Season's Cheer

Today was a depressing day not because of what occurred in the classroom, but rather because of the events outside of it. Trust me, there have already been many depressing day inside the classroom.

Simply put, I've been unceremoniously dumped from the newspaper. And I've had enough of it. I'm not coming back to it. It's not worth it, spending all that time desperately trying to repair bonds that have long since been shattered. Repairing those bonds doesn't even guarantee that I would be editor anyway.

I love to write, but I hate the bullshit bureaucracy that abounds in the world. I've lived it first hand. Yes, I know I don't devote an exorbitant amount of time towards the newspaper. I don't have that kind of time. Look at the number of activities I'm engaged in: three sports, quizbowl, chorus, etc. Yes the newspaper is important, but simply because I have so many other activities, it can't be number one. And even if I didn't have the activities it wouldn't be number one. I lied earlier this year about that and it seems more absurd every time I play it over in my head.

I'm tired of spending my valuable time editing articles only to have some half-wits who I never even see take the title that is rightfully mine. I'm tired of people constantly asking me for updates and then forgetting what I've told them in five minutes. I'm tired of having to be at someone's beck and call. I'm tired of sucking up to a bullshit senior who suddenly decides to arbitrarily flex her power because she didn't get in to Yale. And I'm tired of a puppet adviser who merely acquiesces to what this person says. I don't care if this affects what college I go to (it probably won't). This is a matter of principle: I will never work under someone who is unfair and biased, someone who inflates their ego, someone who attempts to push me around. Sounds like a large majority of people in this world. If my work won't be appreciated here then I will go elsewhere to fulfill it where I am certain if my employers are more reasonable and fair, they will receive my best efforts.

Second order of business: my lost wallet. I don't even know what to say about this except it's incredibly disconcerting to continue losing things. Maybe someday I will learn how to keep hold of my things. Maybe.

Why I worry so much about these things is beyond me. The world is full of shitty people and Piingry is no exception. They can pretend to be giants and people of importance at this school, but time will reveal all. I am certain there will come a day when justice is served: when these people will meet their match or fail. And then they will see what wretches they were and currently are and desperately try to make amends for all their stupidities and harm they have caused. But it will be too late. What's done is done.

What I Want

[This was written a week ago]

As we sat and drove tonight and I looked out at all the suburbs flashing by, all the shopping centers, and gated townhouses and endless tail lights, I realized something: I could never live in a place like that. I will never live in the cultural and intellectual monotony (even oppression) that is the suburbs. The uniformity depresses me: every house exactly the same, every shopping center housing exactly the same stores under different names, the same small-sized sedans driven by anonymous faces.
I’ve said this many times, but never before, after visiting my aunt and uncle earlier today, has it been this clear: I want to be different. I saw the life they lived, how happy they were about their small townhouse, and the mall down the street and all the other townhouses surrounding them. It made me sick. Under the superficial surface, there was a frightening lack of substance: where were the books in their house? Where was the library in the exurban town? Nowhere to be found, I am afraid.
I saw two facets of silent desperation this weekend: four people slipping forever into oblivion. Two old, two young. Four lives wasted. For the old two, there is nothing to be done. They can live in their stuffy, smoke-ridden house drinking and smoking their lives away until they rot. For them, there is nothing that can be done. For the younger two, why will they not be different? They think they are unique, but in reality, are like millions upon millions of fellow Americans. I could never live this way. In what useful occupation are they serving mankind? I do not know.
At times I worry that I will be like all those that came before me, and I have every right to be worried. The majority of humanity lives like this. Look what I wrote in my English paper:
The fear of failure,
Of never writing the great American novel,
Of never exploring the world,
Of never doing or writing anything of great importance.
Do not worry: everything we do, every day we walk the earth, is the greatest success.
This is in the style of Walt Whitman, and it is complete nonsense. Of course I worry about preserving my legacy and my memory, for what other purpose is there to live? Actually, many others I suppose, but this is extremely important. I want to go away for a long time to a land I have never seen before and live there and be happy. I want to write poetry and stories and novels and see the world and play soccer under the floodlights and have friends and go out to the pub and have a laugh on Friday night and forget about tomorrow and take walks in the wilderness Saturday afternoons and make love to a girl I love under the stars and stand back and see the world for what it really is and laugh at peoples’ worries for I am far above their worries. I want to cry when I’m sad, laugh when I’m happy, hold someone tight when I’m scared, not be afraid to take a chance and fear nothing. This is what I want. Will I achieve it all? I do not know.
But tonight is only one night in (hopefully) thousands, and I cannot do everything in one night. Tonight I can only dream. Tomorrow is a new opportunity.

