Musings.
No matter how much I might try to avoid it, my ritualistic morning activities usually include at least one (albeit often cursory) glimpse in my mirror.
What I feel isn't what one might expect. There's no deep, simmering self-loathing. Nor is there any particular fondness or high esteem. There's just me. Time after time, I find myself, not particularly empassioned or discouraged.
There's just one question:
Is this it?
Is what I see in this misleading looking glass really what I am, what I was, and what I will be?
When you're younger, the imagination conjures these detailed, optimistic pictures of the future self. Each day that I find myself unchanged, caught in this seemingly endless feeling of ennui, those old pictures fade further and further into the oblivion of lost memories.
***
In elementary school, I was working towards middle school. I'd be one of the bigger kids. The dreaded teens. When I got there, I just looked like myself. But (slightly) bigger. Then, the new goal was high school, always with the ultimate prize looming in my mind: Boston College.
***
So what the fuck. I'm here. This is it. The culmination of everything. I thought that when I graduated, everything would become clearer. Life would be easier.
Aging only brings newer, more complex worries. And a deeper sense of ennui.
I know what I want to do. I'm a writer. It's all I can be.
But each time I pick up a brilliant novel, watch a great film, flip through a sick comic, a little piece of me dies. The more I build myself up with these fictional guides to living, the more I despair, because I doubt with increasing frequency that I will ever be capable of what guys like Chuck, Kerouac, Crowe or Moore have done.
I don't want to die in obscurity, toiling at some meaningless job to line the pockets of people I'll never meet who control a society that is flawed in a world that's only going downhill. I want to shine, even just for a short while.
***
Walking across campus today, I passed this one spot that always gives me a thrill. From the top of the steps by the campus library, you can see before you the whole of lower campus. Beyond, Alumni stadium, and further is the small patch of woods that lines the nearby reservoir. For a second, a particularly powerful gust of wind will drown out all sound, and those woods will be that unknown something that I want to strive towards. That intangible but necessary goal that gives life its meaning.
Then, a generator in Conte forum kicks in, or a motorcycle revs its engine, and the moment is lost, and I remember what the world we live in has become:
a place devoid of passion, where facts and statistics outweigh imagination.
A place where everything to be seen can be conveniently viewed from the comfort of your living room.
Fuck the freedom that we are "gifted" with.
When will we stop lying to ourselves and realize how horribly we have sterilized our lives?
The things we regard as special are not beautiful. They're just less hideous than all the monstrosities that we've created.
Peace and good karma.
What I feel isn't what one might expect. There's no deep, simmering self-loathing. Nor is there any particular fondness or high esteem. There's just me. Time after time, I find myself, not particularly empassioned or discouraged.
There's just one question:
Is this it?
Is what I see in this misleading looking glass really what I am, what I was, and what I will be?
When you're younger, the imagination conjures these detailed, optimistic pictures of the future self. Each day that I find myself unchanged, caught in this seemingly endless feeling of ennui, those old pictures fade further and further into the oblivion of lost memories.
***
In elementary school, I was working towards middle school. I'd be one of the bigger kids. The dreaded teens. When I got there, I just looked like myself. But (slightly) bigger. Then, the new goal was high school, always with the ultimate prize looming in my mind: Boston College.
***
So what the fuck. I'm here. This is it. The culmination of everything. I thought that when I graduated, everything would become clearer. Life would be easier.
Aging only brings newer, more complex worries. And a deeper sense of ennui.
I know what I want to do. I'm a writer. It's all I can be.
But each time I pick up a brilliant novel, watch a great film, flip through a sick comic, a little piece of me dies. The more I build myself up with these fictional guides to living, the more I despair, because I doubt with increasing frequency that I will ever be capable of what guys like Chuck, Kerouac, Crowe or Moore have done.
I don't want to die in obscurity, toiling at some meaningless job to line the pockets of people I'll never meet who control a society that is flawed in a world that's only going downhill. I want to shine, even just for a short while.
***
Walking across campus today, I passed this one spot that always gives me a thrill. From the top of the steps by the campus library, you can see before you the whole of lower campus. Beyond, Alumni stadium, and further is the small patch of woods that lines the nearby reservoir. For a second, a particularly powerful gust of wind will drown out all sound, and those woods will be that unknown something that I want to strive towards. That intangible but necessary goal that gives life its meaning.
Then, a generator in Conte forum kicks in, or a motorcycle revs its engine, and the moment is lost, and I remember what the world we live in has become:
a place devoid of passion, where facts and statistics outweigh imagination.
A place where everything to be seen can be conveniently viewed from the comfort of your living room.
Fuck the freedom that we are "gifted" with.
When will we stop lying to ourselves and realize how horribly we have sterilized our lives?
The things we regard as special are not beautiful. They're just less hideous than all the monstrosities that we've created.
Peace and good karma.