Why I choose to write (A Misleading Title)

So the other day I was faced with a question: What am I going to do with my life?

Now people look at this and right away answer with what job they'd like to have in the future, but not me. I want to know-- on the most basic level-- what I am going to do with myself once I am out of the grasp of high school and unforgivingly tossed into the enigmatic excess of the world?

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Note: this was written in installments, but nothing from the prior installments was deleted-- essentially a compilation of reflections over the course of a month.

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I think when I started this thread, I meant to write some inspirational, verbose glarble (my favorite new word) about why writing is my passion-- advocating following your dreams and blah and such.

I think I am genetically incapable of being so free-spirited to say you must always follow your heart and do what you dream of. There is a pragmatic part of me that I detest-- that I want to destroy, so I can just make up my mind to pursue writing for the rest of my life and not agonize over the decision anymore. But I can't. Every time I raise those scissors to cut the singular thread holding me from attacking the future full-force, I think "Wait, what if I bust a bolt and fall apart? I'm being too indulgent. This 'dream' nonsense is just self- destructive behavior" And I can't stand it.

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Pragmatism isn't so bad either, though. You kind of need it-- not to keep you grounded or anything dumb like that. I mean tons of things can keep you grounded, such as anchors. When you need a tangible victory-- a prize, a win, some universal signal to the world that you have talents and those talents are of use, you need to take a practical approach.

It may not quite make sense at first, but I see it like this: Dreams (the glittery stuff that makes you feel weightless, rebellious, and possibly ashamed in front of your parents) are for personal victories. You decide your dreams early on, and build up your morals, goals and principles around them; when you dream, you validate your own worth. These fanciful wants and whims, goals and gaggles in the mind romanticize life, tinting our lenses slightly rosy. Emotion controls them.

But then we have that pesky problem with society. It is an unspoken social doctrine: success must be seen to be believed. Show that you have achieved something--anything-- or change immediately. Most people (myself included) don't like being told to change, and so we must find a way to satiate society enough so we can return to our inner lairs of wonderment, away from judging eyes. And so, we dreamers must be practical. We get our names in the paper here and there; we win a scholarship or two; we maintain good grades and decent reputations. We deem ourselves worthy to the world-- This is the function of pragmatism: validating our worth to the outside. Pragmatism is the scientific, calculating part of us that knows limits and societal regulations (enough, at least, to maintain credibility).

But the number one thing, I've realized is that we cannot have one without the other. Without being pragmatic, you can't sustain a life built solely on dreams. On the flip side, without dreams, you are completely aimless, with no passions to pursue or reasons to be pragmatic.

I still don't know why I write. I just do.

In loving memory

This is late. I'm sorry. I needed time to think.

I don't know what I'm supposed to say or how I'm supposed to say it. All I know is that I will miss you dearly and regret every day I let pass without speaking at least a sentence to you. You have taught me and thousands of others to seize the day and be part of a community, and for that I am forever grateful.

I wish there was something I could say to your closest friends or family to help ease their pain, but everyone will take their own time to recover, and I hope to help in any way possible. In all honesty, it still hasn't sunk in for me. I will have to borrow words to express how I feel:

"It came to me then that every plan is a tiny prayer to father time.....And I rationed my breaths as I said to myself that I'd already taken too much today........It stung like a violent wind that our memories depend on a faulty camera in our minds.........Love is watching someone die"

Happy Birthday. I miss you. Thank you.

Thoughts that somehow escape my brain...

(...through my nostrils, i think. Better get those plugged up soon)

Here it is.... marinate/asphyxiate/contemplate (but mostly contemplate):

People are like broccoli. They need to be subjected to intense heat and sudden chill to finally give off that “prismacolor” brightness that lies within them.

High-fives all around for bizarre similes.

Now back to work.

Stream of consciousness after work-induced year-long coma (PS. should "work induced" be hyphenated?)

Alright, many things are happening at once.

For one, my phone just mispronounced "savings" as SAH-vings, but then again the English language has gone to hell so I can't really blame it for being wrong. I am also in the midst of my spring break, so I have spent sufficient amounts of time tweeting (it tends to be quicker and more satisfying-- take that how you will). QUATRO, as a result of my fatigue coupled with 9 days of no school, I've seen far more vlogs over the past few days than I care to admit. Actually, I wouldn't mind admitting it, but I'm just too lazy to count. Thirdly (I think I missed that a few sentences ago), I have a thing for parenthetical phrases now and I HATE hyphens (unless of course they are used in Dave Barry's writing or as lasers in this one Neopets game about a pterodactyl-like creature).

Just to name a few.

..STRANGE SHIFT TO SUDDENLY MEANINGFUL WORDS..

Now I want to write things for the sake of writing and not for the sake of submitting. Really, just for the sake of thinking. I like thinking; we should do it more often.

