Welcome to 2007
I'm starting this one early, since my mom is on a recent tirade about sleeping earlier.
Truthfully, I hadn't gathered many of these thoughts together, so I'll be writing mostly off the cuff, so to speak. It's one of my good traits, but at the same time it usually can't lead to too long a post, like the past years have had.
I need to get this music a little louder, drown out the rest of the environment for the next hour, hour and a half until the clock strikes 12 and it is indeed 2007.
I'll be 20 years old then. Seems like a nice arbitrary age, it's divisible by 5, nice and round, literally because of that zero. Makes me wonder why they made 21 the legal drinking age, if 20 seems like already a pre-made benchmark number with which to measure. The way it is now, I've got to look at 18, the legal age of adulthood, 20, that nice round number, and 21, the legal age of drinking, as milestones. Too many milestone years, not enough actually happening.
Or is it? I looked back again over the posts two years ago, after the rant on the eve of 2005. The first thing that struck me was how immature they were, and subsequently how immature I was. Was I really that moronic back then, that I couldn't keep it serious when it should have been? And even the serious posts weren't well thought out, were just angry tirades or teenage emo shit. Could it be that, despite how I felt each year, hell, each day, after that point was not any different than the previous, could it be that I really did mature through this time? I looked back on this year's posts and noticed first off that there were large gaps of nothing in between. Now obviously part of it is that I had nothing really to write about, the dull life of college being what it is, but the other is that when there were things to discuss, they were all fairly serious, all fairly tinged with thought, at least, what I believe was good thought.
This could be because I was maturing to the point where I've gained perspective on life, where the little ups and downs in my life, the days of successful Smash play or the days when I couldn't approach a girl in my class despite all of my thought-out efforts, maybe those things now no longer have a pronounced effect on my life. Someone being a tease in front of me would bother me no less than it would amuse me to beat a friend 20 times in a row in Soul Calibur II.
At the same time, maybe this is a bad thing. Maybe I'm supposed to take life's little joys powerfully. I thought to myself while discussing with a friend of mine recently that I couldn't believe how ridiculous and silly we as humans were when we were little, how the smallest things that happened could give us extreme joy or pain. And it was the sort of joy that was pure, unadulterated, without logic and thought process running through it, just a strict invigorating joy that you can't find anymore in life. I've looked around before looking for something to give me that much joy, gaming, women, movies, a serene day outside, to very little avail. The few times I have seen such abject joy, I've wanted to hold on to it, admittedly. But I guess if you hold on to it, it would lose its meaning, yada yada yada and such.
Which is the right path? How much perspective and grand scheme view do you have to have to not float through a year or ten without having lived? How much cherishing of the smallest pleasures and lamenting on the smallest pangs can you do without losing the future altogether? Now that I think about it, I want to find that answer, because I think if I searched for the little things to feel and at the same time deemed the important things to be the large overbearing issues in life, than it must naturally come to all of us to seek a balance between the two. Gotta find that one.
And what of the large overbearing issues I'm facing tonight and as I head into yet another year and, well, another decade of my life? Well, other than physical issues (I've got an rash on my face from allergies I believe, doctor will tell me how to rid of that), not much has really been there. I guess this thing is sort of spurned by what happened most recently, but in reality, a lot of good has happened to me as of late, and it has left me in a mood more akin to happiness than gloomy LJ-postiness.
Well, in order to really get a grasp of what's going on, I guess we look at what we resolved to do last year. I said I had to strike a balance, to make school and life mingle efficiently. Well, I don't know if the mission is truly accomplished, but I can hang thanks on Organic Chemistry for getting me straightened out as far as school. That class forced me to focus on what was important school-wise, and so I buckled down and through some hard work finally achieved an A in something fairly difficult. At the same time, I've met some keepers as far as people are concerned and even found time to find someone I was attracted to and get some done, without even really trying. Honestly, how any of the past semester happened other the grades was beyond my knowledge, because I wasn't even trying. If I put in a bit of effort at the end, I might even get laid this time around, so that monkey can get off my back and such.
