if I were to live forever.
I think the Jedi were wise to caution against emotional attachments. Pain leads to anger, etc, and nothing stings quite like emotional attachments...
After making his escape from the evil, manipulative government organization, Logan stays the night with an elderly couple at their rural home. During his entire time there, the couple call Logan "son", an innocuous acknowledgment of his status as their junior. The first few times they do this, the audience doesn't blink - obviously they're the elderly couple and he's the strapping, misguided youth out for revenge. And yet we are then given a scene at the dinner table where Logan mentions that his favorite make of motorcycle is a 1948 something or another, and the old man exclaims that Logan was extremely young to know or appreciate such an old motorcycle. Obviously, Logan seems to be a relatively young man, but as he blushes from across the table at the man's comment, suddenly we remember that Logan was more than a century old in 1948. In all likelihood, Logan is several times the old man's age. How strange that the other man still played the role of the old, fatherly sage to Logan's brooding youth when in actuality it would seem more likely for Logan to be sharing his more than a century's worth of life lessons to the old man. But no, the traditional roles are maintained, and never again in the movie are we reminded of his age. Instead he simply falls into the role of the hero with a troubled past, without the length or significance of that past playing any apparent role in his life as we are given to see on screen. Shouldn't he be wiser than we see him? After more than a hundred years of life, shouldn't he be acting less like a testosterone junkie and more like the kind old man who took him in and chided his lack of perspective on the tragedy that had befallen him?
I suppose action heroes can't be too worldly and wise or it wouldn't be a good action flick, but it raised a question.
This is my question: What would growing old be like if you never aged? What effect does physical aging have on the psyche, on one's conception of themselves? Is our confrontation of our mortality necessary for growth, or is simply garnering life experience enough to make us wise?
I suppose this is another indication of my concern for my own mortality. I want to do more with my limited time in this life, but I feel woefully ignorant of what I want out of life. I feel like I've elevated the importance of every moment to such a level that perhaps I only stand to be disappointed. Or maybe I really do need to completely change the life I've been living. Perhaps, like everything else, it's neither one nor the other but both, and likely many other things as well.
I had an idea a couple nights ago: within three years of leaving school, I want to pack up and move with whoever will go with me to another city somewhere else in the world. While there, we would support ourselves by whatever means we could find, learn the language, and really attempt to make that place home for however long we stayed. Like coming to New York for school, living in these different places would hopefully provide different perspectives on life, and at least remind us of the vastness of possible experiences. I hope very much that my friends come with me, but as long as I am able, I think I will do this by myself if I have to. And maybe I do have to.
I wonder how I will feel after going to those places, and when I will want to settle down. I wonder what, and who, I would miss and perhaps be unable to do without, even if I were to live forever.
I think the Jedi were wise to caution against emotional attachments. Pain leads to anger, etc, and nothing stings quite like emotional attachments...
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Reflection 4/21 - Skin
It smells like incense here in my little cell, and rain without. The stillness and the quiet are protection from the motion of the outside - the rain falling and the people shrouded in dark clothes and dark moods. The weather is bad today, better to be inside. I am inside, waiting in my fallout shelter against the world. Here I am like the sage, the immortal, clothing myself in this solitudinous space, armor against the onslaught. It comes with me, I think, when I walk outside, and keeps me safe. Who else but me would reside in my clothing, within my own skin? Sometimes there's an echo, too, when I speak, and the words don't get out. But the rain falls on the outside, and I am untroubled.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
What I'm trying to say is...
I've learned two new things about myself recently:
1. I like weird people, exceptionally free spirited people, people who have learned that life is an end unto itself. I feel like I can learn from them.
2. I'm not comfortable playing second fiddle in my own life, which is tough when I want to learn new things. I'm uncomfortable with hero worship for this reason as well, but godammit all I wanted to ask him was how to be more like him and less like the person I am now, stuck in a rut.
