The Encore

"It's not the lies that you sing, but what the silence will scream."

It's not like I haven't had enough to do over the past week. It's also not like I don't have enough to be doing right now and tomorrow. I don't need more to think about, or more to waste my precious seconds on at this hour of night, this late in the semester. There are about twenty better things I could be doing right now, sleep not the least of all. My brain is barely running after the ridiculousness that has permeated these last 5 days. I can't even say at this point whether or not I have something interesting to say. So I apologize, but much to Jaron Lanier's horror, I'm gonna write this anyway.

I sometimes wonder how related my thoughts are to the rest of humanity's. With as many people as there are on this planet plus all those who came before us, how can we have unique feelings and thoughts, right? I mean, obviously Aristotle didn't think about when the next episode of House was on, but generally speaking. People deal with feeling guilty, apprehensive, inadequate, etc. We relate to people all the time via some sort of connection. We don't make friends and have relationships just because we are both humans. I think most of the differences that make people unique are in the way they respond to these common thoughts and feelings. It follows then, that people be defined by their actions because actions are always, in effect, reactions to some specific thought or feeling, a thought or feeling that is common to many people. If one were defined by that thought or feeling, one would cease to be unique. I ponder only because it seems we are programmed to believe that we are unique, in the bad way I mean. At some point everyone has thought that their situation was unique to them, like there was no one who understood. In reality, it probably happens all the time. And now I can hear the hypocritical reactions to this statement in my head. "You're saying no one is unique? You're reducing people's individuality." Yes and no. Only within the bounds of defining a common and comforting foundation. The ironic part about the situations that I speak of is that we want to be unique and therefore embrace our plights. We welcome advice of course. No one wants to be stuck in a shitty situation, but the devaluing happens in our mind when someone says, "Oh yea, I know exactly what you mean. I figured it out. You will too." And this is coming from me, who doesn't care when someone makes a "well at least you're not (insert worse situation here)" statement. I don't really understand the existence of those statements though (tangent alert). I mean honestly, I'm pretty sure the person is aware they are not an orphan starving in Africa who inherited AIDS from his or her mother so even if they get food and water....and so on, but how the hell is that supposed to make anyone feel better? Now they are still in their bad situation and feel worse for not being content. Anyway, point being, if you say things like that, they don't help, lol. My general wondering didn't really have a purpose. I just don't understand why so many of the things we do, especially when other people are involved, contradict each other.

The specific part of that wondering is more pertinent to me. Most people have a person that has inspired them to pursue what they do. There's that common childhood mindset of seeing someone or something and wanting to be "just like them." I have realized recently that I have never had that. Probably part of my issue with choosing a major and deciding what I want to do. When I see someone awesome at something, i.e. Stephen Christian's lyrics or any number of people's skills in singing/playing instruments, I never become inspired. In fact, it does the opposite. I think I stated in an earlier post that there is always going to be someone who does what you do best better than you. If that isn't a great example of a negative statement, I don't know what is. The wonderful thing about being hypocritical on the internet, of course, is that most people have no idea that you are acting thusly, but I'll excuse it because I write this as much for me as for anyone else. So the question really is, how does one become inspired? The second question and more important question is, why the hell did I just getting a spam message saying I can browse Jewish singles near me? Phishing has become pretty ineffective if some algorithm thinks there are many Jewish singles to browse in Upland, IN. Anyway, I know that we are in college to learn so obviously people know more than us. I also know that there are areas in which we know more than those that come before us. But how does one go about excelling in an area without committing to living his or her life only in pursuit of gaining recognition? I have had my prof for principles singing praises because I am at such a disadvantage being the least qualified to be in the class yet taking on the most complicated project, but honestly why should that matter? I did my job, rather poorly in fact. I don't want to sound pretentious. I do appreciate it, but everyone else in the class killed themselves to get the project done too. The separation that I see is the people who loved what they were doing versus the people who were just doing a project for class. The people who deserve praise are the ones who are inspired to their fields, the ones who wear their passion on their sleeves. Those are the people who are going to make a difference and excel. If you hadn't figured it out yet, I'm pretty much writing stream of consciousness here. But I do have a couple thoughts to write that aren't part of this train of thought so I am derailing it here.