Sweet (Or Bleak) November

There's two sides to look at it, I'd say. On one side I'd say she likes me and she wants to go places with me. On the other side, she keeps bringing up all these other guys who she's dated which might lead me to believe it's nothing more than a fling. But if it's the former, I'm content to be one in a long line of courters. I'd do it for her intelligence and her beauty. And, more importantly, she's the only one I can actually talk to. And you know what I mean by talk. I can say whatever I want to say to her and I won't be ashamed or embarrassed because she'll always listen to what I have to say. It takes someone special, someone uniquely intelligent to be able to do that. One of the reasons my previous "relationship" (she says it never was a relationship) didn't work was because I never felt comfortable speaking straight up to her, looking at her and telling her what I think of her. That's a pretty damn cool thing that I can do.

I've been pretty busy recently, but I've had time to think believe it or not. I've thought about many things and haven't reached conclusions for all of them. For example: where do I want to go? It might seem simple in a literal sense, but thinking about it, life seems so complicated with the thousands of restrictions placed upon us by our society. That's why it's so difficult to be truly happy in society, a conclusion Thoreau reached 150 years ago. We can't all go live in the woods, and I agree with that, but what would be so bad if I were to live in woods?

That brings up another point: reaching an inconclusive decision: I never completely answered my own questions, instead leaving them to be resolved at another time. But is that a good thing? Will I forget about my resolutions and pass through life on a certain path never deviating from it, never stopping to consider my options? I doubt it. I've been thinking throughout this sweet November that, like the Spring flowers, someday I'll rise from the depths of the bleak midwinter to become something no one could have ever imagined.

Goodbye Columbus

Well it was bound to happen again, wasn't it? This time though I've learned from my mistakes and will not make the same errors I did previously. I think though, the more important aspect, is, for the first time ever, I've truly emotionally changed someone with my very own words. For a writer, there is nothing more assuring than knowing you can do that with your words. True, these are probably the most charged words I've ever written, but if I did that once, then surely I can do that again. And that is what will keeping me writing, the search to produce something like that another time, maybe even two more times.

She's nice but I'm not sure it will work. In my heart I hope it will because she's smart and nice and cute. But, as I learned before, there're too many unknowns, too many spanners to my plan. I don't, maybe I'm the eternal pessimist, but I hope that when I walk into that class she's there smiling at me, rubbing legs under the table while the teacher's words mean nothing to me because I'm so wrapped up in her. That's what I want.

I guess it's Goodbye Columbus for the other. It'd been good for a while, but there'd been too much between us. So that's that. What's done cannot be undone. I'm already tired of it all, the afternoons spent wiling away my time at soccer only to never touch the field. Why do I refuse to speak up? Intelligence, or cowardice? I like to think the former, but realistically, it may be the latter. I could scream and yell for more time, but what of it? It would lead me to nothing. Probably anything I do will result in nothing.

So this is the state of my life. One final word- there's never a better feeling in the world knowing someone likes you. I would chatacterize it as excessive exhiliaration. I've felt it twice so far in my life. Hopefully these will be the first two in a long line.

Again :)

you welcome :), i mean i definitely understand because it is such an intense topic, especially if you don't know how the other person feels about you


i feel a lot better now that i got that off my chest... thanks for understanding :)


no, i definitely give you props for telling me that, thank you :-) that made me feel special ;-)





well whatever... you don't know, it's tough to tell a girl that




i figured, i mean the poem kind of said it all




alright, basically i like you... there i said it



do i want to know what that is supposed to mean




it might be ;)




oh, trying to make me feel special? is that for a special reason





i hoped it would



that makes me feel really special





don't worry i won't get full of myself. you're the first person i've shown this poem to.



I just read your poem again and it made me cry- in a good way, thats how much i like it, i think you should get it published


WOW, Im definitely complimenting you too much, you might get full of yourself soon

COMMENT TO FOLLOW LATER

Who are you?