I just came up with that last one, so it's gonna be three things
3. I want to do more things with my hands. I want to create and tinker. Pick locks and play piano. I'm not quite sure why. Yes I do. It seems more sincere, less abstracted from life. I seem like just the person to dissect experiences to such a scientific level that the life is gone from them, and yet for some reason the social sciences aren't fulfilling at all, go figure. Another instance of wanting to be more like some ideal other than what I am? Perhaps. Perhaps I've just got too many of my own questions to give a fig about Chinese nationalism or the miserable lives of Japanese office ladies. I feel like I'm more alive than all of them, but have somehow forgotten how to speak, and how to walk. I need something real to teach me how to do those things again, differently and better this time.
Interactions with people are strange these days. I have trouble listening to what they say, which is no way to have a conversation. I think I'm afflicted by a strange sense of superiority where I think I'm different from everyone, which has come to equal better in my mind, but at the same time all I want is for someone to get through to me. My friends do that. Increasingly, people I've never met who's work I admire have done that, and then suddenly I meet them and feel inadequate. I need more to show for my life.
Angst over weekend activities continues, but I think I'm narrowing the field. I want things to do rather than places to go, and I want these things to involve a few people who could be friends. I don't want to simply attend different places. I guess this fits with my new desire to develop awesome skills and talents in order to affirm my worth.
I think I would like to write something. A story maybe, some kind of fiction. First I need to learn how to write, and to do that I need to read more. This is another new project.
Maybe the story would start like:
He was leaving today, and each step was considered as he made his way down the street to the subway station. He was reckoning with the city, trying to find the feeling this place inspired in him, the exact notion he would take with him as he made his way back home. To be charitable, he would remember it as it was now, gray and smelling of rain. Even the wind was gray as it shook the bare trees. It was palpable in the air and the whole world seemed very small and muffled, trapped in a snow globe of rain and clouds.
And maybe it would end like:
He opened his eyes as he leaned against the glass, and the sun was still there.
So now I just need to write the middle part, go back and fix the first and last parts, and we'll have our story. No sweat.
So what else? In trying to write the above it became apparent to me that I can only write autobiographically and that I want desperately to go on a journey somewhere, or at least to just leave this place. I think maybe I need to not be so intent on writing something in order for it to be good. My inner voice is pompous and wordy and has no idea what I want to say.
I need to feel exceptional, but it seems like chances of that being anything other than a delusion are getting slimmer by the minute.
Damn.
1. I like weird people, exceptionally free spirited people, people who have learned that life is an end unto itself. I feel like I can learn from them.
2. I'm not comfortable playing second fiddle in my own life, which is tough when I want to learn new things. I'm uncomfortable with hero worship for this reason as well, but godammit all I wanted to ask him was how to be more like him and less like the person I am now, stuck in a rut.
I just came up with that last one, so it's gonna be three things
3. I want to do more things with my hands. I want to create and tinker. Pick locks and play piano. I'm not quite sure why. Yes I do. It seems more sincere, less abstracted from life. I seem like just the person to dissect experiences to such a scientific level that the life is gone from them, and yet for some reason the social sciences aren't fulfilling at all, go figure. Another instance of wanting to be more like some ideal other than what I am? Perhaps. Perhaps I've just got too many of my own questions to give a fig about Chinese nationalism or the miserable lives of Japanese office ladies. I feel like I'm more alive than all of them, but have somehow forgotten how to speak, and how to walk. I need something real to teach me how to do those things again, differently and better this time.
Interactions with people are strange these days. I have trouble listening to what they say, which is no way to have a conversation. I think I'm afflicted by a strange sense of superiority where I think I'm different from everyone, which has come to equal better in my mind, but at the same time all I want is for someone to get through to me. My friends do that. Increasingly, people I've never met who's work I admire have done that, and then suddenly I meet them and feel inadequate. I need more to show for my life.
Angst over weekend activities continues, but I think I'm narrowing the field. I want things to do rather than places to go, and I want these things to involve a few people who could be friends. I don't want to simply attend different places. I guess this fits with my new desire to develop awesome skills and talents in order to affirm my worth.
I think I would like to write something. A story maybe, some kind of fiction. First I need to learn how to write, and to do that I need to read more. This is another new project.
Maybe the story would start like:
He was leaving today, and each step was considered as he made his way down the street to the subway station. He was reckoning with the city, trying to find the feeling this place inspired in him, the exact notion he would take with him as he made his way back home. To be charitable, he would remember it as it was now, gray and smelling of rain. Even the wind was gray as it shook the bare trees. It was palpable in the air and the whole world seemed very small and muffled, trapped in a snow globe of rain and clouds.
