So.
I never write. I attribute this to my perpetually-fluxuating thoughts and moods, to my capriciousness that keeps me from every making up my mind on something or following through on any one of my many trains of thought - and also to my utter lack of faith in my writing. Everytime I feel the need to write down what I'm thinking or feeling or experiencing I never seem to be able to finish; I decide that whatever it is is stupid or impertinent and quietly give up, an all too common phenomenon that also usually leaves me depressingly dissatisfied with myself and doubting my status as a worth-while human being.
I suspect that this strange and self-destructive cycle has its roots in my even stranger and freakishly high standards that I set for myself, which is ironic because I am a notorious slacker and never succeed in living up to them. I never quite understood what teachers and counselors meant when they talked about students "setting themselves up for failure", but once I reached my Junior year of high school I began to realize that that was exactly what I was doing to myself. So why am I like this? I believe that it is a deadly combination of factors: 1) I am (however paradoxically) a perfectionist, who doesn't see anything I do as adequate until I see in it the brilliance I also know I will never contain. 2)I have amazingly brilliant friends, and can't help but compare myself to them - a dangerous habit I am trying to break. As a result, in high school I never got anything done - not that this is anybody's fault but mine, but the fact remains that I, for lack of a better phrase, screwed myself (and my academic future) over big time. Imagine my surprise and profound sense of hope when I was accepted to UC Santa Cruz, by no means the most prestigious school, but a college with (alleged) standards nonetheless. College would be an opportunity to redeem myself, to break free of the mental shackles I had imprisoned myself in in high school and start afresh: I would meet challenges head-on, and this time I would rise the victor.
But my parents denied me the privilage of going to university right after high school, and now I am stuck at VC. Half of me says that my education is what I make of it, that going to Ventura College is no excuse for self-pity; but the other half of me argues that I am not being challenged, that my already sub-par mind is being dulled by the childish excuse of an education I am "recieving" at my local community college and that I am going to get swallowed up. I have a love of learning and a desire to "suck the marrow out of life", but you'd never know it by my transcript, let alone the ways in which I while away my days. Sure, I'm getting straight As now, but I don't really feel like I've earned them. I still don't read nearly as much as I should, and I get less and less articulate as the days go by. I remember one time Donna commented on how articulate I was compared to most people my age, and as trivial as this may have seemed to everyone else around I took it as a profound compliment, coming from the mother of a boy like Spencer.
But what has become of me? I want to travel and live my life to the fullest, I want to learn and discover what this strange world of ours contains; I want to feel like I am not a waste of time. In my eyes the ultimate failure would be to not live my life to the fullest, to not improve myself and my world to the best of my ability; I want to prove to myself and anyone else who has ever doubted me that I am a capable human being, that I have something to offer.
As it is I still feel inadequate, but I hope that in time I will come to terms with this. Or is that just accepting defeat? Am I holding myself to superficial standards? Maybe I'm just listening to too much Pet Sounds.
I suspect that this strange and self-destructive cycle has its roots in my even stranger and freakishly high standards that I set for myself, which is ironic because I am a notorious slacker and never succeed in living up to them. I never quite understood what teachers and counselors meant when they talked about students "setting themselves up for failure", but once I reached my Junior year of high school I began to realize that that was exactly what I was doing to myself. So why am I like this? I believe that it is a deadly combination of factors: 1) I am (however paradoxically) a perfectionist, who doesn't see anything I do as adequate until I see in it the brilliance I also know I will never contain. 2)I have amazingly brilliant friends, and can't help but compare myself to them - a dangerous habit I am trying to break. As a result, in high school I never got anything done - not that this is anybody's fault but mine, but the fact remains that I, for lack of a better phrase, screwed myself (and my academic future) over big time. Imagine my surprise and profound sense of hope when I was accepted to UC Santa Cruz, by no means the most prestigious school, but a college with (alleged) standards nonetheless. College would be an opportunity to redeem myself, to break free of the mental shackles I had imprisoned myself in in high school and start afresh: I would meet challenges head-on, and this time I would rise the victor.
But my parents denied me the privilage of going to university right after high school, and now I am stuck at VC. Half of me says that my education is what I make of it, that going to Ventura College is no excuse for self-pity; but the other half of me argues that I am not being challenged, that my already sub-par mind is being dulled by the childish excuse of an education I am "recieving" at my local community college and that I am going to get swallowed up. I have a love of learning and a desire to "suck the marrow out of life", but you'd never know it by my transcript, let alone the ways in which I while away my days. Sure, I'm getting straight As now, but I don't really feel like I've earned them. I still don't read nearly as much as I should, and I get less and less articulate as the days go by. I remember one time Donna commented on how articulate I was compared to most people my age, and as trivial as this may have seemed to everyone else around I took it as a profound compliment, coming from the mother of a boy like Spencer.
But what has become of me? I want to travel and live my life to the fullest, I want to learn and discover what this strange world of ours contains; I want to feel like I am not a waste of time. In my eyes the ultimate failure would be to not live my life to the fullest, to not improve myself and my world to the best of my ability; I want to prove to myself and anyone else who has ever doubted me that I am a capable human being, that I have something to offer.
As it is I still feel inadequate, but I hope that in time I will come to terms with this. Or is that just accepting defeat? Am I holding myself to superficial standards? Maybe I'm just listening to too much Pet Sounds.