(no subject)
I've been browsing through some entries from the early days, when this blog was first created, and you know what? I used to write some pretty substantial entries here, ones that gave insights into my soul, as someone had remarked. That phase lasted for a while. And it felt good writing myself out for the world to see- made me feel connected to people. Then life started happening, and suddenly there were all these things I felt I had to keep private. Entries started becoming more vague, and for a lot of them, you wouldn't know what the hell I was talking about. Huge life upheavals would happen with nary a blip in this blog.
I get the sense that the readership for this tiny corner of the Internet isn't what it once was. People change and grow apart, and besides, a lot of the people I've gotten to know in the past year and a half don't even know this exists. And I'm more or less content to keep it that way (security through obscurity, as they say). I don't know if I'll continue writing deeply personal entries here, because even though it feels good to, it'll be irrelevant if I just feel like I'm talking into thin air. I do actively update on Twitter, and after I settle down into my job, I want to start a tech blog of some kind, because there are a lot of things I want to write about that don't really fit in this livejournal. But as far as personal writing goes, my motivation to engage in it is only as much as the extent to which people will care ....and does anyone care?
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Anyhoo, here's a shot at something personal AND hopefully concrete. Believe it or not, I had a blog before this one was created, one that I maintained in high school, and even updated concurrently with this one in the early days before it was abandoned. It was mostly about personal stuff as well, and like all things high school, it's the sort of stuff you'd be deeply embarrassed about if you were ever twisted enough to dig it up.
The one person in this world who had torn through all my layers of secrecy and isolation had asked me once what I thought was the thing about me that had changed the most during college. I had said, and it is true to this day, that it was a newfound awareness of the social fabric around me, of interactions and relationships between people and how I fit into that. It was a whole new dimension of experience that I had ignored in high school. I mean, I had friends in high school and all, but there was none of the drama that would come in college.
No, in high school, I was obsessed with other things. I would ponder extensively about physics, philosophy, and the nature of the universe. I remember reading books on quantum mechanics for fun. Hell, I read Plato, Kant, and Nietzsche for fun. I used to think all the time about whether there was a god, whether there was free will, and whether the finality of death meant that life was meaningless. Looking back, it's astonishing how opinionated I was about all these deep issues, and how I was so certain I had solved them. I felt that if I were able solve these questions and prove my answers correct, that I could understand my existence, and my own place in the world.
Turns out I was asking the wrong questions. There was an episode of Battlestar Galactica midway through season 4 that nicely sums up what I've learned in the years since then. There are certain things in people's lives that are essential to their existences, things they can't live without. This might be different for every person: it might be someone you love, or a vision you have of your future self and who you want to become. Take those things away, and life loses its specific value, and becomes abstract. Why is death a concern for me if I have no specific, personal reason that motivates me to live? Does your position on any metaphysical question really define you as a person more than the people you've grown up with, the experiences you've had, and the things you want to accomplish?
That's what I think anyways. If I were to sum up all this nonsensical mumbo jumbo, it'd be that the really interesting philosophical questions and answers are found by looking inwards within yourself rather than outwards at the universe in general.
(crap, look at the timestamp for this post >_<)
I get the sense that the readership for this tiny corner of the Internet isn't what it once was. People change and grow apart, and besides, a lot of the people I've gotten to know in the past year and a half don't even know this exists. And I'm more or less content to keep it that way (security through obscurity, as they say). I don't know if I'll continue writing deeply personal entries here, because even though it feels good to, it'll be irrelevant if I just feel like I'm talking into thin air. I do actively update on Twitter, and after I settle down into my job, I want to start a tech blog of some kind, because there are a lot of things I want to write about that don't really fit in this livejournal. But as far as personal writing goes, my motivation to engage in it is only as much as the extent to which people will care ....and does anyone care?
--------------------------------------------------
Anyhoo, here's a shot at something personal AND hopefully concrete. Believe it or not, I had a blog before this one was created, one that I maintained in high school, and even updated concurrently with this one in the early days before it was abandoned. It was mostly about personal stuff as well, and like all things high school, it's the sort of stuff you'd be deeply embarrassed about if you were ever twisted enough to dig it up.
The one person in this world who had torn through all my layers of secrecy and isolation had asked me once what I thought was the thing about me that had changed the most during college. I had said, and it is true to this day, that it was a newfound awareness of the social fabric around me, of interactions and relationships between people and how I fit into that. It was a whole new dimension of experience that I had ignored in high school. I mean, I had friends in high school and all, but there was none of the drama that would come in college.
No, in high school, I was obsessed with other things. I would ponder extensively about physics, philosophy, and the nature of the universe. I remember reading books on quantum mechanics for fun. Hell, I read Plato, Kant, and Nietzsche for fun. I used to think all the time about whether there was a god, whether there was free will, and whether the finality of death meant that life was meaningless. Looking back, it's astonishing how opinionated I was about all these deep issues, and how I was so certain I had solved them. I felt that if I were able solve these questions and prove my answers correct, that I could understand my existence, and my own place in the world.
Turns out I was asking the wrong questions. There was an episode of Battlestar Galactica midway through season 4 that nicely sums up what I've learned in the years since then. There are certain things in people's lives that are essential to their existences, things they can't live without. This might be different for every person: it might be someone you love, or a vision you have of your future self and who you want to become. Take those things away, and life loses its specific value, and becomes abstract. Why is death a concern for me if I have no specific, personal reason that motivates me to live? Does your position on any metaphysical question really define you as a person more than the people you've grown up with, the experiences you've had, and the things you want to accomplish?
That's what I think anyways. If I were to sum up all this nonsensical mumbo jumbo, it'd be that the really interesting philosophical questions and answers are found by looking inwards within yourself rather than outwards at the universe in general.
(crap, look at the timestamp for this post >_<)