"- don't be so quick to knock it. People don't usually part with the weird shit they personally know because they know how easy it will be to punch holes in. Now I'm tellin you somethin. It's for you to poke through the soup and find the meat." John Patrick Shanley's 'the dreamer examines his pillow'

Sunday, August 26, 2007

Writing this feels slightly narcissistic.

In fact every time I’ve sat down to write anything recently I’ve gotten a sense of the futility of the act of writing. Recently I’ve feel so much more comfortable simply not thinking about much. “Much” includes God, self-analyzation/improvement, the direction my life is taking, how I perceive the world as compares to other perceptions, what I want out of life. It is so much easier to just live, day by day, without examining the bigger picture (i.e. how my life fits into the rest of the world and whether I want to change that) or the minute details… i.e. looking at a flower or the color orange or my toenail as if I’ve never seen it before, just for fascination’s sake.
I haven’t been reading much lately either…
Actually that is not true.
I have this desire for extremes. I want XXXXX to be true of me in this phase of life, without leaving room for … maybe, perhaps XXpXxx to be possibility of a part of the truth. In other words, it’s more melodramatic and enjoyable to think “THIS is true of me right now” – for example, the idea that lately I’ve been living a very average American middle class life, with not much extraordinary or personal flavor. This is perhaps more true than it has been in the past, but there is still an element of the exotic or personal touch to my life…. It’s just so fucking different from any other experience I’ve …experienced.

In college I learned to be extreme. Lol – lets chuckle at how pathetically high-schoolish that sounds and move on.
To put that self-realization in perspective, consider my childhood.

(I don’t know why we find it so necessary to identify/label/make sense of our past… but I suspect it will help me understand my present situation better and ideally guide my choices in the future… learning from our mistakes, etc.)

My father (and mother, to some extent) pushed my brother and I to always be self-improving and examining human beings. The five of us would hold regular family meetings – Mom, Dad, Nathan occupying the couch in a noodle-like fashion, me with my rod-straight back, waiting to soak in every word, and The List. The List generally resided on father’s lap and was more often than not accompanied by The Bible. During the lecture and subsequent feedback (Dad was a democratic sort of Family Leader) The List of Things to Improve on would be referenced regularly, along with the family’s guide to righteousness, health, and love, The Bible.
Balance was a favorite topic of Dad’s – finding the right balance between expressing every emotion and keeping it all in, for example. Of course my intense desire to please my papa made for some unbalanced thought processes, and perfectionism and constant self criticism settled in.
No drinking or drugs in high school. No kissing. Straight A’s. Came home on time every night (and felt awful when I didn’t). lol. It’s a miracle I enjoyed high school so damn much. Hmmm…

OUT of my parents’ loving protection and INTO the world of sex, drugs and alcohol… and THEATRE. Oh god, in theatre I learned to love what I had formerly thought of as Bad. Rip-your-hair-out Anger, or Despair, Ecstasy, self-loathing, all of it was desirable (even idolized), especially if the emotion was full and pure, because what became important was Experiencing the Moment. Not considering how this would affect you or your relationships, just Experiencing Life, whether it was on stage or in a friend’s living room or in a movie theatre.

This wasn’t, of course, the extent of my college experience – I had many boring and even studious days, but especially the summers in Ohio and times spent with Luke or in acting class and with the rest of my class opened up a new way of living that clashed irrevocably with my teachings from home.

Thus the eating disorder, the depression, blah blah blah. Existentialism was introduced, chaos ensued.

Why did I feel the need to write about all that?

Ah yes. To guide future choices. But as I looking at my past and consider my present, I can see that although I’ve learned a lot and apply much of it daily, I was as blind then as I am now and always will be to what is going to come. Every new stage in life (no pun intended, I promise) holds so much Blank Matter – Stuff I’ve never before encountered, no matter how much I read or question – there is no way to prepare for it. I still don’t think it hurts to reflect on your past, but how… how is it helpful? Someone help me out. Brain Fart.
Maybe it just validates my sense of importance in the universe when I record my thoughts and actions. Essentially: mind masturbation?