Don't be concerned, to those of you who are prone to be, by the last paragraph. I am positive that I am an engineer. I would be content with people handing me a bunch of parts and just hooking them up and seeing if they explode for the rest of my life. Well maybe not content, but I'm sure that something within the field is what I am suited for. Granted professional killing is always on the table because when one has a moral flexibility, why not put it to use, right? In all seriousness though, I am recently in awe of how focused people are on "relationships." I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that not many people know exactly who they are when they enter college. fts? Sure, but honestly our generation has become set on consistently finding a new person to define themselves by. I absolutely do not condone having sex before marriage. Not a good idea for many, many reasons, but during college if someone needed to choose between just making out with a bunch of people and dating two or three people for that same time period...just make out. Life, especially college life, is not about narrowing down the pool of potential mates. Whether you're a Christian or not, this is a time of preparation and learning. I am henceforth going to assume the "I came to Taylor to find a spouse" mindset is tantamount to spending 120k dollars to find a man or woman and therefore Taylor is reduced to nothing more than a high class escort service for people who want "the whole package" and not just sex. As with most of my arguments, this is not an attack on the institution in question, it is an attack on stupidity. For the record, I am very happy in my relationship :) haha.

I should probably sleep soon, but I wanted to write about selfishness a little bit because I know that it is one of those common (and largely unconscious) things I was talking about previously. It is very hard for us to not want success in this life. I know that I would love to be able to afford all these wants I have and still have money to put towards the future. On top of this inherent nature, culture consistently bombards us with things that would "make our lives better." I have found that the act of borrowing viciously combats selfishness, but not on the surface level. I know that it takes a lot to knock sense into my own head and only when I am pushed to disgust with myself, can I truly say, "Okay, this has to stop," without rationalizing away my feelings and going on with my life. Borrowing a car for example, as I am still lacking in the transportation department, frustrates the hell out of me. I wish I had the money to afford a car and thus despise my plight of credit card debt which then leads me to hate the circumstances of acquiring the debt and the whole thing just snowballs until I can't stand it and I finally say enough. This may seem unhealthy, but as the circumstances of the self-deprecation are devised with clear intent of improvement, I believe it is actually an act of self-control. And as with most confrontations with selfishness, the result often comes down to a matter of self-control or lack thereof. That is not to say of course that jumping into the deep end is the way to overcome selfishness. But the blatant opposition of this selfishness by engaging it from a distance may decrease the opportunities for selfishness to catch one off-guard. If you know where your crazy stalkerwhoisgoingtomurderyou is hiding in the bushes, running away from the bush isn't the best way to deal with it as there is an abundance of foliage in the world. However, running to the perfect position from which to ambush said stalkerwhoisgoingtomurderthehelloutofyou is a decent strategy if I've ever heard one...and I watch a lot of Asian movies. That's not true at all, but I've seen The Last Samurai, and unsurprisingly, gattling guns in an elevated position beat swordsman on horses. Now after that plethora of imagery, I tire and thusly retire.

...to the bushes ;)

Yea it's 6am give me a break.

You see love is a drink 

That goes straight to my head

And time is a lover 

And I'm caught in her stead

And the sentiment there follows me

Straight to my bed through the night

I've got my life in a suitcase

I'm ready to run run run away

I've got no time

'cause I'm always trying to run run run away

'cause everyday it feels like it's only a game

I've got my life in a suitcase, a suitcase, a suitcase

Edit:

I had wanted to start sharing some of the stuff I have done for classes here because it has (for the most part) a lot of thought put into it. This is the paper I wrote for ethics a couple weeks ago: The Technological Caste System

Enjoy.