And maybe it would end like:
He opened his eyes as he leaned against the glass, and the sun was still there.
So now I just need to write the middle part, go back and fix the first and last parts, and we'll have our story. No sweat.
So what else? In trying to write the above it became apparent to me that I can only write autobiographically and that I want desperately to go on a journey somewhere, or at least to just leave this place. I think maybe I need to not be so intent on writing something in order for it to be good. My inner voice is pompous and wordy and has no idea what I want to say.
I need to feel exceptional, but it seems like chances of that being anything other than a delusion are getting slimmer by the minute.
Damn.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Youth and Beauty
What is one's youth best spent on? Should one strive to act in a certain way when they are young, with the knowledge that such a lifestyle cannot be maintained forever? Should youth be treated as the playtime before the real work of one's life gets started? What then is the value of being young?
I can, at times, be a terribly cerebral person, and it's been pointed out to me before that in thinking too much I stand to lose precious time that I may never get back, time that I could be spending doing things that are only acceptable of young people. Incidentally if I were to make a list of such things, most of them considered out of the context of youthful exuberance and lack of life experience would be considered to be vices at best and moral failures at worst.
Drinking all night. Staying out till all hours. Random hookups with people a first name beyond total stranger-hood. Carelessness and irresponsibility. Looked at in this light, it doesn't seem important or useful. Looked at like this, as a simple description of activities, it really does seem like people my age are simply trying to take in as much hedonistic stimulation as society will condone before they "settle down". And if that's all it is, and I'm sad to think it probably is for many if not most, then I can understand the judgmental dichotomy between the time before and after "youth". Before you settle down, it's ok to be frivolous because you're just getting it out of your system, but after you settle down, god help you if you ever look back. It'll be too late and "real" life will have begun and no amount of sports cars with make it otherwise.
I don't like this setup at all. It holds a ticking clock over my head and tells me that
anything I do and feel before time runs out doesn't matter and everything I do after has to conform to an entirely different paradigm that denies the importance of the first. Life is all one, and you are always a product of your prior experiences, so why do I get this feeling that so many of my peers are frantically trying to cram their whole lives as they know it into the years before they can no longer cling to some kind of lifestyle based on going to school? I disagree with those peers, just as I have to disagree with my seniors who would tell me that I have to give up the values I hold now, when I'm young, in order to become an adult. It sounds too contrived.
Let's look at that list again. I want to put it in a different light and talk about why it's important. I want to talk about the purpose behind it.
Well, I guess I can only speak for myself as to the purpose behind it all. Everything else is speculation, but I'll try anyways. I wonder if it isn't simply escapism. Like the many or most of my peers who are trying to live large before the giant come-down of real life, going to bars and fooling around is transcendental.
I just realized I'm projecting from what, in my head at least, is a typically female point of view. Not being a girl myself, I may be getting this entirely wrong, but I feel like the female perspective on youth is one of romance, which, in my mind, is equal to a desire to transcend the mundane and reach something larger than life. If I knew how to dance, I imagine that would be rather transcendental in that sense. I hear you asking: "well what's the male perspective?". I dunno. Conquest? I'm dealing in large strokes here, as this is tangential to whatever point I was on about earlier, but if the female perspective is attempting to experience something...elusive and transcendent, then I'd have to say the male perspective is oriented toward accomplishment and mastery. Again, I'm writing this on the fly, so forgive the oversimplifications where they arise, but maybe the answers to why people my age do what they do can be found within the generalizations. Maybe people are that simple.
Maybe I'm that simple. How many people my age have felt alienated from the world at large, thinking they're special somehow, or that whatever angst their feeling isn't simply characteristic of their age. Of their youth.
I think the truth has come out. I started writing this to vindicate myself, to prove that I'm surrounded by a bunch of uninteresting people stumbling around looking for thrills. But if I'm going to be honest with my myself and really stick to my beliefs, then there's nothing wrong with any of that. People are how they are, and I'm how I am. I'm certainly not the first person to feel this way, and I suppose that's a comforting thought. I'd like to find the others. It seems there are so few of my kind.
