Normal

I really don't think there's much more to be said.

Openness

Okay, I decided that I'd post the "personal reflection paper" from my "Psychology of Interpersonal Relationships" class that I took last semester.  I said I'd write down some of my observations from that class in here because most were relevant toward the subjects covered in my blog/online diary - namely, how fucking hard it is to have a satisfying relationship with people.  We were each required to keep a journal in which we documented "interpersonal happenings", or moments that provided us insight into the way we communicate and relate to each other, so that's the source of many of the examples referenced in here.  Hope you at least find this interesting.  I've tried to explain a few of these stories and left some notes in square brackets.  Although the degree of insight isn't exactly tremendous, I sort of like the way it turned out just because of the way it sounds.  It was simultaneously academic and personal, so I was able to maintain my own typical style of writing (which you are probably familiar with if you've read anything else on this blog).    It was good enough for an A- (which is the grade I'm positive they gave to everybody in the class, although the minus might also refer to the negativity that practically drips off of this paper, as this was written toward the worst part of my depression {which is currently being treated, I'll let you know how it goes if/when I stop being depressed}). 

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Although much of the material I’ve discussed in my journals revolves around issues in communicating effectively, I believe that discussing that sort of topic at length is neither productive nor insightful.  This has made the subject of what to discuss for a personal reflection paper a serious challenge.  There isn’t an aspect of my interpersonal relationships that I believe have improved at all over the course of the semester despite learning all that I have about how to make them work.  Much of the blame for this can be placed squarely on my shoulders.  Over the course of the semester I’ve withdrawn from many communications that would have allowed me to really demonstrate what I know about establishing supportive and beneficial relationships.  The truth is that I’m not really in any sort of condition to introspect, since everything I’ve done outside this class involves growing detached from people with whom I already had strong interpersonal relationships and not becoming particularly close with anyone, with the possible exception of [name of friend] in this class.  However, one of the connections I made in a previous collection of articles about openness in interpersonal relationships proves to be a promising avenue for discussion and self-improvement.  Neglecting the details of what I have said about openness in the context of other, more precise areas of study in interpersonal relationships, openness is good.  I see it as the source of fulfillment that one receives from one’s interpersonal relationships, which arguably makes it the key to experiencing a satisfying relationship (in addition to being empirically demonstrated to be the key to personal growth and relationship strengthening).  Thus, it is one of the most important things for a relationship to possess.  However, it cannot exist as part of a pair.  In order for a relationship to truly be “open”, both partners must be willing to present themselves honestly and completely to each other.  This seemingly simple requirement for achieving openness in a relationship is unfortunately very difficult to meet.  It is this difficulty that has motivated me to reflect mainly on the topic of openness in interpersonal relationships.

Openness in a relationship is the degree to which partners are willing to communicate honestly with each other.  It is the comparative lack of pretenses that define everyday communications.  It is, for the most part, directly related to the level of intimacy (emotional or physical) between people.  It is defined by true understanding of oneself and one’s partner.  If it is still difficult to grasp the concept of openness defined on its own terms, it is because it seems to be seen so rarely.  Most relationships are built on some degree of pretense that prevents that relationship from achieving true openness.  The relationship between a loving parent and child, for example, though undeniably intimate, is actually one of the less open relationships* (as I am defining them here) that the child especially is likely to remember in his life.  Most parent-child relationships preclude the possibility (or, at best, willingness) to discuss topics that are often a large part of the child’s life but are considered “inappropriate”, such as sexual activities, drug/alcohol use, etc.  In fact, many children even in healthy, supportive home environments can’t be bothered to share with their parents the most basic parts of their lives, such as, “What did you do today?” or, “What are you learning about in school?”  The parent-child relationship often revolves around the child ensuring that the parent holds him in high regard, which almost always means refraining from sharing with their parent a certain aspect of their lives and ensuring that they are seen as a model child, or at least a child who doesn’t need a parent’s intervention in order to be successful in his life.  Most interpersonal relationships operate on some level of pretense rather than total openness.  Even strong romantic relationships begin with a mutual attempt between partners to impress each other with their strong qualities rather than with their complete self-portraits, character flaws included.

