i am gonna make it through this year if it kills me

It dawned on me that in a drunken haste on New Years Eve, I scribbled an often made but seldom kept resolution on my arm: Write everyday. At the time, did I hope to keep this resolution? Of course. But did I believe that I would keep this resolution? Eh, not really. And in my mind, I have justified that I have been writing everyday since January 1, 2009. I’ve written comments here and there. I’ve proofread a few writing samples for grad school applications. I’ve even begun writing the required statement of purpose. So yes, I have been writing.

But what does this writing accomplish? Well, hopefully it gets me into grad school where I can become preoccupied with writing literary critiques about articles that no one except those in my immediate academic circle will give one ounce of attention to. And the writing that I desire to accomplish will slowly slip by until I reluctantly reconcile to the fact that I am too busy to write.

How utterly bleak. Writing—narrating, storytelling, creating—is a part of who I am. Why do I constantly disregard this part of me? Am I afraid of what might come out? Am I shying away from what I have convinced myself that I can’t accomplish? To write, to narrate, to tell is an adventure, a leap of faith into the unknown. And yes, I am a coward.

As I drove to Borders this afternoon to actually make myself state my purpose in 500 words or less, I had an immediate feeling of panic. I’m not writing and there are stories to tell. I’m not writing and my head swims in narratives untold. I’m not writing.

God has given me one life to live, and I do not want to be a coward and let that one life go to waste by not acting. Dear Lord, I have to keep this resolution before these stories pass away.

I’m afraid that my sanity rests on it.

and a rock feels no pain, and an island never cries

"...they are concepts defined not positively, in terms of their content, but negatively by contrast with other items in the same system. What charaterizes each most exactly is being whatever the others are not." ~Saussure, "Course in General Linguistics"

Meaning gets its value not by what something is, but rather by what it is not. A bush is a bush because it is not a tree or a flower. This can be clearly seen in binary opposites. What give hot its value? Hot has no value if it is just hot. Hot cannot produce hot without cold. Hot is hot because it is not cold and cold is cold because it is not hot. And it is here that value is generated.

As humans we tend to garner meaning and value in binary opposites. We are awake because we are not asleep. We are hungry because we are not full. We are living because we are not dead. We feel love because we do not feel hate.

We are happy because we are not sad. And we hurt because we have lost that which caused joy...

"I've built walls, a fortress deep and mighty, that none may penetrate. I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain...I am a rock. I am an island."

How I long to champion these words and live by them. I want to be that rock, that island. To runaway and hide from all hurt and pain and that which causes it all. I don't know how many times I have listened to this song and wanted to bury myself deep within it and escape all feeling--feelings that I do not know how to deal with. It is this desire that creates an undeniable sense that I need to runaway. That is my defense against hurt and confrontation. Sometimes, I feel that if only I had the backbone to be that island, to run so far from everything, I could stand on my own with my defenses impenetrable and nothing could harm me again and these feelings would never have to be dealt with.

"I have my books and my poetry to protect me. I am shielded in my armor, hiding in my room, safe within my womb. I touch no one and no one touches me."

But for once, the thought of running away from it all, regardless of the hurt or pain, is not an option. What I have come to realize is that the hurt only has value because of the joy and love I have felt from the people in my life. To not have this hurt means that I would not have had that joy. And I know that these feelings are fleeting. Just as the night must at sometime turn into day, this too will pass and life will continue. There will be happiness and joy and light and sun. There has to be.


"I won't disturb the slumber of feelings that have died. If I never loved, I never would have cried."


The thought of living in a world without friendships, without happiness, without love, without hope, is unbearable. So for the sake of having a life full of joy and happiness and for those feelings to have value and meaning, I will take all the hurt and pain that this world has to offer for the greater the hurt, the greater the joy has been. And for that reason, I welcome those feelings with open arms.

