4.29.07

it's undeniable as of now: i cannot predict my emotions any more than i can predict the rain.

jarvis cocker was incredible. probably the best show i've seen in over a year. i'd forgotten what it was like to go to a show where i didn't feel obligated to pretend to be enjoying myself, and where i didn't feel obligated to pretend i wanted to move my head and body around (most of the obligation comes from ticket costs, i would assume). instead, i moved around without willing myself to do so, and i couldn't will myself to stop. furthermore, i was singing along to his songs and screaming and grinning and laughing and clapping so hard that my hands stung. i ran into a bunch of nevada city people there, which was really nice. drank a few and hugged a few and lurked a few and couldn't stop talking about how sexy jarvis cocker was.

after the show, i ran into dana and some other davis people at delirium in the mission. then i hung out with a new friend and got very little sleep and woke up far too early. took the bus to haight, and visited with jamey in the store where she works. it was really nice to see her. took a bus to lower haight and met up with dana and jud, and then took a four-hour nap on dana's bed before getting a ride home to davis with gena.

i still love concerts; i still love big cities. i still love the thrill of getting to know new people. and i still love staying up late and singing along to pop songs in crowded venues and then getting on buses with very little idea as to where i am headed. take that as a profound metaphor if you wish. it would probably be fitting.

4.25.07

the door to my room doesn't lock tonight. literally and subsequently figuratively. because my room is tactually less secure, perhaps i feel less secure? secure is not the word. confined is more like it. i feel less confined into my own space. the dead-bolt just will not budge when i attempt to turn it. do i feel more connected to the world outside? to "nature", as we call it? to the "wilderness" or "the wild" or "the great outdoors"? i don't know. i'd like to feel connected to "the great indoors", i.e. a mindblowing and earth-shattering mansion of epic proportions and dimensions; hence "great". not really at all (in fact i think i'd prefer some understated piece of shit cabin with no running water). but even so. it's strange how a simple thing such as a lock can make me feel so much more secure in my own room. what am i afraid of? a drunk bro wandering into my room so he has a warm place to puke? don't judge me. it's a frightening thought after all.

maybe the great outdoors - or "the wild" - is less wild and unpredictable than the human mind itself. maybe our labeling of nature as such is more a projection of our own chaotic ways of perception than it is an accurate observation.

i like mulling over the importance of not thinking about things in finite and clear-cut terms. things are ephemeral, things are prone to change, and things have a habit of disappearing or changing or shifting or falling out of range or losing their appeal. i think it's only in realizing my reasons for disconnecting from things or people that i have more forgiveness or compassion for those who have been known to, do, or will in the future disconnect from me. loss is a part of life, and i don't know that it's something we should necessarily feel we have to grieve. maybe people tend to do what is best for them. and it's certain that no one knows what is best for them. but we find out by trying to know.

i'd kind of like to check in with my past self and just say, "hey. you're doing fine. i am you. you are me. someday soon, before you know it, what i am is what you'll be." not to reassure myself or give myself something to look forward to (because i don't think it's really fair to say i'm much better off in any way than i have been in the past, since it's all so relative), but more just to connect the dots in my life; to make it feel more linear. maybe it's because the human thought process is so circular and disconnected that i say this, but life feels anything but linear most of the time. there's no direct cause and effect. every event and the reactions to every event occur due to so many factors that it's almost impossible to pin down direct results of things. also, so many of the factors on which events or outcomes are based are intuitive or sensory in nature, and therefore almost impossible to cognize in any kind of clear-cut or certain fashion. this notion is both comforting (in that it makes me relenquish a bit of my need for control over my own life an makes me feel perhaps things make sense in a way that i shouldn't feel i need to understand) and terrifying (in that it makes me lose faith in my own ability to make decisions about things). perhaps the best conclusion is that no decisions should be final, and that there is no right and wrong: at least not that can be seen or understood until long after, if then.

4.24.07

waking up and feeling better about something, or realizing you have made peace with something, is the emotional equivalent of phase change.