Regardless, I think the issue I had involving connections with people, maybe I finally resolved that. And it didn't require much effort, almost a gradual transition. Sure, I regret a little inaction that I did undertake this past year, but I think all in all, the product turned out well.
I'll admit one fear has crept into my mind as of late. I had hoped for a more peaceful Winter Break at the parent's home, but alas, not even the good grades could guarantee that for me. As my mom and I bickered about something that, while I am sure was entirely important, did not require such intense escalation, I had recognized something that I had had recently pointed out to me by a female interest of mine. I am beginning to fear I am incapable of decision making. It happened quite a few times this year, indecision on my part has caused issues. But it took an argument about something in which I resented my parent's scheduling out a plan for me and a flashback to the time Samantha pointed out how she was deciding a lot of the places we were going out to that got me thinking of the issue.
Truth be told, I'm uncomfortable making decisions. I'm a wait-and-seer, as JD in Scrubs puts it, someone who would rather have things be clarified before deciding instead of making decisive moves immediately. I clamored constantly with my mother about how she refuses to allow me to decide for myself how to live, how if she sees something slightly wrong with what I'm doing compared to her world-view, she feels the need to micromanage and correct my "mistakes." I hated this planned out life. At the same time, while I was out with Samantha, she did point out how she wore the proverbial pants in the operation and I merely played along with what she recommended. It made me think whether that was something that I desired in a woman, controlling and decisive so that I didn't have to be, similar to my mom. I dreaded this thought for a couple nights, and feared that I was right in that assumption.
I think better planning and decisiveness is the top item on the agenda for the upcoming year. Minutiae aside (stuff like getting a job, making money, getting laid, maybe something more steady if I have the patience, good grades, all that is really secondary to personality changes, and perhaps will be lead by a personality change), I feel that if I don't become a more decisive, confident person in the future, while at the same time mindful of at the very least a results-based plan for myself, I'll drift aimlessly in life, at the whim of others, like I feel when my mom micromanages my life. Perhaps of all the things in life, I'm determined not to live my life under the laws of my mother (whether she calls them society's laws or not, it's all relative really) but rather under my own. I dream of the moment where I can make the laws I live under in. College is supposed to be the time, but if I remain indecisive like I think I am now, I'll merely drift the days, years, whatever the time, away in my room, thinking of what I could've done had I decided to do it before.
By the way, in the proud American spirit, I blame my parents for this, at least partially. They instilled an environment wherein all the decisions were made for me prior to the occurrence at hand, and all of my decisions were heavily scrutinized and then corrected by theirs. It instilled in me this fear of decision making for fear of derision and reprisal, that I must obviously carry to this day. I guess I just want to please people in the end, inherently, no matter what I say. That's why I'd rather be laid back, allow them to decide, since I'm the most flexible usually. This attitude I've deemed incorrect, and I have a few people to thank for helping me realize this. I'll call specifically one of them later, I presume.
It is perhaps no longer a question of desiring to live life. Maybe that decision is the first step. But I guess I have to strengthen up my resolve, shed my apparent fear of decision and its consequence, and allow the consequence to hit me, one way or another. How else do you learn of the mistakes and follies of life without having some hit you in the face? Once they do, I and I alone have to figure them out, other people can only suggest the course of action, but I have to fix it as I see fit in the end. This goes for everything in life I guess.
11:31 p.m. as my computer tells me, as I write this. In 30 minutes, the year will have ended, and 2007 will have begun. I took a deep breath, looked around the office, listened closely to some Breaking Benjamin lyrics, and well, finished this sentence. Tomorrow I'll wake up 20 years old and not feel any different. I'll have to go make it happen, I'd like to see myself whether I can do it, or whether at this point next year I'll have made the same conservative decisions and have the same resolution that I can never fill. Something in me says it won't be the case though, and that next year my "psychological" issues mean a lot less than the ones now do.
Not that any of this is THAT important, certainly not to the lot of you.