Consider two men: the first, a city-dweller, the second a man of the country. Which one lives a happier life? The city-dweller awakes each morning to the unnatural blaring monotone of his alarm clock, and, dreary eyed, pulls himself into a tight, uncomfortable suit, the only appropriate garb for the city office. He rushes (and what for?) to catch his bus, his train, his subway that will deliver him into his compressed hell. He scarves down a meal of chemicals designed to clog his arteries and cut his life short. What does he do when he reaches his office? He simply fritters the day away, for what useful occupation can be had at an office desk? Yes, he appears busy, he works himself into a frenzy to deliver the latest news, write the latest reports, please his superior, but what has he actually accomplished? In what way has he furthered himself, and, for that matter, the human race? The modern man takes himself too seriously: he fears the consequences of the artificial deadline. He believes that what he does is of the utmost import and that the world cannot do without it. He never stops to consider that millions of people around the world, from the office worker in Chicago to the merchant in Calcutta, live this same frivolous existence, plodding through life and never stopping to consider all the options that await him if he would merely pick his head up. Many people, faced by a firing squad, would rather struggle in their bondage, than passively let bullets strike them dead.
Now, enter the second man. He is a woodsman, living in the shade of the alpine forest. He is skilled in all the natural trades: swimming, shooting, fishing, wood carving. Each morning, he is awoken at first dawn by the slant of the sun upon his face. He spends his days not furthering unknown others who reside in the upper offices of London and Geneva, but rather in furthering himself. He cuts his own wood for his own fires, his catches his own trout for his own meals. He has ample time for himself, but this time is not wasted in inane pastimes. The man of the woods reads, writes, contemplates life. He realizes how fortunate his existence is, how lucky he is to see Nature in all its wild beauty. He alone sees the rain pelting the empty fields with gray clouds stretching behind the towering wooded peaks. He alone sees the early morning mist hanging low in the forest valleys, he alone tastes the icy waters of the lonely Northern lake. And at the end of the day, when he settles in his blanket and looks up at the indigo sky, worlds away from sickly orange haze that overhangs the metropolis, he can list the tasks he has accomplished that day. He is able to say, “I’ve walked nine miles, cut eight cords of wood, caught three trout, felt the wind ruffle my hair, the sun beat my back.” What has the urbanite done in one day? Confronted with the question, he will probably forget what he had for lunch! And, in time, when the woodsman lays down to die, he can smile to himself and know he’s seen and felt the World: the fierce heat of summer, the quiet after a midwinter snow, a blue jay chirping in the beechwood on an early April morning, the purple evening sky in October after a blustery afternoon. The urbanite will die like a firework, creating bright, loud sparks and dimming, but never completely extinguishing for years, before meekly bowing out leaving stones unturned, paths untrodden. Only on the point of death will he see the hills outside his hospice window and stop to consider what might have been.
It is left to debate whether the city-dweller or woodsman is ultimately the happier man. To each his own, the adage goes. The urbanite could live a completely happy life as a well-to-do dandy. The woodsman could remain a pauper, roving from village to village in the countryside never finding satisfaction. But more important is which man is honest with himself, which man knows the world for what it is, in all its glory and meanness, which man sees what humanity was and what it will come to be, which man can grasp his destiny in his palm. Some say Polaris is brighter in the countryside.

La Poesia

Volverán las oscuras golondrinas
en tu balcón sus nidos a colgar,
y, otra vez, con el ala a sus cristales
jugando llamarán;
pero aquéllas que el vuelo refrenaban
tu hermosura y mi dicha al contemplar,
aquéllas que aprendieron nuestros nombres...
ésas... ¡no volverán!

Volverán las tupidas madreselvas
de tu jardín las tapias a escalar,
y otra vez a la tarde, aun más hermosas,
sus flores se abrirán;
pero aquéllas, cuajadas de rocío,
cuyas gotas mirábamos temblar
y caer, como lágrimas del día...
ésas... ¡no volverán!

Volverán del amor en tus oídos
las palabras ardientes a sonar;
tu corazón, de su profundo sueño
tal vez despertará;
pero mudo y absorto y de rodillas,
como se adora a Dios ante su altar,
como yo te he querido..., desengáñate:
¡así no te querrán!

-Gustavo Adolfo Becquer

Lo Fatal

Dichoso el árbol, que es apenas sensitivo,
y más la piedra dura porque ésa ya no siente,
pues no hay dolor más grande que el dolor de ser vivo
ni mayor pesadumbre que la vida consciente.
Ser, y no saber nada, y ser sin rumbo cierto,
y el temor de haber sido y un futuro terror...
¡Y el espanto seguro de estar mañana muerto,
y sufrir por la vida y por la sombra y por

lo que no conocemos y apenas sospechamos,
y la carne que tienta con sus frescos racimos,
y la tumba que aguarda con sus fúnebres ramos
y no saber adónde vamos,
ni de dónde venimos!...

-Rubén Dario