A more complete understanding of the concept of openness can be provided by examining it from a strictly personal standpoint, free of the context of one’s interpersonal relationships.  Openness in a relationship is mostly dependent on both partners being willing to present themselves to others as they are, free of as much pretense as possible.  The willingness to be open is not so much a conscious choice as it is an aspect of one’s personality.  The reason we surround ourselves with pretenses is to mask our insecurities, which are as much a part of our personalities as anything else.  Based on this logic, I would conclude that our willingness to be open with others is generally inversely proportional to our degree of insecurity.

For a while, I considered myself one of the most open people that I know because I do very little to mask the parts of my personality that other people seem to care about.  I quite naturally speak at the speed of thought, speak my thoughts even they don’t really make sense, take (mostly) genuine interest in the lives of others, think in a goal-oriented fashion despite working as a perfectionist, etc.  Of these traits I am fairly proud.  I am willing to share these with other people because it not only allows others to think of me positively, but it allows me to think of myself positively.  It seems that by sharing the parts of a man that reflect positively upon him, he comes to be defined by both himself and his interpersonal relationships in those terms alone.  In this way, refraining from being completely open with others is a somewhat effective way of seeking escape from one’s insecurities.  Therefore, I am not actually as open as I thought I was.  My inability to comfort, my inferiority complex, and my short temper are as much a part of me as the positive qualities I listed above.  Choosing to ignore them at the expense of being able to be truly open with myself and with others is a choice that I may not have made consciously but one that nonetheless hinders my ability to actively participate in an open relationship.

I believe that our generation is far more closed-off and unwilling to be open in our relationships than previous generations for this reason.  There is so much pressure for children to be absolutely perfect in every way these days – academically, socially, etc. – that children’s perceptions of their own shortcomings are exacerbated and develop into a great deal more insecurity than other generations.  If the degree to which one is willing to be open in one’s interpersonal relationships is inversely proportional to one’s degree of insecurity, this increased responsibility toward being the perfect child is likely the cause of this closed-off behavior in which children define themselves far more strongly by pretenses of perfection rather than their true selves. 

Connecting back to openness on the larger scale of entire relationships, I believe that lack of openness is responsible for much of the generally negative interactions I experienced and documented in my journal.  Although I could honestly connect each entry in some way to the concept of openness, I will limit myself to a few examples of the damage that can be caused by the lack of openness in interpersonal relationships. The most obvious example that comes to mind is Entry #12, regarding my experiences with suicide.  [Short version of the story: witnessed the entire immediate aftermath of the kid across the hall from me attempting to kill himself.  He lived, thankfully.] Regarding my unfortunate experience after class, I believe I can somewhat accurately attribute the misery that my fellow resident was obviously experiencing to an extreme lack of openness in his interpersonal relationships.  The reason “nobody saw it coming” was likely because there was no one who would have seen it coming.  The only person who had previously ever known some of the darker aspects of this young man’s personality was himself.  He had done such a great job at concealing a complete, non-ideal version of himself that he had lost the ability to form relationships in which true openness could ever be achieved.  Thus, nobody could know that the real man was actually suffering deeply.  To be in a situation where one fully recognizes his insecurities but cannot do anything to overcome them or share them with others in a truly open relationship is one of the greatest tortures I can imagine.  It is for this reason that I continue to see the short story read in class (described in that same entry) as a trite reflection of the author’s wishful thinking and/or excessive idealism. [Seriously, this was one of the dumbest things ever - we were asked to analyze the story of "Kyle" which was a fucking chain e-mail from the early '00s if I remember right.  This story is some of the biggest bullshit I've ever read in my life.]  There is absolutely no way that one can hide suicidal urges that were very nearly acted upon from others and find a relationship that is open enough to completely change his outlook on life.  The only way this could occur is if he were ignorant enough to completely forget about his insecurities and fully embrace the pretense he had built for himself in one instant as a “cool guy”.