Enjoy the new year folks.
Truthfully, I hadn't gathered many of these thoughts together, so I'll be writing mostly off the cuff, so to speak. It's one of my good traits, but at the same time it usually can't lead to too long a post, like the past years have had.
I need to get this music a little louder, drown out the rest of the environment for the next hour, hour and a half until the clock strikes 12 and it is indeed 2007.
I'll be 20 years old then. Seems like a nice arbitrary age, it's divisible by 5, nice and round, literally because of that zero. Makes me wonder why they made 21 the legal drinking age, if 20 seems like already a pre-made benchmark number with which to measure. The way it is now, I've got to look at 18, the legal age of adulthood, 20, that nice round number, and 21, the legal age of drinking, as milestones. Too many milestone years, not enough actually happening.
Or is it? I looked back again over the posts two years ago, after the rant on the eve of 2005. The first thing that struck me was how immature they were, and subsequently how immature I was. Was I really that moronic back then, that I couldn't keep it serious when it should have been? And even the serious posts weren't well thought out, were just angry tirades or teenage emo shit. Could it be that, despite how I felt each year, hell, each day, after that point was not any different than the previous, could it be that I really did mature through this time? I looked back on this year's posts and noticed first off that there were large gaps of nothing in between. Now obviously part of it is that I had nothing really to write about, the dull life of college being what it is, but the other is that when there were things to discuss, they were all fairly serious, all fairly tinged with thought, at least, what I believe was good thought.
This could be because I was maturing to the point where I've gained perspective on life, where the little ups and downs in my life, the days of successful Smash play or the days when I couldn't approach a girl in my class despite all of my thought-out efforts, maybe those things now no longer have a pronounced effect on my life. Someone being a tease in front of me would bother me no less than it would amuse me to beat a friend 20 times in a row in Soul Calibur II.
At the same time, maybe this is a bad thing. Maybe I'm supposed to take life's little joys powerfully. I thought to myself while discussing with a friend of mine recently that I couldn't believe how ridiculous and silly we as humans were when we were little, how the smallest things that happened could give us extreme joy or pain. And it was the sort of joy that was pure, unadulterated, without logic and thought process running through it, just a strict invigorating joy that you can't find anymore in life. I've looked around before looking for something to give me that much joy, gaming, women, movies, a serene day outside, to very little avail. The few times I have seen such abject joy, I've wanted to hold on to it, admittedly. But I guess if you hold on to it, it would lose its meaning, yada yada yada and such.
Which is the right path? How much perspective and grand scheme view do you have to have to not float through a year or ten without having lived? How much cherishing of the smallest pleasures and lamenting on the smallest pangs can you do without losing the future altogether? Now that I think about it, I want to find that answer, because I think if I searched for the little things to feel and at the same time deemed the important things to be the large overbearing issues in life, than it must naturally come to all of us to seek a balance between the two. Gotta find that one.
And what of the large overbearing issues I'm facing tonight and as I head into yet another year and, well, another decade of my life? Well, other than physical issues (I've got an rash on my face from allergies I believe, doctor will tell me how to rid of that), not much has really been there. I guess this thing is sort of spurned by what happened most recently, but in reality, a lot of good has happened to me as of late, and it has left me in a mood more akin to happiness than gloomy LJ-postiness.
Well, in order to really get a grasp of what's going on, I guess we look at what we resolved to do last year. I said I had to strike a balance, to make school and life mingle efficiently. Well, I don't know if the mission is truly accomplished, but I can hang thanks on Organic Chemistry for getting me straightened out as far as school. That class forced me to focus on what was important school-wise, and so I buckled down and through some hard work finally achieved an A in something fairly difficult. At the same time, I've met some keepers as far as people are concerned and even found time to find someone I was attracted to and get some done, without even really trying. Honestly, how any of the past semester happened other the grades was beyond my knowledge, because I wasn't even trying. If I put in a bit of effort at the end, I might even get laid this time around, so that monkey can get off my back and such.