I will not...no...I cannot runaway anymore. No matter how much hurt there is, it's not an option.

morning traffic report

A hand-held tape recorder. Yes, that would be helpful if only I didn't feel a bit like Captain Kirk speaking into a small device (Star Date...23.54393281...Mr. Spock and...I...) and it probably doesn't help that the sound of my own voice on a tape recorder makes me wish that I never speak aloud again. You see, as I casually neglect this blog regardless of empty promises telling the faceless internet audience that I will actually update regularly, I am constantly entertaining my inner monologue by coming up with what seems like deep-felt, meaningful blog entries about the issues. In reality, I'm generally stuck in rush hour traffic growing more and more pessimistic with every push of the break. So I resort to digging around while trying not to swerve too much to find a pen or anything to write with, mildly cursing that I swore a pen was laying around somewhere in the car, grabbing my ever-handy-write-everything-down-life-plans notebook, and jotting down that key phrase that is suppose to remind me of the masterpiece I am going to write later. So now, instead of published blog entries, I have a notebook filled with semi-incoherent notes about what I thought would be a great entry. I think a key phrase to add here is "at that time," because now as I look back and read over my list, nothing absolutely grabs my attention, and the apathy I feel becomes a more destructive tool than the pessimism that seems to be growing each day.

You know, I understand where road rage comes from. Not from a strong dislike for those commuters around you, but from a deep-seated whisper that there must be more to life than sitting in traffic and the thought that, by god, I will get out of this as soon as possible. There is nothing spectacular about commuting to work. Why do you think people linger as they drive past wrecks and stalled cars along the side of the road? Because it is a change in the norm. What I find fascinating though is that the endless monotony of traffic conjures up some dark, strong emotion. It is during this drive that I feel a cultural revolution just might be possible if people could just see the complacency that they have succumbed to. And just for this moment, I see hope in a change. For that moment, as I realize why it was that I refused to tell people in the UK that I was from America, I find that the shame that I feel could once again return to pride. We do have potential. We can break out of the Iron Cage of capitalism. We can be shaken awake to what we have become and see that there is more to life than money and material objects.

But as the tail lights in front of me light up to that vivid red to break my thoughts, I come back to reality and remember that I am just driving down the road day after day to a job where the source of motivation is the need for an income that becomes my ball and chain.

Each day as I drive to work, I think I will start writing a photo journalistic book titled "This is America to Me" and it will be filled with pictures of the back of cars stalled in traffic, billboards of God telling me that as his apprentice I won't ever be fired, ads of things you don't need but pandering to your capitalistic upbringing, strip malls blocking out anything in nature, overweight Americans waiting in line at some fast food joint with a screaming kid on each hip and the others running around, and the like. Yes, I think I will write this book and it will not be a happy book.

you should be blogging

Livejournal tells me that's its been 122 weeks since I last blogged, and this blog isn't doing much better. 122 weeks. Do you know what could happen in 122 weeks? No? Neither did I, but thanks to math and wikipedia, I can enlighten you (or rather, me if I'm going to be honest here, and let's face it, a blog is there for you to at least pretend you are being honest):

-someone could have had 3.38 babies
-there have been 29.45 full moons
-you've eaten 28.15 spiders
-the average college student has consumed 2647.4 cups of coffee
-the average American has use 1173.08 gallons of gas
-you've blinked 12,297,600 times
-18% of the Arctic ice cap has melted
-flies have gone through 42.7 lifespans
-I've lost 854 days of thoughts, ideas, inane stories, social commentary, complete nonsense, rise and fall and rise again of maturity levels, glimpses of who I was and am, and hopefully somewhat entertaining reading material

I find that somewhat discouraging. Life is comprised of moments, but those moments remain fleeting. Of course, I can look back on the past 122 weeks and recount the big events--deaths, births, moves, jobs, friendships, relationships, travels--and I can even throw in a few little details that personalize those events--sights, smells, sounds of friends' laughter, specific conversations, private thoughts. But the fact remains that I couldn't recall a specific day and tell you what I was thinking. And I do not like the thought of that.

