People seem really eager to dismiss my idiosyncratic behaviors- specifically, those that differ drastically from their own behaviors- as merely symptoms or "excuses" for underlying neuroses and character defects.

Many of these encounters are disguised as general concern and a desire to understand, so they are difficult to point out on a one-on-one basis. The ones that are brazenly obvious, the not-so-disguised, cause me to look back and see the parallels to other, more insidious (and often not conscious) misguided misattributions.

It might come from a need to categorize (well, dichotomize) behaviors as either good or bad, normal or abnormal, active or reactive. It might come from the inability to see any hint of an existence outside the norm (their own) as anything other than wrong in some way- even if the behavior itself isn't "wrong", it's the deviation from socialization that's seen as "wrong", and so the underlying cause must be "wrong". It might be the inability to understand complexities within people other than oneself, particularly if those complexities challenge one's idea of the finiteness of complexity.

It might actually come from the desire to understand, and when faced with not being able to understand, one negates as a way to maintain sanity and self-concept. (My personal favorite: "Everyone else I know who does this..." as though similar[ly-appearing] behaviors necessarily stem from similar sources.)

Whatever the reason, it's really fucking getting on my nerves. Just stop it, all right? It's perfectly natural to have such thoughts, but if you're willing to validate them to yourself when forming your concept of me, at least have the decency to express humility and encourage dialogue by using "I" statements, rather than just telling me about myself as though you had some sort of authority. I'll try to watch myself, too. Social psychology-for-laypeople is all well and good, but if you don't have any concept of the fundamental attribution error, then it might behoove you to acknowledge and embrace your ignorance.

I've been thinking a lot my and my age group's position on the generational cusp. Thinking- I've been kind of obsessed. Lately I relate so much in my life to the exact years I grew up and in particular what pop culture I remember.

It started this summer, but the spark was planted when I entered Antioch over 3 years ago. I was talking to a fellow student, one day my senior, about how I was finding how little I could relate to the other 1st years, 3 years my junior. I said that maybe it was the just-out-of-high-school thing, but it seemed more that than- after all, I'd related to just-out-of-high-school kids at City Year for the past 2 years- they who were 1 and 2 years younger than me. This gap seemed to specifically be with people born in or after 1984.

The fellow student said that the generational shift occured in 1984, that kids born that year technically came from the generation after us. These '84 babies (strange irony of "1984" intended or not, I don't know, but it can hardly be ignored) were the children of '80s yuppies or faux-hippies, and grew up with the Internet much more than me (I got online in '95, when I was 14, and that was early for kids my age). She said that she felt that bridge with the '84 babies more than with other younger students herself. I always meant to look more into it but never did. I kind of got used to it, being the older one, when in most other places I was (and still am) the baby.

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"The whole time I daydream about a paradise planet where everyone lives forever, and their primary pursuit is falling in love with each other and then saying goodby and going away for a million years. They'd say the saddest, sweetest so-longs. In fact, saying goodbye would be this planet's most popular art form. Then a million years later, they'd meet up again and, you know, it'd be great, and people would spend a few thousand years just catching up."

- -Bill Brown, Dreamwhip #13

I could very well apply this to Ri Ra. Except only for a million years it's once again for a short visit every thousand or so years until a million years have passed...

Open Letter To The Guy I Occasionally Have Dreams About:

Hi, do you remember me? We had a class together once, a couple of years ago. I think we entered at the same time, too. We've never spoken much, very few words, mostly in groups, in fact never one-on-one, I don't think. In any case- for some reason I've had some dreams about you over the last few years, dreams that have, as some are wont to do, infected my every-day life for some reason.

The first one was when I- we- entered school here. It was random, I barely knew who you were then, no one knew anyone except their hallmates at that point. In the dream, you had a name that wasn't yours, and it took me a while to think of you being named your real name, and not what my dream monikered you. The unexplainable of the dream, the lingering feeling, was one of infatuation, which was weird because I didn't find you all that desirable. No offense- it's not that you're unattractive, you're just not my type, you know? Anyway, it took about as long to get your name right as it took this weird dream-crush to wear off. And then nothing for a while.