I do need to find people. As much as I might try to deny it, I think it's the truth. I need to make connections, the kind of connections that will remind me of the beauty of being alive and sharing that experience. I guess my problem is with the orthodoxy of the interactions I'm used to. If the goal of a party is escapism, I think I want something else. I want to escape to reality, really cut through the crap and find someone, if only for a couple hours, and I think that's what I take away from that laundry list of typical college activities: the staying up late is an adventure to share, the drinking is for the comradery, and the sex is an attempt to know someone. All of these are for the connection to others.
A while back I was at a typical kind of dance party. Lots of people dancing, loud music you can't talk over, that kind of thing. I ended up standing off by the wall because I didn't want to dance, either by myself just for the sake of dancing or with someone else. It was all too anonymous, and I was tired of trying to fit into those kinds of situations when I had to honestly admit that I never had any fun. And so it went, until it was shut down by campus security. Noise complaint. But as fate would have it, a small group broke off from the throng and went up to an apartment on 129th street. Suddenly there were few enough people to remember everyone's name and actual opportunity to talk to people. We got out some drinks, ended up playing some games, and it was a great time. A while later, as the night was winding down, I found myself alone in the living room with one of the girls I had met that night. She was picking up her things and getting ready to leave with the rest of us. She looked at me and said, "This is a weird relationship we have. I didn't know you before tonight, and I'll probably never see you again". But for those several hours, she was one of only a handful of people in the entire world for me. I had made connections to them, if only for a while, and finally I had felt like I'd had a night worth talking about, a night worth remembering.
I think I've let too many walls get built up around me while I wasn't paying attention, and life has been oversimplified. Monday through Thursday is school, classes during the day, homework at night. Weekends are for getting away from school, and then preparing for school again. Rinse repeat. These are the people I hang out with, these are the things I do. Recycle, recycle.
This is how I think.
But there's a whole world outside of these walls, these classrooms and job opportunities and resumes. I've let myself get trapped in a radius of several blocks around campus, venturing out all too rarely. I've hung out with the same people. I live in New York, I should not be wanting for adventures or interesting people, but I haven't done enough to satisfy this hunger that I've finally acknowledged. If I can't find the answers or the people here, I have plenty of other places to look, and I won't let myself get trapped into thinking how things are is how things have to be. Everything can change if I'm brave enough to see it through.
And I'm going to find them. I'm going to find the things that make me happy. I'm going to find the people that can teach me about life.
I can, at times, be a terribly cerebral person, and it's been pointed out to me before that in thinking too much I stand to lose precious time that I may never get back, time that I could be spending doing things that are only acceptable of young people. Incidentally if I were to make a list of such things, most of them considered out of the context of youthful exuberance and lack of life experience would be considered to be vices at best and moral failures at worst.
Drinking all night. Staying out till all hours. Random hookups with people a first name beyond total stranger-hood. Carelessness and irresponsibility. Looked at in this light, it doesn't seem important or useful. Looked at like this, as a simple description of activities, it really does seem like people my age are simply trying to take in as much hedonistic stimulation as society will condone before they "settle down". And if that's all it is, and I'm sad to think it probably is for many if not most, then I can understand the judgmental dichotomy between the time before and after "youth". Before you settle down, it's ok to be frivolous because you're just getting it out of your system, but after you settle down, god help you if you ever look back. It'll be too late and "real" life will have begun and no amount of sports cars with make it otherwise.
I don't like this setup at all. It holds a ticking clock over my head and tells me that
anything I do and feel before time runs out doesn't matter and everything I do after has to conform to an entirely different paradigm that denies the importance of the first. Life is all one, and you are always a product of your prior experiences, so why do I get this feeling that so many of my peers are frantically trying to cram their whole lives as they know it into the years before they can no longer cling to some kind of lifestyle based on going to school? I disagree with those peers, just as I have to disagree with my seniors who would tell me that I have to give up the values I hold now, when I'm young, in order to become an adult. It sounds too contrived.
Let's look at that list again. I want to put it in a different light and talk about why it's important. I want to talk about the purpose behind it.
