style and process

Hello again.

I have made my way to Chicago and I'm now sitting in Filter. I pick up my roommate in around 3 hours. I'll hang here for a bit, and then I think I might meet up with a friend of mine who lives in the city--it occurred to me as I was driving here that I might be able to see her, that this was just the kind of situation that would be perfect for seeing her, so I called her up. I also talked to another friend of mine on the drive for a little while--I hadn't spoken to her for longer than usual--and that conversation was great. If Ryan's reading this, he's wondering why I haven't called him yet, and he should know that I will. Probably tomorrow. While I've been talking about trying to make more of an effort to keep in touch with people, the effort really hasn't extended past email yet. But I'm working on it. The phone is the next move.

Here's something I like about certain neighborhoods in Chicago: there seems to be more individuality. More originality. People don't all look the same, as I feel they do on campus. I think there are a few basic looks among the students: blonde sorority girl, brunette sorority girl, frat guy, hipster, hippie, hip-hop, 'nerd'--I'm sure there's a few more, at least--and almost everyone revolves pretty closely around one of these categories. Chicago (at least in certain places) seems a little more diverse, in terms of look. I know those categories are stereotypes, but I think it's hard to deny that there are certain style-clusters that you can pick out. I think most people fit into one of these, and those who don't are either 'plain' (they don't have a discernible style) or truly original (they really don't look like anyone else--this is rare, I think).
I'm not going to say which cluster I gravitate towards, but those who know me can probably figure it out.

I'm not slamming people, of course. I think most people look like other people. This is just how it goes. But there seems to be more variety in Chicago. And more cases of originality. I say 'seems,' though, because I'm not sure if it's true. Because...well...looking around Filter, I think most of the people here are just variations on the hipster look, where you try hard to look different. Calculated cool. So maybe I just like it here because there's more people who look the way I like people to look--people whose style resonates with me somehow.

I certainly think there are more people I'm attracted to here, but that would make sense, wouldn't it, if I'm resonating with the style?

I was telling my friend, on the drive here, on the phone, about how I want a small group like the one we had. She knew what I meant, I think.

(I just talked to my friend--she is coming to meet me here! Why I don't see some of these people more often, I don't know.)

Anyway, I realize that it's not so much just a group I'm craving, but rather a loving community. I don't this actually requires a group--I think you can get it through a single person. And some of my relationships have been like this--there's been so much support, love, there for a time, that it's like having a loving community. I've also been thinking about how stable a loving community can be. I feel like, the times I've had these things, they haven't been able to persist for more than seven, eight months, for a number of reasons. But I'm wondering if these sorts of things tend to burn intensely and then out. There are stable loving communities, I think--families, in some cases?--but what keeps them stable? Maybe circumstances. Relationships tend to be unstable because of the exclusivity and possessiveness involved--you have to really like somebody to want them to be associated with you so closely--and friendships tend to be unstable because people's lives tend not to stay stable--people move, people's personalities change, etc.

I think there's another factor I need to take into consideration. I think that I may already have these loving communities around me, at least in individual form, and maybe it's just a matter of asking these people to do things that I want to do. If I really feel like going to the park, then I should just ask someone--and maybe they won't want to go, but then I can ask someone else--and if nobody wants to go, I go by myself. If I want to go to a Spring Training game, ask someone. If I want to take a walk around campus, ask someone. If I want to sit outside and have a beer. If I want to play catch, frisbee. If I want to go out dancing. If I want to watch a movie. If I want to go to Chicago for the day. If I want to go canoeing. You get the idea. And when people ask me to do things, I should decide whether I really want to do it.

This all sounds kind of obvious, doesn't it? But for some reason, it's not--I think that, for a long time, in many ways, I have focused my interests too much around the interests of others--or no, that's not even really true. I have always had my interests, but I've often let others' interests supersede them. I automatically do what others ask me to do just because I want to be around people. I don't ask people to do things that I want to do because I assume nobody will want to do them. Now, maybe they won't, but how would I know unless I asked? And if my friends don't want to do those things, then maybe I need to add on some friends who do.