4.24.07

one of the most charming things about living itself is getting to watch your own story unfold. similarly charming is watching the stories of others unfold. sometimes i feel like we're all so connected that it's absurd. songs can feel like family. books can feel like your own internal dialogue speaking right back to you. strangers can feel like friends. friends can suddenly feel like strangers. and you can strangely befriend someone whom you never thought you would. it's weird that connections can exist with people even when you don't know them well, or even when you haven't seen them in a while, or even if you've never talked to them before. it's weird, too, that hugging someone who is almost a perfect stranger can be just as nice as hugging someone whom you've known since you were born. it's strange when a hug from your mother suddenly feels foreign, but a hug from someone you've just met feels like home. really, i think there should be a lot more hugging in this world, mostly between strangers.

i saw michael hurley play tonight. he made me grin for a full 2 hours. i gave him a hug before his show, delivered from a friend, and then after his show i gave him another hug and told him it was from me. i don't know why, but i just enjoyed his set so much that i wanted to give him a hug. the more i play music, the more i love it that other people in this world play music. i hope that i still want to write songs when i'm his age.

i had a conversation on the phone with a friend about the possibilities of using a small pony as means of percussion. he suggested a rainbow backdrop and a unicorn horn on its head. i suggested that the pony be attached to the guitarist's waist, so the guitarist can pull the pony at varying speeds to speed up or slow down the pace of the percussive clomps of pony-feet. the same could be done with human feet, if the guitarist mic'd his shoes and walked around the stage purposefully and to the rhythm of his song.

4.22.07

jeff buckley drowned while listening to "whole lotta love" by led zeppelin.

4.22.07

i remember the feeling of absolute security... curling up next to a woodstove under a fleece blanket with a cat or two, watching movies with my dad and brother, or watching nova, or watching masterpiece theatre. sometimes my dad would sit me down on the couch and hand me a set of headphones and make me listen to a specific song: sometimes opera; sometimes zeppelin or the who or bruce springsteen. the way my dad listens to music makes sense to me. it's so strange that music can have such an effect on some people and seemingly no effect on others. or is it just that some are more aware of music's effect on them than others? it seems impossible to be completely immune to its magic.

some days, there's a sadness surrounding me that rolls like the hills, and other days the hills seem necessary and only temporary, not threatening and just matter-of-fact. on days like today, waking up, walking and getting coffee, and coming home to a familiar and comfortable clutter is almost as good as curling up with some cats next to a woodstove.

sometimes i get the impression that the self knows what is best for it.

i used to read books about people living alone in the woods in cabins, or people living simple lives in the wilderness with a few close friend or family members. one of my favorite books as a kid was "where the red fern grows": lessons of life and death, the grey area between right and wrong, and the cost of attachment at a young age. i'd like to reread some of the books that i read frequently as a kid so as to remind myself of where some of my most basic ideas about morality and life might have stemmed from. although i doubt the sources will be easy, in the least, to pin down.

later, i read biographies about artists who escaped cities or towns or family situations in order to find a secluded life. it's fascinating that the life around peers can be so difficult to withdraw from that the individual has to leave the location entirely in order to get away from its pull. it makes sense to me, though. when one person has work to do, and reaches a point of frustration with it, social distraction is but a phone call away. i'd like to socialize still, but in ways that are more gratifying and inspiring: over coffee, or over dinner, or while being mutually productive or creative; while studying, while writing, or while trading books or movies or thoughts or support or ideas. i'm tired of parties. if i want to go to a party, i might as well go back to nevada city for a weekend and get my dance on. if i'm not inclined to do so, then i obviously don't have much of a desire to go to parties, and thus i shouldn't be going to them here. not when i have work that i want to do, anyhow; and not when i have so much free time that can be wisely used.