I also feel as if many of the issues involving hostile or ineffective communications are a direct result of the lack of openness with the people with whom I was trying to communicate.  It should be both understandable and expected that my relationships with my group mates in my engineering class are mostly impersonal and detached.  Although I feel as if this might be a bit of a stretch in terms of applying the concept of openness to the communication problems in my engineering group, it may be possible that the general defensiveness in our conversations may be a result of misunderstanding each other’s true selves.  [Short version: one guy didn't know his shit even though he acted like he ran the group and that pissed the rest of us off.]  Presented only with a few brief moments of small talk with my newer group, we were expected to get to work immediately with only a very limited knowledge of each other’s personalities.  The member I described in one of my article responses (note: not in the journal) I now realize was actually relying on his self-confidence to mask his insecurity regarding his understanding of the material we were working with.  This resulted in a notable lack of open communication in our group.  Although the definition of open communication is somewhat different in a technical setting (openness refers more to ensuring that everyone understands what is going, what they should be doing, etc.) it is still the result of these insecurities that a lack of openness is established.  The feigning of confidence results in both the member himself and group perceiving him as someone knowledgeable and useful.  It is only when these insecurities are called to attention (i.e. when asked an especially complex question) that one becomes aware of one’s insecurities.  

Discussing this topic has led me to contemplate some of my relationships that are open rather than defined negatively by their inherent lack of openness.  Unfortunately, there weren’t any real instances of interpersonal openness to document this entire semester.  The closest instance I can think of was when I met my friend (who I hadn’t seen for eight months) for coffee when I was staying at home over spring break.  I honestly do not know why I chose to document visiting my friend’s college instead of this date [unrelated story, but I visited my friend's college and discovered that their dorm was a tight community while at UM there was barely a support system at all], because what followed was one of the most memorable and engaging conversations of my life.  As far as I can remember there was no aspect of our personal or interpersonal lives that wasn’t discussed freely and without pretense, and we both empathically understood of each other’s successes and woes.  It is worth noting that my relationship with this person is some sort of helping relationship – our relationship has always been one of close friendship, but she had previously been both a role model and a teacher to me.  Many of the articles we’ve read about the helping relationship directly address the idea that openness is an absolutely vital characteristic of an effective helping relationship.  The fact that we were fairly open with each other before is likely why I was able to be helped by her in the past, and I also feel that I can attribute some degree of personal growth over the last few years of my life to this as well.  However, the fact that we were not open with each other in the truly fulfilling sense of the word until this night tells me that true openness might be even harder to find than we think.  If my experience with true openness in interpersonal relationships is limited only to brief, one-time experiences, how can I demonstrate that openness can define entire relationships rather than singular encounters with people?  I can’t.  The fact is that true, unabashed, lasting openness is very hard to find between two people.  The closest example I can imagine is the openness between two lovers, but I can’t back up that context with any recent personal experience.

At the beginning of this semester I was of the conviction that these moments of openness in relationships were something of a climax – this is the level of interpersonal connection that cannot be topped and relationships only weaken from this point on.  I have experienced both examples of this belief and counterexamples as well. (I still believe I can safely have an open relationship with the woman in the previous paragraph, although not being in my hometown means I can’t know for sure.)  I no longer believe it to be entirely true.  The reason for this is because I believe I have defined openness too strongly.  Referring exclusively to euphoric moments of intense interpersonal connection absolutely free of pretense would leave everyone under the belief that they were incapable of being in a truly open long-term relationship.  A relationship can still be considered open to a large extent with both participants occupying a certain role (i.e. pretense) such as that of a therapist and a patient.  While this is not what I would consider “true openness” because it is incomplete, there is still huge potential to foster personal growth in the patient, which is what the openness of therapeutic relationships exists to do.  It must still be asserted, however, that the degree of fulfillment that one receives from being involved in an open relationship really depends on the degree to which both partners are willing to be open with each other.  One can be completely open to others – strip their very soul bare to another – and if that is not reciprocated, it can’t be said that there is any openness at all in one’s interpersonal relationships. 

