3.26.07

i'm tired. i'm tired of thinking about what i should be doing as opposed to what i am doing; what i should be saying as opposed to what i want to say. i'm tired of speaking in order to cater to what i think others want to hear. most efforts i make to try to clarify things for the sake of preventing hurt towards others just backfire because my words are taken as a sign of manipulation. or that's what it feels like. i tend to try to clarify myself and then i tend to be misunderstood and then i tend to think, "screw this. if they don't understand me when i'm trying my best to be as expressive and clear as possible, then do they really understand anything else i do? i mean, how can they understand my intentions when i DON'T make an effort to be clear, if they don't understand my intentions when i do?" then sometimes i feel that i waste too much time worrying about being understood. and other times i don't want to be understood because i feel like others will sell me short in their percieved understanding of my intentions or actions or words.

for some reason i'm thinking right now about the highschool football games that i used to go to when i was in my freshman year of highschool. bright stadium lights and nervous glances and gossip and teenage drama, and getting dressed up for all of it. sometimes i feel like i could subscribe to any culture if i just decided to. which makes it difficult to put much stock in the culture that i do associate myself with; or at least my reasons for the associating. they seem legitimate, but the most legitimate reasons for associating with others might be applied with equal justification to any culture whatsoever, if the reasons are important reasons. that is, if the reasons center around social interaction and conversation and open-mindedness and curiosity. i guess i associate myself with those that i do because i crave creative inspiration and challenges and intrigue and artistic productivity. those football games were the first taste of a kind of youthful freedom that felt so nourishing and clean and fresh and new. now it's strange because having endless options feels a bit like the lack of an option itself. maybe it felt the way it did then because my options were very clearly defined and my role was very clearly specified.

i went from going to football games in the beginning of the year to playing electric guitar and going to rock concerts toward the end of the year. i miss the old local shows in nevada city. there was a different feeling to them. something relating to sincerity and urgency. i guess they felt more angsty but more in a way that was exciting and necessary. there was an air about them much like one might feel standing on the edge of a giant precipice, under a dark sky. a precipice the other side of which might have been too far away to focus the eyes upon. the air outside was usually cold. and the people i encountered incited some kind of awareness of potential in my mind: awareness of the potential in myself and the potential in life and in interactions. i crave that feeling and i miss that feeling. i want to feel like i'm standing on cliffs and running through the jungle and dodging bullets and building palaces. i don't feel like i have anything to run from that i won't end up running back to, and i don't feel like i have the tools for building, and those tools which i have might only be put to use in order to build something that coyly mocks my intentions with an over-the-top display of absurd gaudiness.