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For every thousand steps there's one. One who can make me lose count. One who makes me see I'm counting in the first place. I wanted to see how long it would take. But then it's gone and I must start over. One thousand. Stop. Two thousand. Stop. Three thousand. Stop. Until the thousands multiple thousands and then I lose count of them. And for every one I think, this is the last. I can stop counting after this. I pause in my steps, tentative, taking half-steps. Is this the one? That will let me stop counting? Can I come to rest?

*

Nobody ever talks about what happens to the losers- the punks, the nerds, the misfits- after high school. We didn't all sell out and become normal. We didn't all disappear into the fabric of society. Some of us manage to maintain an existence in a culture that at once demonizes and reveres us. We have become the exotic. The artist, the progressive, the visionary, even the hip. We all come from somewhere. Our trials and tribulations did not end after high school. We all have our stories.

Your entire life has been spent looking for a place to belong. Not normal enough but not weird enough- or rather not extrovertedly weird enough- you're doomed to limbo. Refusing to sign yourself over completely to any ideology, you've sealed your fate as a perpetual outsider among outsiders. You fumble through life, constantly searching for something you know you can never have, more for something to do than anything else, really. If you didn't do that you'd be so goddamn bored all the time. So you go through the pain and the heartache and the heartbreak for a few flecks of excitement. You willingly go through the contradictions that inevitably accompany a social life for people who are not meant to be social, until you feel like an oxymoronic moron. The pattern is the same: you try to learn from your mistakes, but most of the time you get stuck in a cycle, a single circle within the spiral.

and why shouldn’t people seek out like-minded comrades/soulmates/tribe members and communalize? if you can do it it’s a beautiful thing. and doing this on the basis not of the common oppression/privilege model, but rather the more positive, personal, and individual things that bring them together, and by choice. having that choice is a privilege, having that connection to a community is a privilege, but these privileges often transcend political boundaries, so why not embrace them? and make the most out of them and inspire social change by example- the most important method of all (as far as i’m concerned).

if this community is exploited, marginalized, or targeted by those in power or if it is used as an excuse for other, less genuine movements- well that’s not their fault, is it? for the most part they themselves are just trying to get by in a world that has foresaken them, in the best and most comfortable way, given options that others do not have, but sometimes choice itself is an overwhelming thing, as is comfort, a tool used against us in ways that the opposite was used in generations past.

there is nothing inherently wrong with comfort. like anything, it’s all in how it’s (ab)used. and what else can a disenchanted, disillusioned, empty, soulless, godless youth do when hope for any major social movement has been crushed and battered by the powerful who are just getting more and more powerful? hell, i myself am on the verge of giving it all up and living the rest of my life in apolitical peace. i’ll just have to get the part of my brain removed that has learned too much about the evil subversive ways of the dominant, dominating world.

*

i think i’m finally evening out. i no longer feel guilt and turmoil when consuming or doing anything and everything, knowing the implications and consequences of one are merely different, not better, than the other. i no longer get down on myself for not having the energy to single-handedly overthrow the government, or for taking the privilege of “me” time.

i’ve learned that there’s no way to do it without unwanted, unwilling hypocracy, guilt, and way more unhappiness and negativity than the positive change that may or may not come from it. it all boils down to and can be summed up by the idea what w.out the privilege of education, i could not attempt to rid anyone- not myself, not the world- of said privilege, but that will never change the fact that i will always have that privilege. however i got it- it’s there.

in san francisco i felt that i was at a crossroads- either stop school now and reject the privilege as much as possible, living life in accordance with that, or else give myself over to the middle class completely, using my education and privilege as a tool to better myself and work for the common good from a place the uneducated simply cannot. having that choice meant i didn’t have a choice, and i have now- whether i like it or not, b.c any other choice would be even more hypocritical and fucked-up- given myself over to the latter.

now i just have to learn to live with myself and remember, “compromise is the key to success!”

I think I figured out my Anthony Michael Hall obsession. It was baffling me. Usually the reasons for my many (and often fleeting) obsessions reveal themselves almost immediately- in fact, they often preceed the obsessions and influence them. Makes sense, doesn't it? That's why this whole Anthony Michael Hall thing has been so bizarre. I wasn't sure where it was coming from.