This all ties into something bigger. A more fundamental project that I've been enacting recently. To drill down to the center of myself (all of this is metaphorical, and I need to come up with better ways to say what I mean and feel and experience) and be honest about what I really want. What I really want to work on, what I really want to do, what kind of people I really want to be around, what kind of friends I want to have, how I want to dress, how I want to teach, what kinds of groups I want to be involved with, and so forth. What kinds of things can I do that are who I am? I want my life to be less filled with self-consciousness--I simply want to act from my heart, my core, my soul, my spirit, my , to act in a way that expresses who I am, effortlessly. And I have felt this so much more recently. I'm not fully there--I'm not sure if every moment can be like this, and I don't think self-expression can totally drown out self-reflection--but I have felt much more myself lately. Like something is being expressed that hasn't been fully expressed in a while. I think this comes from, as I said, being honest with myself about what I want (or what I think I want), and then orienting my life in such a way to try the things I think I want, and then monitoring my experiences/emotions to see if those things I'm trying are in fact the things I want. And if they are, I continue to do them; if they're not, I reflect some more, try to get clearer about what I want. The corollary of this is becoming clear about what I do not want, and then orienting my life away from those things, and monitoring my experiences/emotions to see if I was right about not wanting those things.

Here's an example of what I mean. In some books I've been reading lately, opera is discussed, and I've thought to myself, maybe I'd like to go to an opera. Just yesterday, I got a catalog in the mail for the Lyric Opera's 07/08 season (in Chicago). Eight operas, most well known, lavish productions--a little expensive, but not out of the question. If you're going to check out an opera, this is probably as good a place to do it as any. So, I have something to try, I have a way to try it, so I think I'm going to. And maybe someone will want to go. Maybe not. Maybe I'd rather go by myself, since it's a test--but if somebody else wants to test it, they can come, too. AND then we'll see what I think. if I don't like it, then I know, well, maybe opera isn't my thing. But maybe I'll love it. And then I'll go again. And by "don't like it" and "love it," I really mean something like, "not find it fulfilling" and "find it fulfilling." This isn't just a matter of liking and disliking, but rather really wanting and really not wanting.

The most difficult part of all this, I think, is being honest with yourself. I had to work hard to disentangle what I wanted from what others wanted. And if you do this and realize that your life isn't set up for you to pursue what you think you want, then it can be difficult to re-orient your life around those things, because it means sacrificing certain things (some of which have become habitual) and trying other things that you haven't tried before. But I think if you have a guarantee that your basic needs will be met--if you know you have a place to live, things to eat and drink, and love (people who will support you through your honesty and possible re-orientation--or maybe you're strong enough for this love to come from within)--then you can do it. And I think life will be more fulfilling than you might've thought possible.

I need to try to write some articles about this, try to write some essays about this, that I can run by people for critique. This isn't just blogging for me--I'm really trying to develop something philosophical, psychological, sociological, spiritual here. If I ever write anything more formal, or more clearly argued, I'll let you know.

loving community

Although I have been happy lately, overall, I tend to lose a bit of it on the weekends. Also, I tend to wake up in the morning, every day, with a small sinking feeling in my stomach--I'm not sure if it's disappointment or worry or sadness or something else entirely. The sinking usually goes away as I get out of bed and get on with my day, but it's back the next morning.

I think the problem with the weekends is that there isn't any structure--the days are too wide open, and I'm left not really knowing what to do. What I need to do, I think, is make some plans for the weekend. Give them some structure. Saturday I'll go to the park, Sunday I'll drive to Springfield, next weekend I'll go to Madison, the weekend after I'll go to St. Louis. The point is to give myself something to do on the weekends that I really enjoy, instead of just letting myself drift through them.

