scattershot

Made it to Chicago, now in the coffeeshop. Four hours ago, I was sitting in the Tampa airport. Oh, modern transportation, thank you.

This place is a trip. There's "art" all over the walls--one is a speech bubble that says, "Really now, how long can you tolerate the same genetalia?" Isn't it genitalia? And somebody just yelled out, "Jeff!" in that, hey, I'm here, you missed me, kind of way. He wasn't calling for me.

I feel like I'm coming apart, but I think is just because I'm sick and a bit dazed from being in three different places in the past six days. How about some stability? No, next weekend I'm leaving again and then two weeks later I'm driving back to Florida.

In case I've forgotten how unoriginal I am, there's a guy sitting over by the window wearing the same red track jacket that I got from American Apparel maybe a month or so ago. Cool is calculated. And that really isn't cool at all.

What are the universal human concerns, the universal human emotions?

I wonder if sometimes philosophers who prescribe ideal forms of life are only trying to justify the fact that they're so different, and probably lonely. Like: hey, I may be lonely, but at least I'm living life better than those idiots.

I have a great difficulty feeling moved by anything. I don't think I have many genuine emotions. What does this mean, what does this mean: of course I have emotions. But I feel like I'm playing at them. Like I rarely feel anything that comes from my core. I saw a friend last night, an old friend, who I've known for a few years, and she seemed genuinely delighted to see me. She actually ran up to me, smiling, hugging...and I was touched. I was of course happy to see her but I was also wondering when was the last time I was that delighted to see somebody? I mean really just thrilled?

I think overanalyzing emotions deadens them. Or maybe it's better to say that it distances someone from his emotions. You can't take them seriously anymore. They become the result of social conditions, or biological conditions, and you don't own them anymore. They don't--they can't--come from your heart, because you don't believe in such things anyway. Heart? Soul? What?

I wonder if it's possible to live a fulfilled life if you don't believe in something Higher than you, whether a Being, a Cause, a Purpose, an End. Maybe even if nothing is truly Highest, we all have to believe in something Higher. If we're going to be deeply happy, anyway.

Have you read Franney and Zooey? Oh, you should. A friend gave it to me, actually saying she'd thought I'd like it--does somebody really know me well enough to recommend something to me that I'd actually like? Apparently, yes, because I did like it. Franney discovers spirituality, it makes everything seem like bullshit, and she is sent home from college, distraught. Her brother, Zooey, talks with her about this, at first pushing that even the spirituality is bullshit, but then helping her to see that everyone's divine, really. There's more to it than this, and I should read it again, but the characters think and talk about a lot of the same things that have been on my mind for years, and this was written 50 years ago, you know...

...and I think that there are no answers, but you just have to choose a path with conviction. However, I think we live at a time where true conviction is hard to hold without a bit of delusion, because you know that you're just choosing it, but you have to delude yourself into thinking that you're not, so that it doesn't seem so arbitrary. But I would think that there are practical convictions we could all agree on, that don't rely on spiritual truths or grand visions of the world: people should have a chance to live fulfilling lives, and we should try to provide the conditions to make that possible, which means (fundamentally) that basic needs be met and (secondarily) that institutions be established (or modified) to cultivate fulfillment rather than obstruct its attainment. Simple as that. We disagree, of course, on what fulfillment means (I think this is the real problem), but are there conditions we can set up that would give everyone a chance to figure out what it means for themselves? I bet we could, but I also bet that to do this would require sweeping social change, and I am afraid that this kind of change is not possible anymore.

Remember when we crossed the campus
And you said it was too cold
But I insisted we keep walking
At least to that building
And you did
Well I have nearly forgotten