Musings of an Existentiell Nature

[gaijinxy]

I have a bit of extra time tonight and feel I ought to write something, but I just don't feel like existing in a biographical sense. Like Heidegger, I can't get Holderlin out of my head.

You may build your house of straw

Comments

Re: Where are you from?

[gaijinxy]

You do me too much honor. If anywhere in my journal I've implied an assistant professorship, I apologize! No, I graduated from the University of California, Irvine, with a simple bachelor's, with plans to go on to graduate school with my girlfriend of four years, who was applying to medical school. When things fell apart in my relationship, so did all my other plans, and I wasted time trying to get shot as an Armored Truck courier. I was working fifty plus hours a week and needed time to get things together...I was already working on the novel that came out of all that havoc and still considering graduate school. On the other hand, I just wanted to get away from everything, get myself together as well. So I decided on a coin toss...if I got the glorified secretary position in the English Dept. of my school, I'd stay with the plans for graduate school, and otherwise I'd go to Japan. The toss should have been rigged, though, considering how much influence I had on campus and how well my interview went, but according to my friend and mentor Dr. Silver, the decision was basically determined on sex. So instead I'm in Japan.

I'm still drawn to graduate school, and one of my closest friends is still urging me to get my doctorate (he's working on his law degree), but I have little interest in being a professor, though by all accounts I'd be a good one. I'm hoping I have just as good a shot at being a writer, so I'm focusing on that right now. We'll see what comes of it.

As for classical training, the curriculum at UCI is about like everywhere else, but very flexible and there are some amazing teachers. I took "classics" (though to me that means Homer, Sophocles, Horace and Virgil, who also fascinate me) because that was where I found my interests to lie, and because of the influence of a couple amazing professors. In both literature and philosophy, I tended to stalk those professors that I liked most, taking as many classes as I could with them. I also took as many of the highest level courses as I could, because I found that those classes were the ones that really went into detail and the only ones worth the time. I also figured that, wanting to write in the western tradition, I ought to start from the beginning and work my way up. Recently I've actually gotten enough of a footing to feel tackling the more modern works is worth my time. I don't like to read anything superficially or in isolation. As a result, much of my writing reads like a web, allusions shooting off in all directions, to one with a fine enough eye to catch them. These serve as my anchors in the thinking of the West.

Anyway, I suppose it's strange that I have had so little interest in novels when I've aspired to be a novelist for as long as I can remember, but to me the modern concept of building from the roof down seems completely bizarre. I often wish I really did have the "classical training" you refer to, to be conversant in Greek and Latin, to read Plato in the original, that would be something to boast of. Still, thank you for your misplaced compliment. I doubt I could compare with any of your Harvard friends. Also, Hendrix and the Beatles were a formative part of my upbringing as well...As well as Pink Floyd, Led Zepplin, Jethro Tull and all that crowd. Nothing wrong with that.