As for the sinking feeling in the morning, I'm not sure where this comes from, so I'm not sure what to do about it. I think it might be tied in to a feeling of loneliness. But it's not loneliness in the sense that I don't have any friends, because I do. I have wonderful friends, both here and all over the country. It's probably a combination of two things: first, I wish I had a girlfriend. I wish I was in a relationship. Second, I wish I had a small group of friends that I could hang out with regularly and do things that I like to do. I've got individual friends like this, but not really a group. Socially, I've been happiest when I've had a group like that--and I think if I did have a group like that, the relationship issue wouldn't be a big deal. Because what it boils down to is this: I want to feel loved. When I feel loved, actively, consistently, then my whole life seems brighter.

Now this isn't to say that I don't have loving friends, because I do. But I want to be surrounded by love. And this is the thing about a small group--it makes you part of a loving community. But I think that kind of love is just as hard to find as relationship love, and you just have to hope it happens.

Anyway, I actually consider these to be fairly minor things, because for the most part I'm happy with my life and my friends and my work. And now I'm off to Chicago for the day.

aphorisms, sort of

03.05.07 12:15 pm

(I wrote this in the journal I'm keeping on my computer, but then I decided to post it. It's not entirely coherent and it might not all make sense, but maybe you'll find it interesting.)

I wish I could capture how college kids actually talk. It'd be interesting to write a short story, or an essay, or a one-act, just trying to convey to people how Midwestern college kids live. I think if you could present their lives to people (even to the kids themselves), make them see these lives from an outside perspective, they might see them more clearly. But, if you criticize someone's way of life without offering them an alternative--a higher alternative--then you haven't helped at all.

What are all these people really talking about? Are these people really going to grow up to be the adults in the next 10-20 years? What are these people going to do? How many of them will just slide into mediocrity, never having actually considered anything else? I would like everyone's lives to be extraordinary--but maybe some people already think their lives are, when I see them as horribly ordinary--so how do you resolve this? My view, really, is that I want people's lives to be extraordinary in a certain kind of way. Not a terribly specific way, but in a way oriented towards so-called higher values. I think this would lead to a better culture, and a more rewarding life for so many people. But you have to make people really believe in these higher possibilities--and I think that's the difficulty. Most people don't really think there are higher possibilities. There's no religion, there's no supernatural, and with these losses (which are probably accurate) came a loss of transcendence, a loss of meaning. People can still be part of something transcendent, but not in the way that religion would recommend (for many people, religion just isn't an option). But people don't think about this. And I think when people do consider the transcendent, it seems ridiculous. It seems hippie, new-age. Unrealistic. A joke. So how do we open up possibilities of higher fulfillment to people? What are the sources? How do we open people up to deep joy when they don't really know what deep joy is? (And how do I keep these sources open in myself?)

"So intelligent, so funny, so well-read, so nice--just a great guy. Talking about how we're going to go on vacation together." Overheard in Starbucks. People do and say the same shit all the damn time. We have these formulas for love, these formulas for attraction, and we just play them out, and we think they're so unique, so great, so deep, so meaningful; but it's a script. How do we take ourselves seriously? I'm not exempt from this--I've played out scripts. I'm great at it. I would love to be able to play out certain scripts in my life--I say I want to be in love, but what does that mean? It means I want to enact that script in my life. I want that ideal to play out. But that is not necessarily real love. It is keeping ourselves busy. Maybe we have to do this, maybe it adds richness to our lives. But I think it keeps us fixated on lower values, makes it even harder for us to realize higher values--to realize they exist, and to realize them in our lives. Real love, real friendship--or the best kinds, anyway--pull us higher. They move us.

I have been trying to listen to myself a little more closely lately. To monitor my actions. To see what exactly I'm doing, to hear what I'm saying. And I hear myself, see myself, being cliched. Even the things that seem original are often just cliched. I think very few people are truly original; I think many people who think they're original are actually playing out a script that signifies originality. But if there's a script for it, it's not original.