Regardless, I think the issue I had involving connections with people, maybe I finally resolved that. And it didn't require much effort, almost a gradual transition. Sure, I regret a little inaction that I did undertake this past year, but I think all in all, the product turned out well.
I'll admit one fear has crept into my mind as of late. I had hoped for a more peaceful Winter Break at the parent's home, but alas, not even the good grades could guarantee that for me. As my mom and I bickered about something that, while I am sure was entirely important, did not require such intense escalation, I had recognized something that I had had recently pointed out to me by a female interest of mine. I am beginning to fear I am incapable of decision making. It happened quite a few times this year, indecision on my part has caused issues. But it took an argument about something in which I resented my parent's scheduling out a plan for me and a flashback to the time Samantha pointed out how she was deciding a lot of the places we were going out to that got me thinking of the issue.
Truth be told, I'm uncomfortable making decisions. I'm a wait-and-seer, as JD in Scrubs puts it, someone who would rather have things be clarified before deciding instead of making decisive moves immediately. I clamored constantly with my mother about how she refuses to allow me to decide for myself how to live, how if she sees something slightly wrong with what I'm doing compared to her world-view, she feels the need to micromanage and correct my "mistakes." I hated this planned out life. At the same time, while I was out with Samantha, she did point out how she wore the proverbial pants in the operation and I merely played along with what she recommended. It made me think whether that was something that I desired in a woman, controlling and decisive so that I didn't have to be, similar to my mom. I dreaded this thought for a couple nights, and feared that I was right in that assumption.
I think better planning and decisiveness is the top item on the agenda for the upcoming year. Minutiae aside (stuff like getting a job, making money, getting laid, maybe something more steady if I have the patience, good grades, all that is really secondary to personality changes, and perhaps will be lead by a personality change), I feel that if I don't become a more decisive, confident person in the future, while at the same time mindful of at the very least a results-based plan for myself, I'll drift aimlessly in life, at the whim of others, like I feel when my mom micromanages my life. Perhaps of all the things in life, I'm determined not to live my life under the laws of my mother (whether she calls them society's laws or not, it's all relative really) but rather under my own. I dream of the moment where I can make the laws I live under in. College is supposed to be the time, but if I remain indecisive like I think I am now, I'll merely drift the days, years, whatever the time, away in my room, thinking of what I could've done had I decided to do it before.
By the way, in the proud American spirit, I blame my parents for this, at least partially. They instilled an environment wherein all the decisions were made for me prior to the occurrence at hand, and all of my decisions were heavily scrutinized and then corrected by theirs. It instilled in me this fear of decision making for fear of derision and reprisal, that I must obviously carry to this day. I guess I just want to please people in the end, inherently, no matter what I say. That's why I'd rather be laid back, allow them to decide, since I'm the most flexible usually. This attitude I've deemed incorrect, and I have a few people to thank for helping me realize this. I'll call specifically one of them later, I presume.
It is perhaps no longer a question of desiring to live life. Maybe that decision is the first step. But I guess I have to strengthen up my resolve, shed my apparent fear of decision and its consequence, and allow the consequence to hit me, one way or another. How else do you learn of the mistakes and follies of life without having some hit you in the face? Once they do, I and I alone have to figure them out, other people can only suggest the course of action, but I have to fix it as I see fit in the end. This goes for everything in life I guess.
11:31 p.m. as my computer tells me, as I write this. In 30 minutes, the year will have ended, and 2007 will have begun. I took a deep breath, looked around the office, listened closely to some Breaking Benjamin lyrics, and well, finished this sentence. Tomorrow I'll wake up 20 years old and not feel any different. I'll have to go make it happen, I'd like to see myself whether I can do it, or whether at this point next year I'll have made the same conservative decisions and have the same resolution that I can never fill. Something in me says it won't be the case though, and that next year my "psychological" issues mean a lot less than the ones now do.
Not that any of this is THAT important, certainly not to the lot of you.
Enjoy the new year folks.