people spend so many hours planning and plotting. they seem to plot things as if they never expect the future to actually happen. perhaps people should adopt a "one day left to live" kind of mindset: not with friends, because the reminders of love and gratitude would get annoying if reoccuring daily, but with one's work. we're young, and yes, youth is about finding the self and having fun, but a big part of finding the self is time spent alone, and a big part of having fun, long-term, is building a meaningful life for the self. i don't think i'm out of line in saying that learning how to be attractive to the opposite sex, or learning how to party, is not exactly the key to a meaningful life.

i was talking to somebody about artists and fashion. he was telling me about why artists wear all black: as he sees it, they don't want to have to apply creative thought to anything other than their art; not even what they are wearing. it's, to them, a waste of energy and brain space. or that was, supposedly, the original philosophy behind traditional artists' garb.

i was on BART the other day, and i got to thinking about imagery of newspapers. i saw a black man sitting in an aisle across from me, well-dressed, reading a newspaper. on my walk to the BART stations minutes earlier, i had passed another man, also black, sleeping beneath newspapers on the sidewalk: not an uncommon sight in the city. it struck me as extremely interesting that a symbol of intellectualism, society, culture, education, progress, and politics might make itself visible in such contrasting ways. the same thing that allows someone to be aware of the current events of his world allows someone else to get some sleep despite the cold, and get a moment of peace and escape from the oppression of such events.

4.21.07

i told my mother today over the phone that i'd read some love letters sent by my grandpa to my grandma when he (my grandfather) was in the war in the 1940's. she sounded as though she was smiling, over the phone, and asked me what they'd said. all i could tell her was that they'd bummed me out, because they echoed the kinds of things i was feeling, and they seemed to legitimize my feelings. here was a man who loved my grandmother the most out of everyone he met during his life. he knew it when he was not much older than i am now. so it makes me feel that, perhaps, what i am feeling is not a fluke. this doesn't necessarily help.

i once told jesse that trying to stop loving someone is like trying to destroy something beautiful that you've created. love, though, is something created with the aid of someone else, even if that just means their presence. because of this, it is something that is difficult to destroy. it's as if love is created by two individuals, each of them tying endless knots with endless pieces of string. you can untie the knots that you made, but you can't untie theirs, because you don't know the kinds of knots they used and you can't find the ends to the strings. or maybe you just don't want to.

they say that if you love someone, you should set them free. and observation tells me that if you don't love someone, you WILL set them free (in a less kind way, perhaps). where do i stand? i stand somewhere undefined, heartless, with only my own hands and my own mind with which to interact. when you never have someone, maybe you can't really lose them. does that mean that some of us choose never to be with those that we most fear losing? perhaps so. but loving someone and never being with them is, i think, a greater loss.

4.19.07

when in love, it is hard to push out of the mind any notion of a mystical world with cosmic or previously-fated elements to it. in fact, love itself seems, to the individual experiencing it, evidence enough of the presence of such things in the world as fate and destiny and alignment; even of the "rightness" of something. love, often so brutally imperfect, is still somehow the standard for perfection to which we hold everything that is subsequently encountered. why is that which we put most care into not that which is most good for us, or the safest bet, or the most comfortable route? in many cases, love itself is horrible for us, sometimes even to a degree which will destroy careers or sleep habits or mental health or physical health. love drives men to drink and it drives women to shop and go on diets. furthermore, if fate were to exist, it would seem even more strange that the subject of someone's love might be someone so horrible for them in so many ways. wouldn't fate function by way of convenience and simplicity and an intent to maximize the happiness of all? obviously it does not, if it exists, and yet the sanctity and absolute gloriousness of fate's most agonizing concoction seems nothing short of its magnum opus in the eyes of the lucky soul selected to experience such agony. it is not chosen; yet once it is experienced, the individual might realize that it is, in fact, what he would choose, were he to have a choice in the matter.