The role of this openness in interpersonal relationships is simple.  In addition to the fact that nearly every method for fostering personal growth and strengthening relationships depends on the ability of both partners to be open with each other, it provides the sense of satisfaction that motivates us to be involved in relationships in the first place.  The study of interpersonal relationships revolves around finding ways in which to make interpersonal connections stronger and more mutually beneficial.  This class did an admirable job of demonstrating many of the ways that one can accomplish this, and I feel that I’ve benefitted from it in that respect.  I am most grateful that we at one point touched upon the topic of openness, because although openness isn’t a topic that is highly analyzed in the study of interpersonal relationships, it is one that is often considered a prerequisite to being able to even tolerate involvement in interpersonal relationships.  It is an absolutely vital characteristic on both personal and interpersonal levels.

However, the difficulties I’ve outlined surrounding our ability to make these sorts of connections are a source of great deliberation for me.  If my journals have demonstrated anything, it’s that I have not been able to successfully establish any relationships that possess a satisfactory degree of openness this semester.  The reason for this is essentially due my own withdrawal from being open with people.  Any doubts I had that human beings were even capable of dropping pretenses and being open with each other were greatly exacerbated and reflected in my own behaviors.  At one point I tried to explain my concerns over my own withdrawal and resulting loneliness to a friend, but this person did not really reciprocate my willingness to be open, which is what I believe is responsible for determining my focus on openness as the only aspect of interpersonal relationships worth focusing on for a final reflection paper. 

The reason why I have not been able to exit this state of withdrawal is because there isn’t much of a method for fostering a willingness to be open for oneself.  Several of the articles involved outline methods by which to foster openness in a relationship, but that won’t occur unless one is willing to be open in the first place.  A therapeutic setting, as is described at length, is obviously one in which both the therapist and the patient are both willing to be open.  The same cannot be said for normal life.  On top of the lack of willingness to be open in one’s relationships, no one particularly wants anyone else to be open with them unless they are comfortable with being open themselves.  Openness is thus best created in newer relationships in which boundaries are not set and pretenses are not yet present. 

The most important step in overcoming the fear of being open is overcoming insecurities.  It is impossible to be open unless one drops the pretenses surrounding one’s interpersonal relationships or even surrounding how one views oneself.  As these pretenses are a direct result of masking insecurities, eliminating insecurity eliminates pretense.  Eliminating pretense fosters openness.  I’m not going to explain how to overcome insecurities.  Hundreds of books have been written on the subject of overcoming insecurity and still no one my age really knows how to do it at all.  Despite this, I do believe that there is a way for everyone to adopt a willingness to be open as a part of their personalities.  This is a process to which no method can be assigned, because overcoming one’s insecurities is invariably an intensely personal process.  Once one overcomes one’s own insecurities, one is ready to move on to adopting the responsibility of encouraging others to be open – not only with oneself but with other people as well. 

Although there are many angles from which I could have reflected upon my experiences in this class and their connections to my everyday life, openness is the most important.  Without the ability or desire to be open in one’s interpersonal relationships one can derive no pleasure, no satisfaction, no personal growth, and no purpose.  Thus, the fact that the interpersonal quality of openness and the personal quality of willingness to be open is so lacking scares me.  It is in the area of openness that we have the most potential to feel fulfilled in our interpersonal relationships.  This is the key to enriching our lives.  We must all be taking steps to discontinue bearing the burden of masking our insecurities with pretenses and idealized versions of ourselves – we must simply be ourselves as we are.

*Just for reference, the term “open relationships” in this context will refer to any relationships that possess the quality of openness as I’ve defined it rather than the specific type of romantic relationships.

Fuck it, dude.

Let's go bowling.

Accuracy (noun) \ˈa-kyə-rə-sē, ˈa-k(ə-)rə-\

Hypothesis

I bet there are several 5-year-olds who were able to figure this one out before me, but I still think it's important to jot down. 

