where were you while we were getting high? someday you will find me, caught beneath the landslide...
I didn't make it to my handwritten journal. Instead, I read some Howard Zinn and I watched my DVDs of Ren and Stimpy. I didn't chastise myself too much this morning, as though I woke up late chronologically, I only slept 8 hours. I find myself thoroughly disappointed lately, as I come to terms with how average I really am. Slightly taller, but not abnormally so. Average body, at least for the Modesto area and increasingly for the country. Though reading and writing may still have some sort of revolutionary zeal in parts of the world, they arn't the once cherished BFD they used to be here. Anatomical limitations cause a lot of grief, still.
My obedience to hierarchy and the seemingly increasing rigidity of the system are yet another sign of irrelevance. In college, when I came in swinging through the doors as a Central Valley Marxist, dourly criticizing everyone and everything, it was bluntly and tactfully (Though of course, I didn't interpret it that way at the time) that for all my protestations, I was a hypocrite, not that original, and totally an asshole. Or, as I preferred and fought to be relabeled, a curmudgeon. As I mentioned recently, I don't know myself and somehow, others do.
Echoing the theme of lack of self was a recent rereading of entries. Perhaps I could find an entry that strikes a chord, somewhere in my tangled lj history, but just going through the most recent entries (from earlier today, or a few days ago, or even to April and May), I just do not recognise myself. There's a certain familiarity, but no real knowledge of where any of it came from. In my struggle to meet new people, I've noticed how I scare so many away, by dumping so much them in such a short period of time. It never fails.
I've kept records for so long to see what patterns and trends could be noted. Indeed, as I've mentioned before, I'm starting to realise that what I seek will only come posthumously. Of course, this is arrogant and ego aggrandizing. I'll end with this, and perhaps this is the most sane and rational though I will have displayed recently:
For better or for worse, now matters. I've always been uncomfortable as myself, afraid of everyone and everything, every shadow and every sound, but there is a hope from within. A hope that this all matters. Reading Zinn, and student teaching, and Northside have reinforced that what I do does have an impact. Perhaps I'm not explaining this well. But, that often quoted line from Indira Gandhi, about being the change we want to see in the world is true. Somehow, somewhere, I became some sort of example.
As much as I look at and admire and want to be like certain individuals, some people may look at me. I never really understood that, until recently. I always wrote myself off as inconsequential. This isn't meant to inflate my ego, but merely to say that when I think no one is watching, when I think I can pause time and space and do something no one will notice, or see, or react to, someone does. A simple comment of gratitude, someone saying "thank you for chairing the meeting" the grades I gave to those poor students and the frowns and looks of confusion as I tried to explain linguistic nuances to 15 year olds, the simple acts of eating meat, or being influenced by others and being vegetarian, these matter.
When I go to church, and am not gay or old as everyone else is, people notice. When I go to Occupy Modesto meetings, people notice. Being 26 and so active in AA, people notice. I've always wanted to be noticed, but never really realised I am.
I don't know what any of this means. Maybe it was ego stroking, maybe it was just a tacit admittance of responsibility to grow up and act like the mensch I am, rather than the overgrown man child I have been for 26 years.
My obedience to hierarchy and the seemingly increasing rigidity of the system are yet another sign of irrelevance. In college, when I came in swinging through the doors as a Central Valley Marxist, dourly criticizing everyone and everything, it was bluntly and tactfully (Though of course, I didn't interpret it that way at the time) that for all my protestations, I was a hypocrite, not that original, and totally an asshole. Or, as I preferred and fought to be relabeled, a curmudgeon. As I mentioned recently, I don't know myself and somehow, others do.
Echoing the theme of lack of self was a recent rereading of entries. Perhaps I could find an entry that strikes a chord, somewhere in my tangled lj history, but just going through the most recent entries (from earlier today, or a few days ago, or even to April and May), I just do not recognise myself. There's a certain familiarity, but no real knowledge of where any of it came from. In my struggle to meet new people, I've noticed how I scare so many away, by dumping so much them in such a short period of time. It never fails.
I've kept records for so long to see what patterns and trends could be noted. Indeed, as I've mentioned before, I'm starting to realise that what I seek will only come posthumously. Of course, this is arrogant and ego aggrandizing. I'll end with this, and perhaps this is the most sane and rational though I will have displayed recently:
For better or for worse, now matters. I've always been uncomfortable as myself, afraid of everyone and everything, every shadow and every sound, but there is a hope from within. A hope that this all matters. Reading Zinn, and student teaching, and Northside have reinforced that what I do does have an impact. Perhaps I'm not explaining this well. But, that often quoted line from Indira Gandhi, about being the change we want to see in the world is true. Somehow, somewhere, I became some sort of example.
As much as I look at and admire and want to be like certain individuals, some people may look at me. I never really understood that, until recently. I always wrote myself off as inconsequential. This isn't meant to inflate my ego, but merely to say that when I think no one is watching, when I think I can pause time and space and do something no one will notice, or see, or react to, someone does. A simple comment of gratitude, someone saying "thank you for chairing the meeting" the grades I gave to those poor students and the frowns and looks of confusion as I tried to explain linguistic nuances to 15 year olds, the simple acts of eating meat, or being influenced by others and being vegetarian, these matter.
When I go to church, and am not gay or old as everyone else is, people notice. When I go to Occupy Modesto meetings, people notice. Being 26 and so active in AA, people notice. I've always wanted to be noticed, but never really realised I am.
I don't know what any of this means. Maybe it was ego stroking, maybe it was just a tacit admittance of responsibility to grow up and act like the mensch I am, rather than the overgrown man child I have been for 26 years.