(no subject)
Right now I feel the same way about myself and my life as I did about that JETS nuclear chemistry problem set. It's like... I have a lot of vague self-knowledge, but I don't understand it quite well enough for it to be useful to me. Basically, I think a lot about stuff. And I come to a lot of conclusions, but I can't really know if they're right or even close to right or if there even is a right, because my thoughts are my thoughts, and have therefore been filtered through my confused little mind. And I can't trust my confused little mind, because it has been known to be wrong and even lie sometimes. And so I have all of these thoughts running around my brain, and I have no idea what to do with them. I can't just throw them out, because then I'd be back at square one, which would suck, but I can't use them because I don't actually understand them and there are so many I wouldn't know which to trust and which to discard.
See, what was amazing about reading Moby-Dick was that I could in a sense "compare notes" with Melville. If I found verification of my ideas in Moby-Dick, I could assume that they were valid. And if new ideas popped out at me, that was great too. This was awesome, and suddenly I was so much less confused. But now that I'm not officially reading it in class anymore, I feel lost again. I'm still reading parts over again and talking about it with people, which is good, but it's just not the same.
I can still talk about ideas with people, but no one seems very willing. Also, it's hard to initiate the kind of conversation that I'm seeking, since I don't really even know the question. Usually the easiest thing to do is to start talking about what I think and hope for a response, but I'm kind of inarticulate and often can't get my point across without making a lot of Moby-Dick references, which sucks when people haven't read it. Also, even when I do try to initiate conversation by talking about my own thoughts, most people don't get the hint and just listen and nod in agreement and don't respond. Which sucks.
I know Emerson would say that in fact my thoughts would only get weaker with the validation of my peers, but I say fuck him. Evidently he isn't human, because it's fucking scary to think you're totally alone.
See, what was amazing about reading Moby-Dick was that I could in a sense "compare notes" with Melville. If I found verification of my ideas in Moby-Dick, I could assume that they were valid. And if new ideas popped out at me, that was great too. This was awesome, and suddenly I was so much less confused. But now that I'm not officially reading it in class anymore, I feel lost again. I'm still reading parts over again and talking about it with people, which is good, but it's just not the same.
I can still talk about ideas with people, but no one seems very willing. Also, it's hard to initiate the kind of conversation that I'm seeking, since I don't really even know the question. Usually the easiest thing to do is to start talking about what I think and hope for a response, but I'm kind of inarticulate and often can't get my point across without making a lot of Moby-Dick references, which sucks when people haven't read it. Also, even when I do try to initiate conversation by talking about my own thoughts, most people don't get the hint and just listen and nod in agreement and don't respond. Which sucks.
I know Emerson would say that in fact my thoughts would only get weaker with the validation of my peers, but I say fuck him. Evidently he isn't human, because it's fucking scary to think you're totally alone.