Something worth noting when it comes to sadness is that it isn't necessarily the opposite of happiness.  Things are never as simple as "Happiness is to good as sadness as to bad".  I was informed recently that during the last time I was truly happy - the same time in which the first available entry on this blog appears, late summer 2009 - I was considered (apparently ubiquitously) a douchebag.  My reformation from douchehood also apparently coincided with the onset and increasing severity of my depression.  At first I thought that this was because people like me more when I'm miserable, even though misery isn't a face I wear - it's a burden I bear, alone.  This may or may not be a sad reality - I don't know, as I am not going to ask anybody (and even if I did, they'd deny that they get off on my self-imposed suffering) - but that's a standpoint that even I know is void of any serious value, despite the fact that my brain tends to warp events into the belief that all people, especially myself, are terrible.  No, the most interesting part of that revelation comes from me reviewing my life at that point in my life.

Back then, I was a lot less self-centered.  I would hardly know if it weren't for two things: 

1. The contents of this blog reflect my primary concerns at the time of their publishing.  They were a lot less focused on me than the more recent bitchfests have been.  
2. If I were truly less self-centered, I'd be less self-conscious/self-aware, and vice-versa. (I don't like the fact that they're synonymous but self-consciousness is always a negative trait and self-awareness is always a positive trait.  Oh well.)  I was definitely less self-aware than now if I couldn't recognize that everybody thought I was insufferable. 

Anyway, this sort of reflects my answer to the questions: "Why do I remember sadness but not bad times?" and the corollary, "Why do I forget happiness but not good times?"  Happiness is actually to good as sadness is to bad, it's just a bit more complicated than that.  We remember sadness because all it is defined by is relentless introspection, to which my last few entries can attest.  We are so fascinated by our own unhappiness to the point of being masochistic, we're so self-centered.  That's the same reason we don't remember bad times, too - we're so wrapped up in our own heads we experience life completely detached from the experiences that are often a significant cause or reason behind the sadness. 

I've operated under the somewhat misguided belief that all humans are self-centered for a while, but the corollary regarding happiness relies on the opposite being at least somewhat true.  If my happiness two years ago coincided with diminished self-awareness, that would explain both why I remember/documented all the events that took place then and why I forgot the sensation of being truly happy.  It's not because we're content with where we are and have nothing to complain about that we don't document our happiness - actually, right now, I feel like if I were happy I'd want to shout it out from the top of the Empire State Building or something - it's because we're so much less self-absorbed that we don't bother to try to intellectualize it or "focus on experiencing ourselves" to the full extent.  We focus instead on experiencing the world around us, because life is more worthy of analysis and deconstruction than ourselves when that is true. 

However, in order to defend the perspective that all people are self-centered, it's because all people are unhappy.  I wasn't kidding when I said we have a fascination with our own sadness.  I don't think there is much more to add to that other than "Blame TV, Facebook, etc. for that".  Anything that fuels our own self-absorption is a source of misery.  Now if only TV and Facebook weren't the two things I spent most of my time doing besides sleeping... (sleeping is also a pretty self-absorbed activity, too.  And even then it fits into my hypothesis pretty nicely - we don't remember the experience of sleeping but remember and constantly long for the sensation.)  

Top 50

So anyway, I'm going to take a break from ceaseless self-analysis because it's a hugely self-indulgent and masochistic exercise.  Writing, on the other hand, is not.  I figured that in order to be able to call myself a proper film guy it's important that I list my favorite (and I'll admit this is nowhere close to a perfect list) movies and a brief description of why I like them. Keep in mind that I tried to be inclusive of all genres and that beyond the first eight or so the order stops being relevant. 

