One of those mostly happy posts.

I guess I should be candid, honest with my self. I often get all torn up over the craziness that is, you know, existence - I don't understand anything, I try to figure answers and solutions to Life, the Universe, and Everything (even though we all already now that it's 42, of course), yet I tend to miss out on it.


I mean, mostly. I go back in forth all day in my head, thinking of this or that, seeing it this way, changing my perspective, thinking of stuff from the other side, from this side, from a completely and daringly unprecedented side (I guess). I am, undoubtedly, wholly indecisive.

And -sometimes- I realize just a little bit about how I need to do stuff, I need to grow up, to get by, reach goals, do my homework - fight the moment, see the future, plan, remember, think. If I didn't get so tired and lose so much energy I'd be a fiery ball of curiosity, getting the things done that I want to do, or would like to do, such as finishing a drawing, practicing painting, building something out of cardboard and glue, becoming an engineer, going to Europe- making a final decision on whether I want to pursue a relationship with this one guy or not.

Confusing. Or- not necessarily confusing, just daunting. Vast. Complicated. Oddly simple when taken as a whole, or broken down into little easy-to-digest steps.


Money's a thing to be dealt with, that keeps me and a lot of other people from doing the things we truly want to do.


so.... make money right?


No, no, make time. Time.


ooh, struggle, struggle. Hello, myself, I am going to punch me in the face.


Oh, I'm 19! Got two jobs I barely make 20 hours total with, live in a tiny messy apartment, am going to community college and probably failing two of my classes from procrastination... am in a strange semi-dating relationship with a boy I'm not allowed to touch, technically...

losing my talents slowly. I cannot...




I can.



I'm... 19. What am I? Who am I? Thought I'd have this solved a long time ago. Apparently I'm supposed to be grown-up, an adult?


No! I want to have fun! I want to sit around all day doing a few random errands and watching TV or perusing facebook or texting people and totally not doing anything important at all... oh, wait that's what I do anyway.


I've gone over this too many times.

*sigh*


Nothing has changed. Time to take a new approach.


I am going to major in engineering. I am going to make my college education worth it, my career worth it, my life worth it, and I am going to make my free time sweet sweet unguilty bliss.

Cosmopolitan magazine says to not tell you biggest goals to anyone- to savor the sweet secret success, to come out on top with the admiration emerging from the inside out.


I have to stop be afraid to fall, to fail, and- I have to stop being afraid of responsibility. Of losing sleep. Of missing opportunities.


Life doesn't just happen. You have to make it happen.

Life is waking up in the morning, comfy in your bed, seeing the slits of light through the window blinds .

Life is hugging a crying friend, looking into their eyes when they speak, listening to their words.

Life is laughing loudly and unabashedly with your friends, making inside jokes, unwilling to leave the good company.

Life is holding hands.

Life is a fun art project.

Life is being fascinated at something you've never, ever seen before.

Life is falling asleep after a very, very long day.

Life is the euphoria of accomplishment after you've finally finished something.

Life eating delicious food.

Life is a crisp and clean new shirt.

Life is holidays.



Life is so much happiness, and so much pain, and so many unanswered questions. It's writing this unread blog, and reading the news, and being excited for tomorrow. It's nerves, it's sweat, it's navigating the arduous corridors of social interaction, and being rewarded with new and old friendships, and maybe even love... It's conquering darkness, spreading light, and having peace on your deathbed.

it is being here, on earth, and exploring it.


It's fun, you know?


Gotta get my stuff done.

look to the stars,
-ununseptium

this post is entirely non-sequitous

To equate my painting with symbolism, conscious or unconscious, is to ignore its true nature. . . . People are quite willing to use objects without looking for any symbolic intention, but when they look at paintings, they can't find any use for them. So they hunt around for a meaning to get themselves out of the quandary, and because they don't understand what they are supposed to think when they confront the painting. . . . They want something to lean on, so they can be comfortable. They want something secure to hang on to, so they can save themselves from the void. People who look for symbolic meanings fail to grasp the inherent poetry and mystery of the image. No doubt they sense this mystery, but they wish to get rid of it. They are araid. By asking 'what does this mean?' they express a wish that everything be understandable. But if one does not reject the mystery, one has a quite different response. One asks other things. -Rene Magritte

I am studying Rene Magritte for a project, and I am quickly becoming fascinated with his ideas and the way he had a poignant sense of how to express them. He was an artist in the truest sense, that sense being a person who has an unlikely grasp on the more sublimely questionable aspects of life. If you can turn convention on its head- you are an artist. If you can use convention to create, to insult, or to redefine beauty- you are an artist. You are an artist if the story you tell resonates out to the farthest reaches of culture in the subtlest ways. You're an artist if you can express the exact thing others can't. Your words become theirs, and their feelings are what made your words.