Well, I guess I can only speak for myself as to the purpose behind it all. Everything else is speculation, but I'll try anyways. I wonder if it isn't simply escapism. Like the many or most of my peers who are trying to live large before the giant come-down of real life, going to bars and fooling around is transcendental.
I just realized I'm projecting from what, in my head at least, is a typically female point of view. Not being a girl myself, I may be getting this entirely wrong, but I feel like the female perspective on youth is one of romance, which, in my mind, is equal to a desire to transcend the mundane and reach something larger than life. If I knew how to dance, I imagine that would be rather transcendental in that sense. I hear you asking: "well what's the male perspective?". I dunno. Conquest? I'm dealing in large strokes here, as this is tangential to whatever point I was on about earlier, but if the female perspective is attempting to experience something...elusive and transcendent, then I'd have to say the male perspective is oriented toward accomplishment and mastery. Again, I'm writing this on the fly, so forgive the oversimplifications where they arise, but maybe the answers to why people my age do what they do can be found within the generalizations. Maybe people are that simple.
Maybe I'm that simple. How many people my age have felt alienated from the world at large, thinking they're special somehow, or that whatever angst their feeling isn't simply characteristic of their age. Of their youth.
I think the truth has come out. I started writing this to vindicate myself, to prove that I'm surrounded by a bunch of uninteresting people stumbling around looking for thrills. But if I'm going to be honest with my myself and really stick to my beliefs, then there's nothing wrong with any of that. People are how they are, and I'm how I am. I'm certainly not the first person to feel this way, and I suppose that's a comforting thought. I'd like to find the others. It seems there are so few of my kind.
I do need to find people. As much as I might try to deny it, I think it's the truth. I need to make connections, the kind of connections that will remind me of the beauty of being alive and sharing that experience. I guess my problem is with the orthodoxy of the interactions I'm used to. If the goal of a party is escapism, I think I want something else. I want to escape to reality, really cut through the crap and find someone, if only for a couple hours, and I think that's what I take away from that laundry list of typical college activities: the staying up late is an adventure to share, the drinking is for the comradery, and the sex is an attempt to know someone. All of these are for the connection to others.
A while back I was at a typical kind of dance party. Lots of people dancing, loud music you can't talk over, that kind of thing. I ended up standing off by the wall because I didn't want to dance, either by myself just for the sake of dancing or with someone else. It was all too anonymous, and I was tired of trying to fit into those kinds of situations when I had to honestly admit that I never had any fun. And so it went, until it was shut down by campus security. Noise complaint. But as fate would have it, a small group broke off from the throng and went up to an apartment on 129th street. Suddenly there were few enough people to remember everyone's name and actual opportunity to talk to people. We got out some drinks, ended up playing some games, and it was a great time. A while later, as the night was winding down, I found myself alone in the living room with one of the girls I had met that night. She was picking up her things and getting ready to leave with the rest of us. She looked at me and said, "This is a weird relationship we have. I didn't know you before tonight, and I'll probably never see you again". But for those several hours, she was one of only a handful of people in the entire world for me. I had made connections to them, if only for a while, and finally I had felt like I'd had a night worth talking about, a night worth remembering.
I think I've let too many walls get built up around me while I wasn't paying attention, and life has been oversimplified. Monday through Thursday is school, classes during the day, homework at night. Weekends are for getting away from school, and then preparing for school again. Rinse repeat. These are the people I hang out with, these are the things I do. Recycle, recycle.
This is how I think.
But there's a whole world outside of these walls, these classrooms and job opportunities and resumes. I've let myself get trapped in a radius of several blocks around campus, venturing out all too rarely. I've hung out with the same people. I live in New York, I should not be wanting for adventures or interesting people, but I haven't done enough to satisfy this hunger that I've finally acknowledged. If I can't find the answers or the people here, I have plenty of other places to look, and I won't let myself get trapped into thinking how things are is how things have to be. Everything can change if I'm brave enough to see it through.
And I'm going to find them. I'm going to find the things that make me happy. I'm going to find the people that can teach me about life.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
A Disquiet Follows My Soul
So here I am again, sitting in front of my computer in a dark room, listening to heart-wrenching music played loudly over my speakers. I could hardly put two thoughts together on my way back from class, all I could think of was getting home to this dark room. There was a kind of desperation there, seemingly without a cause, and I've found myself here again. Why do I keep running back here?