perhaps the individual's motivations are selfish after all. consider this: what if the individual's ultimate goal, sometimes consciously but more often subconsciously, is to be the best person he it can be? paying our solemn respects to the more believable theories encompassed by darwinism might make this seem a more viable possibility. assuming, for the sake of argument, that this is the case: love can serve as a motivator for the act of self-betterment. this would also explain why fate (if he exists at all) does not allow us to fall in love with someone that would be easy to obtain, assuming that fate and darwinism (both of them only gentlemen in our cast at the moment for the sake of speculation and contemplation, and not as a result of evidence or application of faith or belief) both have the betterment of the self as their respective ends, and assuming that fate and darwinism are not combatting forces (which is a scary thought and might lead us to believe that the least able and the least astute might be the most likely to triumph: a suggestion which is depressing to say the least, but a hypothesis for which our modern-day culture would easily provide ample evidence). further championing the notions of fate and also of the more-acceptable aspects of darwinism, we might say this: fate instigates our falling in love with the most difficult and unattainable of individuals, that we might struggle more and, as a result of our struggle, be better human beings. furthermore, fate does not introduce us with situations that SEEM hopeless, so as to not deflate our respective wills to become better human beings. it seems, then, that the ideal candidate for a subject-of-love is that person which causes us the most strife, whom we want the most, whom we are most-easily tricked into thinking we can obtain (with a little work and self-improvement), and whom we are least likely to actually end up with or recieve peace-of-mind from.

this seems a quite believable and quite terrifying possibiltiy. in fact, i would tie love and the prospect of total atomic destruction at the top of the list of things that are most inevitable and, at the same time, most tragic. perhaps love and atomic explosions are, too, of equal force.

4.14.07

One of the most commonly cited criterion for personal identity is memory. If the individual remembers doing something (let's call it task B), it is most likely that he is the same person as the individual who performed the remembered activity or task (task B). Furthermore, if the person who did the remembered task (task B) remembers something PRIOR to that task at the time during which the task is performed (let's call this prior task "task A"), it is most likely that the prior event (task A) was also experienced by the same person, and therefore all three events (task A, task B, and present-time existence, which might be called "task C") happened to the same person.

Having dinner with my family tonight, and getting to know uncles for the Nth time whom I have gotten to know many times in the past, I thought about this notion, for I felt almost like an entirely different person interacting with them, and I interacted with them almost as I would with total strangers, just because of the amount of time that has passed since my last encounters with them, and because of the amount of mental and emotional growth that I have undergone in the time that has since passed. There is something that is not unfamiliar, though, about interacting with them. It is something that has nothing to do with memories of past discussions or meetings, and additionally nothing to do with any knowledge that I might have about the person (or lack thereof). It is more of an intuitive thing, probably much like the memory a child has of its mother for the duration of its life, even if it doesn't see its mother for an extended period of time. It's almost a comfortability. Perhaps it's the result of some kind of ESSENCE that my family members share: something that might be attributed to genes or shared memories or "nurture" of a like ilk. Or perhaps it is due to certain forms of unconscious/ subconscious emotional memories that I might have regarding my respective uncles, of which I am consciously unaware. Whatever it is, I felt this evening that I was a stranger for every concrete reason (that is, I wasn't up-to-date on news about their lives, etc.); but something of a more constant nature persisted beneath that, which made interacting with my uncles nothing short of comfortable, and nothing shy of familiar. It's this thing, this bond that I can't really explain, which makes interactions with family members different than interactions with peers or friends or acquaintances.

The word "criterion" comes from the Greek word "kritereon", which is linked to the word "krites", which means "to judge". To go off on a complete tangent, allow me to note that it interests me that one of my favorite slang terms from my home town, "critter", or "crit" ("crits", in the plural form, used to describe an individual of a sketchy nature who is up to some kind of most-likely worthless pursuit, sometimes used in reference to someone who is sketchy in an almost endearing manner), is close to this word, both phonetically-speaking, and also in its spelling; and the word is only used to describe someone upon whom the speaker is shamelessly passing some kind of judgment. So the very term with which the judged are described is very close to another word that actually MEANS "judgment" itself. It seems oddly appropriate.