I am, truly, fascinated by the ideas and the people of these ideas who influence- who make it to the rank of pop culture. Mona Lisa, Freud- names and titles you can toss around and most people will know what you're referring to.



aagh. This has been one of my weirder days (or, arguably, my weirder weeks, and months), and I'm not exactly articulating my thoughts very well. So much is bouncing around in my little short-circuited brain, I don't know what to do with it. There's always so much.


There's something in the water, they say.



Life- it's inevitable. I feel sort of like Spock and Hamlet all at the same time. I have emotions but I do not want them, and I am the walking embodiment of indecision, living in this huge existential crisis.


I'm scared, do I run? Or do I dive full-force into a maelstrom of this thing I'm totally not familiar with? All the voices in my head yell at each other, all my nerves became frayed a long, long time ago- I am -ha!- I am alive. How interesting. the binds we get ourselves into, the perspectives we grapple with.



Perhaps I think too much.



I am unsure. That's what stops me. I am exploring a dark cave, not pursuing the light. Maybe that's what gets- the pull between my insane curiosity at the mysterious, and what's safe, good, adherent to my chosen social values.



look to the stars(there's a meteor shower tonight!)
-ununseptium

Stuck

I am stuck in the middle of TWO HUGE CHOICES.

A. propriety, duty, consequence of personal vows made long ago, expectations of people, loving advice, my own beliefs
B. the chance at something that could turn out either wonderfully or horribly


I KEEP ENCOURAGING WHAT I CAN NOT HAVE.


I KEEP NOT KNOWING WHAT I WANT. Moment to moment... this, that, this, that.
Sometimes, sometimes, I do - sometimes; sometimes it's gone.
I'm a people pleaser.



how much?


wooooooords make this happen. glances and smileys and technology make this go on.



uncertainty, you bitch!



and an honest-to-god electricity surges through the touch of skin.



and a rarity is realized, a gem of interaction is made evident.


maybe?


always, always, indecision, and a slight unfairness.


This is my first glance of romance (maybe).


Disney, you bitch.




look to the stars,
-ununseptium

What is it?

We are never who we want to be. We are rarely who we are. We live in successions of overlapping impressions- interactions between memories and hormones and, always, a pining for the most right way to adhere to the things we've been taught. An elaborate net of awareness binds our interactions with each other- we are all confused, none of us know. We know convention- we know what is and isn't.

What is important? What is one thing, absolutely, that every single living human being on earth can cling to? What is one idea, one notion, that isn't even remotely subjective, that can't be twisted or denied? One idea that hasn't been changed or challenged or modified? One standard that isn't manipulated? One positive, resounding, undeniable truth?

Find his, and maybe we can start solving some problems once and for all.


A series of vicious circles, back-and-forth, is what life is. It's something. No matter what you do, you're doing or thinking something wrong.

Ha!

I could just laugh in bitter unknowing.





look to the stars,
-ununseptium

Bugger

Oh, indulge, you.

Say - just one more!

one more minute!


One more glance, one more word, one more... just one more.


one inch closer to the cliff, I say, one inch closer!


Inch by inch you approach your fall, your inevitable destruction.


You are not this melodramatic, don't worry.


I am living.


One more moment, day, breath at a time.


I am a script, undirected.



I am -ha!- what am I?


I am another voice in oblivion,


just one more word.


One more thought, and I'm in.


Indulge, you, just one more time.


See how it goes, you.

Possibilities - the Halloween Edition

Do you ever imagine being someone other than yourself? Do you ever try to realize what and who you are? How you would be if you had made different choices, where you would be if you had different level of motivation, more ambition- what you would be like if you were more selfish, more daring, less morally inclined. I don't know if I've asked it, or if I read it in some psychology magazine, but there is a thought floating around in my head from somewhere: How much can you change before you stop being you? What are the limits of you, where are the borders of what is really, truly you and what isn't?

I'm going to a Halloween party with alcohol tonight. What if I got drunk? What if I got ragingly, unabashedly, embarrassingly throwed, and woke up 3 hours late for work with a massive hangover? What I if was late, again, to work, lost my job, and didn't care? How many ways can I destroy myself? How many ways can I push away all of my loved ones, cut them off, ruin my life, do as much to make Elizabeth Ann a waste of breath, a wheezing, pathetic ounce of drying flesh; haggard, hurt, hurtful, and bitter?