Because I am so cynical and flustrated with society most of the time, I figure I should take an optimistic stance on something-- but not exactly something most people are excited for (always the iconoclast, aren't I?). Anyway, I'm talking about death. Or the ability to die. But really all this death talk is just a morbid, yet scenic detour to a discussion about life. And that's big. I don't blame a lot of people for not talking about life, but I also wonder why? Is it that they don't feel entitled to talk about it because they haven't fully experienced it? POPPY COCK! That's like not being able to critique a burger until you are completely done with it. In my brain, life discussions go a little more like this:

*Imagine yourself in a cream-white, traditional, American-style house, at the bedside of your dying-but-extremely-wise pundit of a grandmother. you two are having a conversation and here it is, paraphrased*

Life is like the graph of a non-linear function, as you trace your fingers along it, the slopes at the points beneath your finger change an infinite number of times. In that sense, you can never really tell where you are or in what direction you are headed, because in the blink of an eye, you may have completely changed routes. And there's no use trying to sum up all the directions you've gone in at the end of the graph, because there have just been too many. So how better to chronicle the twists and turns of this journey than by giving a running commentary? I keep a bucket list (an unofficial one, but a bucket list nonetheless) and as I add stupid goal after stupid goal, I just get more and more excited to accomplish what I have written down. So yes, by the time I die, I want to have successfully:

• looked directly into the sun for 45 seconds
• walked my future pet hamster with a digital leash
• eaten a large quantity of plastic
• met imogen heap and convinced her to feed me peas like in all those dreams (sorry, too much information?)
• written, published and widely distributed a novel that spans the action of a 43-year-old man swatting a fly-- starts with the backswing, ends with contact of fly swatter to bug)
• gotten 37 people who I don't know to read this blog and laugh at least thrice
  
• memorized those 37 people's names and occupations and have at least a 5 minute phone conversation with each of them 5 years after first meeting them.
  

among many other things. And sure, maybe I wont be able to accomplish everything I set out to, but at least then I have a story to tell with ups and downs and fulfillment. That's the number one thing-- all those goals back there may have sounded dumb to anyone else, but I know that even getting close to doing half of them will make me think again about my life (and you all know how much I love thinking).

The one difference between life and the graph of a nonlinear function, though, is that unlike most of those graphs, life doesn't go on forever. But that's the beauty of it. If you could just continue living, witnessing all the tragedy and elation and whatever else cycles through generations of the living, life will just start getting old. Living forever, you can never have done enough for yourself or those around you. In that way, I guess I like how this life-and-death stuff works in real life (as it is colloquially called). I guess in the end, we all live for just the perfect amounts of time and when we go, we have done everything we can do to affect the world we lived in.

Its death that reminds us of life and that reminder might just be the moment everyone looks for -- it's when they really start living. That moment when we realize "Hey, I'm not just some product of chemistry that's just another instrument for the universe's exchange of enthalpy. No, I'm actually alive. And I may be composed of nothing more than protons and neutrons and electrons and so is my money and so is my house and so is my family, but not my thoughts or memories or experiences. And maybe the paper I document this all on is just going to be another piece of matter, but maybe it will create those morsels of anti-pseudo-ana-semi-mind-matter in those around me. That's my legacy."

Who knows, maybe when I'm an adult, I'll change my mind about all of this. Hell, I might change it next year or next week or even tomorrow. Maybe everything I said will completely contradict how I feel at the end of my life, but it is all a thought I want to remember, because it will shape the mind of future me. What's important is that this current state of mind-- this opinion-- is now out for people to read and maybe it will affect their minds. It's like inception-- the ideas we plant in each other outlive ourselves, and they become eternal when we can not.

Ultimately, when you think about it, life is great. But when you think about death, life just gets that much better. Pushing through the opacity of science or religion or Pastafarian myth (to find whatever it is we're looking for) is the meatiest chunk of life, and even to a vegetarian like me, that sounds pretty darn appetizing.

Show Me Five Failures From Cal-tech

Easily.

So the time to start looking at colleges has come around, and I've been dreading it for the past year. It's time to kick our fears of commitment in the shins,bust out the dusty transcripts, and find a single defining moment in each of our lives that we can embellish just enough to make it a riveting college essay. However, the most daunting task of all, the one that parents and guidance counselors and Collegeboard relentlessly beat into our heads, is that we need to dissolve all the misconceptions and silly fantasies we may have about the future and settle on a practical major, at a reputable school not too far away from home. The distance from home thing really isn't a huge issue for me-- it's not like I want desperately to flee from my lovely, but tragically boring hometown or anything, but I've got another bone to pick with all those grown-ups out there who feel they know "what's best" for their kids' futures. Lets start with a question:

What happened to your sense of ambition? If you answer that it's been trampled by the recent economic deficit or some other tragic incident in your life, I feel bad for you. On the other hand, if you say its still alive and kicking, I have one of three responses: 1) You're a filthy liar 2) You are a hypocrite or 3) You're in denial. If you really have aspirations, and believe in the power of optimism and dreaming, you would never stifle that very same spark in your children by advising them to "play it safe" in the game of life. You would never tell them that their chances of succeeding in life are far lower if they go to a slightly less famous, but still prestigious college than if they went to the college of YOUR dreams. You would NEVER kill the joy of learning withing your kid by telling them that they don't know enough about what they want in life, and so they should just follow your master plan.

