(no subject)
Every time your dream comes true, it means that someone else is getting screwed over. And vice versa....every time you get screwed over, it's probably someone else's dream coming true.
The problem only arises with entitlement. Feeling disappointed because you lost something necessary- fine. Feeling disappointed because you lost something you loved, wanted deeply- fine. Feeling disappinted because you felt you deserved something- well, that'll only lead to pain and misery. Because life really isn't fair, and it's best just to enjoy the ride.
So as I'm sitting here, meditating on Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, deciding that all of the disappointment I felt about the summer was unnecessary. Because I do believe that everything happens for a reason, and I do believe that I will end up exactly where I'm supposed to. And as I'm playing my scales, getting back in to shape after a week of being in Paris as a not-flute player (very strange- longest I've gone without playing in my life, I think, and I could have been any student, except for that time when I was explaining what notes the Metro trains were whistling) I get a phone call, out of the blue, that changes everything entirely.
Eight weeks in Santa Barbara, with Gwen, Rachel, Melanie. And a whole slew of new people who I don't know. It won't be YOA, but it'll be magic in its own way. And I was about to say- I DESERVE that magic, some logic about how school isn't magic at all. But now I'm thinking better of it, because really, it's a total fluke that I'm going to this thing, and I'll have to work hard to keep up.
I realized at some point that what I do best is synthesis. I'm not really that creative- I guess I always thought of creativity as some lightning bolt that hits you, some God-given talent. To be creative, you must be a Howard Roarke, freakishly self- sufficient. This is not me. What I can do is take ideas and apply them, find connections, think in circles.So instead of waiting for the answers to come of of the sky, I have to search for them in books, in people, in life. And once I got past my modernist anzieties about being unoriginal...it's working out pretty well.
So, my plans for the summer have changed. I'm not going to Berkeley on June 7th. I'm going to Santa Barbara on June 15th. This is not without the explicit screwing over of other people- but I really hope I can be a good enough person to help make that up. And I must see you.
The problem only arises with entitlement. Feeling disappointed because you lost something necessary- fine. Feeling disappointed because you lost something you loved, wanted deeply- fine. Feeling disappinted because you felt you deserved something- well, that'll only lead to pain and misery. Because life really isn't fair, and it's best just to enjoy the ride.
So as I'm sitting here, meditating on Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, deciding that all of the disappointment I felt about the summer was unnecessary. Because I do believe that everything happens for a reason, and I do believe that I will end up exactly where I'm supposed to. And as I'm playing my scales, getting back in to shape after a week of being in Paris as a not-flute player (very strange- longest I've gone without playing in my life, I think, and I could have been any student, except for that time when I was explaining what notes the Metro trains were whistling) I get a phone call, out of the blue, that changes everything entirely.
Eight weeks in Santa Barbara, with Gwen, Rachel, Melanie. And a whole slew of new people who I don't know. It won't be YOA, but it'll be magic in its own way. And I was about to say- I DESERVE that magic, some logic about how school isn't magic at all. But now I'm thinking better of it, because really, it's a total fluke that I'm going to this thing, and I'll have to work hard to keep up.
I realized at some point that what I do best is synthesis. I'm not really that creative- I guess I always thought of creativity as some lightning bolt that hits you, some God-given talent. To be creative, you must be a Howard Roarke, freakishly self- sufficient. This is not me. What I can do is take ideas and apply them, find connections, think in circles.So instead of waiting for the answers to come of of the sky, I have to search for them in books, in people, in life. And once I got past my modernist anzieties about being unoriginal...it's working out pretty well.
So, my plans for the summer have changed. I'm not going to Berkeley on June 7th. I'm going to Santa Barbara on June 15th. This is not without the explicit screwing over of other people- but I really hope I can be a good enough person to help make that up. And I must see you.