Shakespeare understood the immortal nature of words as he wrote to his dark lady and forever proclaimed his love in words that are resurrected each time someone chooses (or is forced by a course's curriculum) to read his sonnets. Call it self-love, call it egocentricism, call it wanting to be the center of attention, call it whatever you want, but the fact is that I want to remember myself and leave some sort of legacy behind in writing even if it is only me that ever reads it. Granted, part of me wants to think that others just might care, but we won't go as far as to rely on it. So, I'm returning to blogging despite my misgivings when I stopped. In a way, I let it get too personal, to close to those thoughts that were mine alone. You can't let all of you out there, open for interpretation. What would you have left to call your own if everything you thought or felt was filtered though someone else's ideas and thoughts? You would be entirely subjected to translation and you would have no power or say in a piss poor translation. You would be a dead author of your own life.

With all of that being said, let's get on with an actual blog entry.

For the record, this particular blog that I'm not actually writing in at the moment but rather in a word document at Borders since I do not want to pay for an internet connection that I could be getting at home for what I would think would be free until my monthly bill comes started out on two rather serious notes. Note to self: Refrain from beginning so serious. It makes it very difficult to follow up with jokes afterward.

The truth remains though that after 122 weeks, I'm still dealing with the same issues I had back in 2006. I've come to accept the fact that I will deal with these issues for an unforeseeable future if not for the rest of my life. But as wise Gandalf once said, and as people like to quote as though he were a real person/wizard/thing and a prophet of some sort especially since the movies made it all that more accessible and as we evermore reach out for heroes in a hero-less postmodern society, "All we have to decide is what to do with the time that we are given."

So fuck finding my purpose. Fuck finding direction. Fuck everything that requires second guessing. Purpose should be defined not by what we do, but how we experience it. My purpose is to experience. To see everything in multiple lights. To speculate. To seek to understand only to find comfort in the fact that the more I want to understand, the more brilliant and mysterious life becomes.

To be purposeful is to experience. To experience is to find mystery. To find mystery is to find joy. To find joy is to live happiness. To live happiness is to purport a share of it to others. To share with others is to live for something other than yourself. To live for something other than yourself is to bring about a greater good. To bring about a greater good is a purpose.

And that is my purpose. And this is a break in the silence of the past 122 weeks.

PS: Purpose is subject to change based on the amount of coffee or other legal and illegal substances consumed.

PPS: This does not solve a need to monetary means.

PPPS: I do not want to be a teacher.

PPPPS: I need to win the lottery.

PPPPPS: If you feel like you need to connect this blog to my last one to fill in a few gaps, feel free. I don't think I will be updating that one anymore... http://just-frippery.livejournal.com/

100% post-consumer recycled product

Maybe it's the coffee speaking, or the fact that it's closing in on noon and I haven't done much more this morning than make a small breakfast simply because I don't want to worry about lunch later on, or the need to justify my reluctance to get off of this couch that I'm slowly fading into, regardless, I feel like I need to lay everything out and wade through all the thoughts, the anxieties, the unhappiness, the complete apathy, and disregard for my own journey. The only way I know to begin is to write and rid myself of the excuse that I don't know where to begin. Besides, beginnings are arbitrary and endings don't have to be finite. The difficulty is not beginning but finding one thread of thought to single out.


So here's to hearing the symphony through the cacophony...


The simple matter is that I'm not happy--with my life, my job, who I've become, and who I'm afraid of settling into. And yet, have I done anything to change? Isn't that the beauty of life is that we can take what is given to us, interpret it how we want, and put it through our own personal filters and take what we need? Do I have to sit here and let life happen to me? And why can I only come up with questions? I am stuck in this train of thought of trying to figure out who I am when then simple truth is that I'm being as unoriginal as the masses of conformists that thoroughly piss me off. God, I am that English major who says they want to find that all-evasive purpose and just sits on their ass finding new ways of becoming self-destructive when perhaps the shortest road to self-destruction is asking the same question over and over again and disguising it by changing the wording. Reuse and recycle, right?