What if I did everything I said I'd never do, that I'd be horrified to hear about? What if I became the mother who beats one child while keeping a facade of a perfect family; what if I became the manipulating politician, the pothead whore, the bitch?

What if I stopped believing in God?


These are all things I'm capable of justifying, convincing myself of, ignoring my better judgement for. Facing the consequences for - becoming the story. The tearjerker. The illustration to teach children not to do the things I have done.


It's a scary thing, to think of these things. Can you imagine you doing everything you thought was horrifying and evil? Being the complete antithesis of you?


And- what if that really was you?


and- what if you took one step towards, one inch, became one ounce of that?

what if you fell apart?


Who are you?

What are you?


Are you anything?



Am I allowed to ponder these things?


What if I'm not, and I'm doing it anyway?


The possibilities of how far you can go is too easy to see when you're right in front of the first glimpse of it., and when you've been face to face with a challenge you don't know how to handle... and you kind of don't want to handle, because you want to see what happens.


This is when you stop and say -what and who do I want to be?

That's the only question that will get you anywhere. Nobody knows who they are, or what they are capable of.

---

Song of the Day:

Watcha Say - Jason Derulo remix

---


look to the stars,
-ununseptium

Learning

I'm still learning to accept the fact that I am now an adult. I am 19; not exactly a full-blown grown-up, but maturity has its roots in adequate initiative in grasping the more subtle lessons of life. I'm(along with, arguably, everyone else) surrounded constantly by a consistent stream of morality lessons. You learn through gossip not to backstab or do weird things, you learn through advice columns not to be clingy or manipulative, through disney movies how to dream and hope, through church how to conduct your actions, through school how prioritize- every place has its code, its rules, its procedures to learn. We are elaborate robots of norms and mores, our signals words and emotions rather than binary.

This is the culture than I live and have grown up in, a hodge-podge barage of ideas and colors and lights, noises everywhere; ambiguity as the only surefire thing. Even if you adhere to one idea you are, undoubtedly, aware of the other ones.


There are two things I've learned about humanity:

1. Everyone is different
2. Everyone is the same

It's a contradiction in terms, I suppose, but paradoxes are always the most true. For every inconsistency there is a trend, for every perspective a common ground. We all have the capacity for evil, so I've heard, yet we all have the unabashed ability to do astounding good. We hurt, manipulate, act selfishly; and sometimes, someone gives of themself, we laugh together, we make a concerted effort to make others happy. true altruism - nearly unnatural, and that is why it is all the more special.


And this circles round to my originathought about becoming an adult - all the minute lines of conduct there is to follow, the stuff to get done, the rite of passage involved in being considered a legitimate person worthy of being lisened to. I once heard a nice quote saying something along the lines of "the mark of maturity is being able to say "I lost it" as opposed to "it got lost." Taking responsibility for every action you possible can. Learning the fact that others rely on your timeliness, your integrity, your honorableness. Realizing that though you may strive to be a nice, caring person, you will inevitably hurt someone and some point, whether unintentional or not. It is impossible to pay attention to every detail ever, and impossible to please everyone. In becoming an adult, you have to learn to not worry about whether people like you or not - unless you're a politician. Otherwise, you just have to get your work done, whatever it is. For me, it's finishing tasks my managers set for me and work, and doing my homework.



Homework. My biggest lesson in being an adult is knowing when to sacrifice now for the sake of later. It's hard, and some part of me says its not that important, I can always get by, because I always have. But back to the altruism thing- if I can't do good for myself, how will I have the confidence to do good for others?

What is "good"a dn "bad" is a whole other story- i think, basically, the golden rule might be one of the only real intrinsic rules that actually can apply to every culture, every religion, every notion of goodness ever concieved- "Do unto others and you would have them do unto you." And, another one, "Everyone is equal/ all human life is important."

Beyond that, it's all ambiguous. It's possible someone's wrong, or I'm wrong, or we're allequally wrong because it's all relative, but whatever.

becoming an adult- forging your way through the world, formulating your values, learning, learning, learning, always learning since day 1 to death.


I'm 19, I'm an adult, I'm responsible for stuff, I still have much to learn and I suppose I won't ever be finished.

This is fun.


---

Song of the Day

I'll Fight - Wilco

---



look to the stars,
-ununseptium