I'm sorry if going to Harvard isn't your child's dream, and I'm sorry if you have some delusion about said dream-college being perfect and every kid coming out of it being set for life. Truth is, it doesn't matter where you go to college; whether or not you succeed in life relies solely on the person and his or her abilities. Believe it or not, there have been people who graduated from Harvard and didn't achieve all their life goals. That doesn't make them any dumber than anyone else who graduated, nor does it make them any smarter than people who didn't graduate from Harvard, but are doing what they love. All that matters is that in the end, you succeed, and that's on YOU. Like the greatest antagonist in literature's history (Iago from Shakespeare's Othello) once said, "Reputation Reputation Reputation is the most idle and FALSE implication".

So every statistic and article that has said otherwise can take my words and shove it u--I mean... can graciously take them into account.

Meaningless Modern Music

I remember the first song I ever heard on the radio. Granted, I wasn’t a very tech-savvy child, but I managed to meddle around with the scanning knob until I heard the ever famous lyric “All you need is love!” and that got me thinking. I know it’s silly to think about a six-year-old child contemplating morals over 90’s pop music, but the more I think about it now, the more I realize that my entire moral compass is based on the teachings of The Beatles and Ashanti . I’m very grateful to have had the chance to grow up alongside music with such integrity and zing. But before I can even start reveling in my good fortune, I feel obligated to think of... the less fortunate. Yes, that means you. I actively worry about today’s teen generation and the lessons they are being taught by their music—if that’s what they wish to call it.

Love, tolerance, peace and a little bit of hippie entrancement—these are some of the lessons to be learned from the sounds of the Beatles. John, Paul, George and Ringo especially taught me the importance of perseverance and hard work, lessons I never forgot throughout school and other tough times. One of the most attractive aspects of the Beatles was their ability to teach me a lesson, but still keep me hooked by their style and groove, which surpassed those of most other bands out there.

I also remember getting down to Ashanti’s beats, chockfull of great advice for hormonal tween girls (not that I’m insinuating anything about me being a hormonal tween). Ashanti’s classic songs, like “Happy” inspire children to savor their youth (cue overbearing mother version of THE TALK ). Young children do not need to be concerned with things as vulgar as love—no, they should appreciate their innocence and just have good, wholesome fun.

When I look at what this once-thriving industry has become, I cannot help but wonder what happened, as children today are being force fed the dirty leftovers of what was once a great American culture. At one point, I wondered if the terrible noises I was hearing on the radio were just the first signs of the apocalypse , but then I realized that they would not cease. Irritated at what seemed to be a mélange of sound effects and animal calls, I turned to the internet for some answers, until I came to my still-standing conclusion. The music streaming on the radio these days generally falls under one of two categories: reckless noise or overly-excited chanting.

For example, today’s media has been shaken up by the demeaning and irresponsible messages that some rock and hip hop music sends to our youth. Masked by catchy rhythms and synthesized beats, these songs have infiltrated the purity and innocence of the musical world and have begun to teach kids all the wrong lessons. Whether it be to drink, to go clubbing or to mistreat their female peers, this music lacks the rich, tasteful qualities of the old greats and continues to corrupt our young generation’s minds.

On the other side of the spectrum, parents around the nation have their children hypnotized by the voices of prepubescent kids singing meaningless lyrics and overused melodies. Record companies constantly crank out child stars with bangs past their eyes and pants hanging precariously around their knees, each one as irritating, but as addictive as the one before. These children assume that just by grasping a microphone and yelling at the top of their lungs, they are making music. As far as I’m concerned, “Baby baby baby” doesn’t make a remotely significant statement.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not bashing on all modern music; in fact, some of it is absolutely what it ought to be: catchy, fun, and safe. I don’t mean to generalize or stereotype, I’m just making some observations. So the next time you listen to your iPod, ask yourself, are these tweeny-boppers really teaching you anything valuable? Are they really the people you want your grandchildren referring to as “the oldies”? Because the day Nick Jonas becomes the new Paul McCartney is the day I is the day I grow wings and fly away.

A hundredth of an MB has never carried so much weight

So there's this email. A very long, misleading, enigma of an email. I want to delete it, trust me. On several occasions, I've found myself hovering the mouse over it, but in the end, my thumb could not find the inclination to just click.

Why this email was sent, I don't know. Perhaps to mock me? Perhaps to dissuade me? Or maybe I'm just plain reading too far into it. In any case, I really wish I hadn't received it, because it turned things weird for a while and somehow, after a long and winding chain of events, screwed up an entire year for me.

And it is stuff like this that makes me the paranoid, obsessive little thing I am today. Everything I do is so choppy and fragmented that I can't seem to find any worth in my work anymore. I have this awful tendency to make things bad for myself, and that all seems to widdle down to self pity. I am setting myself up mentally for failure and I have no one to blame for it but myself.

Seeking a way out of this hole, I logged off for what seemed like an eternity, trying to avert my attention to "more important" things than this blog. I was wrong in neglecting an outlet, and discerning what is important by someone else's standards. I am done waiting for approval-- I am ready to take a leap of faith and see where I go. It's time to be myself, because that's what I'm best at, and anyone intimidated by or uncomfortable with that is not worth my time or audience.