I think I'm happy, and I think I even know what that means. I'm proud to say that I think I'm giving life a fair shake and keeping my eyes open to what's out there. But what if that's all true, and I still don't like what I see?
It would be easy to believe that I could take some pills and feel better. I've even toyed with the idea of getting a prescription for anti-depressants, and yet I can't see myself talking to a psychiatrist. I would want the pills to feel better but I wouldn't feel the need to acknowledge a problem. Honestly, I don't think I have a problem. Things that make me happy still make me as happy as they ever have, maybe even more so for the contrast. And yet the interim seems so much more gray.
I am troubled by the uncertainties, but more and more I realize how necessary they are. I think that's why I keep coming back here, why I keep sitting back in this chair, listening to sad music in a dark room. When I listen to this music, I feel like I'm tapped into another world. It's always there, I think, but people are too busy going in one direction or another to notice it until something forces them to stop. This world is a world of stillness and ambivalence. Here there is only the feeling. I feel like there's a clarity in this feeling, but the vision given to me is one of certain uncertainty. So many people are certain of things, and move confidently down the path they've chosen for themselves, but when I listen to this music, I don't feel the need to move anywhere. It's like a vantage point from which I can look out at my life. And I don't think it's from a point of sadness - that's not really what I feel. It's a feeling of...profundity.
How interesting that sad music is described as beautiful, but your favorite upbeat pop song probably wouldn't be.
There's a hunger for this feeling within me, a hunger that's been growing more and more lately. In fact these days I rarely listen to anything else if I don't have occasion to. Sure it's one thing to listen to upbeat music while walking to class or working out at the gym, but if I'm sitting at my computer, there's likely only one thing playing. I guess if you're going somewhere, doing something, you need music that will take you there. It's extroverted. But much like everything else I do, this music helps me face inward.
Is this because I don't want to see what's around me? I could believe that. I don't much want to see the people here, and I've grown tired of the same games they play every weekend, looking for entertainment. Wasting precious time.
Maybe I just miss my friends, and my home. I'd like to go home.
I think I'm happy, and I think I even know what that means. I'm proud to say that I think I'm giving life a fair shake and keeping my eyes open to what's out there. But what if that's all true, and I still don't like what I see?
It would be easy to believe that I could take some pills and feel better. I've even toyed with the idea of getting a prescription for anti-depressants, and yet I can't see myself talking to a psychiatrist. I would want the pills to feel better but I wouldn't feel the need to acknowledge a problem. Honestly, I don't think I have a problem. Things that make me happy still make me as happy as they ever have, maybe even more so for the contrast. And yet the interim seems so much more gray.
I am troubled by the uncertainties, but more and more I realize how necessary they are. I think that's why I keep coming back here, why I keep sitting back in this chair, listening to sad music in a dark room. When I listen to this music, I feel like I'm tapped into another world. It's always there, I think, but people are too busy going in one direction or another to notice it until something forces them to stop. This world is a world of stillness and ambivalence. Here there is only the feeling. I feel like there's a clarity in this feeling, but the vision given to me is one of certain uncertainty. So many people are certain of things, and move confidently down the path they've chosen for themselves, but when I listen to this music, I don't feel the need to move anywhere. It's like a vantage point from which I can look out at my life. And I don't think it's from a point of sadness - that's not really what I feel. It's a feeling of...profundity.
How interesting that sad music is described as beautiful, but your favorite upbeat pop song probably wouldn't be.
There's a hunger for this feeling within me, a hunger that's been growing more and more lately. In fact these days I rarely listen to anything else if I don't have occasion to. Sure it's one thing to listen to upbeat music while walking to class or working out at the gym, but if I'm sitting at my computer, there's likely only one thing playing. I guess if you're going somewhere, doing something, you need music that will take you there. It's extroverted. But much like everything else I do, this music helps me face inward.
Is this because I don't want to see what's around me? I could believe that. I don't much want to see the people here, and I've grown tired of the same games they play every weekend, looking for entertainment. Wasting precious time.
Maybe I just miss my friends, and my home. I'd like to go home.
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