It started with incredulity. The famous "Dude. It's Anthony Michael Hall" I utter every time I see him on TV, all grown up. A short and forgotten phase when "Pirates Of Silicon Valley" came out, then again last year when I discovered "The Dead Zone" TV show. This year, I started watching "The Dead Zone", and have been annoying everyone unluckly enough to be around me: "Dude. Dude! It's Anthony Michael Hall. Anthony Michael Hall. Dude."

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My experience in the first week of theatre class was dominated by pain. My condition's been acting up like mad as I adjust to a new routine and being physical again.

Sometimes I can't imagine living without pain, but other times I am more hopeful, knowing I just have to wait, wade it out. But I am impatient.

But then, pain isn't necessarily bad, if you want to get all Zen about it. Sure, chronic soreness/pain/fatique/low-energy is pretty annoying and often inhibiting, but I'll tell you something: it keeps me in my body. Flare-ups in theatre classes are common, because the physical (and emotional) tax on my system is something I cannot ignore. It brings attention to my body, letting me overall deal with it better (even if, at the moment, I am miserable and crazy with pain). It also reminds me of the edges of limits, which I am so sure I'm aware of until I inadvertently leap over said edges.

*

I do not currently live in the Present, but rather in a disjointed fusion of Nostalgia, Yearning, Fantasy, and Passing Beauty. Yanking myself back seems unnatural. After a time, everything seems unnatural. I am out of balance with myself. I wish for the times when my life consisted of moments, not memories. (Or else I wish for the next stage of my life to hurry up and begin.) In this wishing I am constructing a life of memories. Can an existence of moments only happen in times of constants and newness and externally seeking beauty? If confined to my own internal self, am I doomed to a life of the Past? Is there no way to live freely from within? Completely from within? Has the advent of my temporary and occasional social self doomed my instinctive initial natural introversion to the status of mere tool to recharge? Is that necessarily a bad thing? My actions and choices seem to clash with this. But maybe that's because, it's still new. Sometimes I think I am growing in more ways than what's constructive.

I feel myself coming back... letting it happen... naturally. I like to let.

A moment of sparse beauty, one of several littered across an otherwise beige history. Taken out of context, its memory remains intact, untainted.

And that's what I did. To do anything else would have taken it away from me. Some things are better left alone, separated, isolated, floating and suspended just above our otherwise foggy heads, something to look toward to clear away. Some things are better left enjoyed than catalogued.

A memory, a single memory, makes a doorway.
A doorway down which two paths split.
And I. I took the road most rewarding.
Like an improv game: Isolate the beautiful and capitalize on it.

Because, that was that. That was it. I spend the remainder of my days searching out equatable bliss. Taking comfort in imitations, however poor, because imitations are all they are and imitations have become all I expect.

An Imitation You. An Imitation Moment. Trapped in Memory, I am free. When Living is oppressive, I become a faded image of that which once was and can never be again. I make it my life's mission to seek out all and anything that will trigger the integers of mortal space amongst the infinity of my mind. Isolate, and Capitalize. Memory, and Break free. Seek and Absorb. Drain. For all its worth. A point of pure mindlessness in which bliss is fleetingly reached. A calling back in time for a specific set of scenes of pictures that allows me most calm. I close my eyes and smile a smile of satisfactory something, all the while my body is just beyond my reach. I will dwell for eternity in the corridors of my brain, in hallways of memory, channeling aesthetic sensate perfection.

There's a theory I've been building in my head. The theory is that we grow and mature in three basic ways. Those ways are: as individuals (intro-self, if you will), as social beings (extro-self), and as individuals with a purpose in the greater cycle of world (our purpose, our fate, our "calling", what-have-you).

The past bunch of years I have been thinking a lot about the different ways in which we grow. I think that's because of the different perspective I have on it than most other people do (most people that I know of, anyway).

That's because of the way in which people usually seem to grow. I see the pattern generally as: forming a bit of their intro-self first, then their extro-self as they get tossed in with their peers in school and whatnot. Their extro-self continues to grow, as their existence from that point forward revolves around social interaction. During adolescence there's more of the intro-self growth, but since by this point most of their life and perspective is defined by all things social, they tend to view themselves in relation to others, as well. An intro-self that forms in relation to their extro-self and others' extro-selves.

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