4.13.07

i hate the smell of alcohol when it lingers on people.

most of the time, i still want to pull the collar up from my coat over my ears and pretend i'm not home. i hear sounds in the kitchen and expect that they are the clatter of a brooding individual with horrible things to say and with will to harm. in reality, they are the sounds it takes to make lunch or pull something out of the refrigerator. i want silence before i've had my coffee in the mornings.

dreaming is a private activity and not just anyone has the right to be around for it. either i'll sleep alone, or i'll stop dreaming; and i'm not about to stop dreaming.

4.12.07

It's said that being an artist is about working on your craft every day. If you're a pianist, play piano every day, even if you're uninspired; even if all that comes out are scales or even if you play the same sonata a hundred times. If you're a guitarist, play guitar every day, even if all you can muster is some tired and worn-out Neil Young cover that you've known the chords for since you were fifteen. If you're a writer, write something every day, even if it's a laundry list, or a to-do list, or a functionless anecdote that, when proofread, might make you lose any faith you ever had in the suggestion that your life is interesting. If you're a painter, throw some colors around, even if the end result is something you throw in the nearest dumpster. And then there's this: If you're a pianist, and a guitarist, and a writer, and a painter, all at once, your life is going to be busy.

And then, they say, you must get enough sleep. You must educate yourself. You must make time for friends. You must fall in love.

What they don't mention, is that sometimes you don't really have a choice about any of it. If you're truly a musician, you will have to play music. It becomes a primal need. If you're truly a writer, there will be words floating around your head that you cannot bear to let brew there without pulling out your typewriter. If you're truly a painter, you will see things each day that make you want to drop another $50 on new tubes of acrylics, and you won't be able to go to an art gallery without getting serious artist-envy and needing to go home and see whether you still have any talent or not. If you're a guitarist, any local show will remind you of the fact that you've forgotten what some chord is, or the fact that you're finger-picking is slow, or the fact that you have to watch the strings while playing. If you care about your craft, and if it's important to you, it's not so because of any conscious choice you made. It just IS. And if you neglect your guitar for too long, maybe you're not a guitarist.

Furthermore, if you have a hungry mind, a social drive, and a romantic disposition, you don't really have much of a choice regarding the other things either. You will seek knowledge and stimulus in whatever ways you can; school being one of the most straightforward ways. You will be drawn towards people naturally, because your mind needs fodder and because they provide it, or because they provide hope for fodder. You might be more social if you are seeking those individuals who most inspire your mind, because it takes a lot of socializing to find such people. And you will probably fall in love whether you want to or not, so that's really not even something worth debating about. Lastly, unless you have inhuman abilities of which all of us should be envious, you will need to sleep.

Sometimes I worry about these things - all of these things - but then I remember that these are things I will do whether I choose to or not: Perhaps to different degrees as I realize how I want to prioritize my life, but never will I abandon any one of them completely. I cannot drop those things which I consider most second-nature and most essential to the art of being a human being.

4.1.07

i believe that the individual should not live in a way that makes him feel he is fighting any kind of natural influence. that is, i think that one should not struggle upward if the act of struggling is not something desired, and if the thing struggled toward is not desirable. one should not do something that he cannot find it in himself to care about, because presumably there will be another option that he might care about. one should not hesitate to go after something that seems any degree of impossible if he can find it in himself to care about that thing enough to make it less impossible. something that seems difficult, yet to which the individual is willing to apply significant amounts of care, could actually render itself less difficult (all things taken into account) than something that seems easy but to which that individual cannot bring himself apply any amount of care at all. i've tried to give myself the sole role of influence in my own life, again and again, and always the baton of power is taken from my hands and i am left powerless. sometimes i wonder if i should stop fighting it. the things that occur which have nothing to do with my intent tend to be of great interest and seem to be pretty exciting. furthermore, the way i eventually feel about things has little to do with logic or with what i actually think that i want. yet, in the end, how i feel about something is all that really matters with regard to what i want, because i cannot commit myself in any real way to something that i do not care about, and thus shaping one's actions around those things which he cares about seems not only most gratifying in the end, but also most efficient and less of a waste of time.