So, no, I'm not happy, but I'm done questioning it. Forget that. There is no point to questions that lead to more questions. But I refuse to settle. I refuse to become stagnant. And that's what was happening...I was wallowing in my own self-pity. Hell, I still wallow in it, hence the reason that I haven't taken a shower yet this morning. I'd much rather sit here in the comfort of depression. Because that means I can stay on my couch, watch Goonies over and over, drink myself into a nice stupor, put on one equally depressing song on repeat, and then fall asleep. There is that secret level of contentment in being unhappy, because it is a feeling and identity that I can easily understand and fill the role quite nicely.


And I realize that now, I'm writing this rather personal little piece of dribble in a medium that is anything but private, and while I could write a complete discourse on why we mix the private and public sphere in blogs, the spirit isn't moving me this morning. I'm much too cynical to question it. I'm just posting this shit as some sort of conjunction from my self-pity, "I don't know who I am, or what I want" shit to my "fuck it all, I'm going to just write" attitude that I'm going to acquire. Because that is something I want to be. A writer. It helps me make sense of all these thoughts.


A writer writes and I wasn't. So, I wrote because I'm not questioning anymore and this is what I needed to do. Sorry if you spent time reading it. But, I had to take a step somewhere. No revelations. No need for cliff notes. Just a jumping off point and a truthfulness that life sometimes isn't worth questioning anymore.


Life is in the mundane unfortunately. It's all that forest for the trees, beauty in the beast bit that suppose to make it interesting and worthwhile. So I guess that's where I'll stop questioning and just start doing. It's as good a start as any.

vanities

Where is the drive? Where is the motivation? Where is it that makes us decide to act? There is an idea of desire that we all can sense from within our own being. I feel it every day. I desire to be happy, to make my life what I choose it to be. I feel that desire because everytime I acknowledge it, the emptiness of unfulfillment reminds me that I have yet to make my life my own. Yes, I do have desires and wants for a salvation from my current state of life and mind--to find my happiness.

Yet, here I sit. Unhappy. Unfulfilled. The desire is there. The want remains. But where is that motivation? The drive? Is unhappiness my motivator? Should that alone be enough to push me to pursue happiness? Because it hasn't. It isn't. I need more. More to make me take charge of my life, my wants, my desires. More to push me toward happiness and fulfillment.

No, just the want of happiness is not enough. The problem that faces all of us is finding our true wants and desires. We can reach, but when you know not what you are reaching for, it becomes impossible to grab. You remain under water, swimming desperately to the light beyond the waves at top. You see it. You know it is there. You move toward it. But it remains unfocused, unclear, and unknown. Yet it is there. And in your immediate present, as you swim to break through, is the growing fear and realization that drowning is imminent. But something within you senses that as soon as you break through, you will emerge through the water, that you will be a new person. Now you will have what you truly desire. Now you find your happiness and fulfillment. Now you are born again, revitalized with a new, clearer perspective of what truly matters.


But yet, everytime I think I have reached far enough, that I have found what I need, the waves come crashing back down and again, I sense only drowning. Drowning in the fact that I cannot be happy. Truly happy. I can smile, I can laugh, I can bleed joy. But then I take one step back to see only a fleeting moment. I do not like who I have become. It is meaningless. Completely meaningless. What is happiness? How do I fill up this abyss within? My desires are worthless. My wants in vain. Do I do what is best for me and me alone? Do I focus only on those around me and hope that by making other lives better that mine, in turn, will find a sense of peace and joy? Self-proclaiming or self-sacrificing? Which is it?

It is neither.


It is ignorance. Ignorance of those around you, of those problems that have no remedy. Ignorance of who you are and who you are capable of becoming. Ignorance of anything that may make a true difference. Ignorance of desires and of wants. The only truth you need will lie in a shallow puddle of the same rain that can fill an ocean.

If this ignorance is gone, than is happiness an impossible dream?