In watching myself more closely, I find myself saying things that don't mean anything. Talking just to be talking. Doing just to be doing. What the hell is the point of this? Maybe it brings me a kind of comfort, but I don't just want to be comfortable. I want to be engaged with life.

I think I'm sort of an elitist about experience. I think experience should be extraordinary, should be meaningful. At the same time, I recognize that it can't be all the time. If I have a few bursts of exuberance each day, I'm pretty satisfied. My worry is that some people rarely (or never) feel this exuberance, this infusion of spirit. And, yes, I think people should aim to feel this. They should want to live lives of exuberance and inspiration. Many people are in situations where they can't (because of lack of food, water, basic needs), and I understand that, and I think that's a huge problem. But lives of exuberance, cultures of exuberance, a WORLD of exuberance, should be our goal. We can do this, we can have this, if we work together, if we keep the goal in mind, if we continue to believe that it can actually happen, and we talk about how exactly we can make it happen. I think if we worked on this, many of the other things we worry about would be resolved--we would find ourselves in meaningful relationships with our "co-workers," we would find ourselves engaged in meaningful work (towards a more exuberant world), we would (in short) be happier.

I don't want to say that most people are pissing away their lives, and I don't think that most people are, but I do want to say that most people could be living more fulfilling lives. A cynic might say that everyone is pissing away his or her life--it's just a matter of choosing how you want to do it. But I think that's a horrible way to think, though it's hard to say it's invalid or incorrect. I just don't think it's conducive to a good life.

These are all ideas I need to develop more. I'm hoping spend more time in the next few months (and beyond) just writing in the hopes that I'll clarify my own thinking and that something worth reading might appear. My life, it seems, will be about exploring ways of human fulfillment, and it's time to start working on that question in earnest (just as soon as this grading is done, just as soon as my incompletes are done, just as soon as...).

heartbreak

I just had a fleeting encounter with beauty, just a few minutes ago. I was sitting on the futon in my apartment, responding to emails, trying to get caught up with correspondence, with my iPod playing the "Study Music" playlist I made a while ago. It's music that's either instrumental or soft--good background music for studying, I figure. I'd already been feeling a little bit nostalgic tonight, and then a song by Jose Gonzales started to play--I think it's called "Broken Arrow."

And instantly my heart broke.

I'm not sure if this happens to everyone, but certain songs have a way of just breaking me. The feeling is like one of nostalgia for love lost. A slight pain at remembering the good times, a deeper pain at knowing that things will never be the same, that you've lost something forever. It makes me want to be in love again, to find the right person, and go away with her to a place where nothing can drag us down and the days are filled with an exuberance that makes every moment feel truly lived. This sounds like fantasyland, I suppose, but I think it's possible, if you're willing to abandon society.

I described all of this as an encounter with beauty, which might seem odd, since I then said it felt as if I was heartbroken. But I think there's much beauty to be found in deep feeling. The kind of feeling that springs up from some source over which you have little control--it seems to come from somewhere deep inside of you. This, I think, is passion. It can express in many different forms, but passions launch from deep within and then take you over, moving you, driving you, calling you.

I sometimes feel as if I am on a bridge, with my beautiful youth on one side and my pragmatic adulthood on the other. I think I stepped on the bridge when I left Tampa and I wonder if the crossing will be complete when I leave Illinois. I hope not. I hope I can fold the bridge back in on itself--end up where I began, though changed somewhat from the crossing. I never want to lose the ability to feel passion--in fact, I want to cultivate it. I hope to have a beautiful, extraordinary life--at least I hope to have a life that seems beautiful and extraordinary to me. I want to feel truly alive.

I have had flashes of this feeling over the past couple of months, and it's getting more frequent. I've felt real exuberance, and though it doesn't persist--various things seem to cause it to fade--I think I'm expanding its presence in my life, with help from others. I want to be surrounded by people who also feel this way...I don't want to be too busy for the things that bring me joy...I don't want to waste too much time on the things that drag me down...

I'm not sure if this is delusional. If it sounds ridiculous. But I know it's the only way I can live.