1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - This is the movie against which I can safely judge the quality of most other movies.  The plot?  Bulletproof idea.  The acting?  Oscar-worthy.  The screenplay?  Oscar-winning, in fact.  But the real success of the movie comes from the fact that it dissects the oft-pondered and nigh-imponderable topic of love and companionship in a highly surreal and cerebral fashion. 
2. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory - My love for this movie relies hugely on nostalgia and the fact that watching it is magically faith-restoring.  Pure Imagination is without a doubt my favorite song of all time, too.
3. Pan's Labyrinth - I've only seen this one time but it left a huge impression on me.  A lot of my favorite readings revolve around magical realism, which this movie embodies better than any other that I can think of.
4. Almost Famous - Coming-of-age stories don't get much cooler than this.  Almost perfectly captures what it's like to be a young teenage boy while at the same time telling a larger-than-life and largely true story.
5. City of God - This is the movie Slumdog Millionaire wanted to be and whose heights it couldn't reach.  Also, this has some of the most beautiful cinematography ever. 
6. Inception - This movie made me realize that all other movies are just condescending.  Few movies are this elaborately and well plotted and the fact that it manages to be simultaneously gripping is a huge accomplishment. 
7. Children of Men - One of the best depictions of dystopian sci-fi in movies with gratuitous long shots that I have always found far more engaging than the typical fast cuts you'd find in these sorts of movies to mask CGI effects, etc.
8. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - It's impressive enough for the first 30 minutes of a movie to be interesting and engaging while taking place from the same perspective in the same room.  It's even more impressive for a movie to create such a detailed, emotional, and beautiful portrait of a man locked in his own body. 
9. Ferris Bueller's Day Off - I shouldn't have to describe why I love this movie, you probably understand it.  But I'll let you know that watching this movie under the popular fan theory that Ferris is just a figment of Cameron's imagination makes the movie a masterpiece. 
10. District 9 - In case you're wondering why this movie is ranked so high, it's because I appreciate that it exceeds all expectations for its plot and characters.  Few movies succeed as well on so many levels - effects, acting, plot, cinematography, dramatic effect, etc.  Despite the fact that it is decidedly less award-baity than most other movies on this list it gets a higher rank. 
11. The Big Lebowski - I know a lot about the narrative structure from reading TV Tropes like a madman, but how this movie was constructed will always escape me.  Hilarious.
12. Groundhog Day - Despite its nearly ubiquitously poor execution in movies and TV, time travel is one of my favorite plot devices and this movie is one of the few to be able to do it right. 
13. Kill Bill -The modern standard for revenge flicks, and Tarantino's best for those among us (me!) who found Pulp Fiction to be a bit too indecipherable to be better than this.  Although if I were being realistic with my selections and wasn't trying to include as many directors and genres as possible, both Pulp Fiction and Inglorious Basterds would also be on this list, and very high.  
14. The Neverending Story - Childhood classic that has somehow actually improved with age, unlike most products of the 80s. 
15. Brick - Film noir + high school + Joseph Gorden-Levitt = Awesome.
16. Oldboy - More revenge?  This movie covers the same ground as Kill Bill but somehow in an even more melodramatic, violent fashion.  
17. Big Fish - Tim Burton's best movie ever, probably because it was one of his least macabre.  He needs to do more like this instead of shit like Alice in Wonderland.  
18. Avatar - Shut the fuck up, this movie made you jizz in your pants when you saw it and anybody who disagrees is a damn liar.  The fact that this manages to work even with a cliche storm of a plot is evidence that tropes are not bad. 
19. Once - A musical with a score that isn't mixed poorly might be all that's necessary to beat the rest, but the fact that it still manages to be good in all other respects is admirable. 
20. Grizzly Man - This movie is the best documentary I've ever seen, ever.  Basically a complex character study, except with fucking bears.  I almost wish it weren't a documentary so people don't avoid it for that label, because this movie is utterly fascinating.
21. Where the Wild Things Are - This is the only kid's movie ever to capture what it actually feels like to be a kid as opposed to the way filmmakers typically perceive kids as feeling.  A hugely nostalgic experience.
22. Good Will Hunting - A movie about wasting potential.  I don't know if I have potential, which is exactly why it's being wasted.  If there is potential for anything you can never know if you're wasting it or not, and I find that terrifying.  This movie slides onto the optimistic side of the scale, with the protagonist realizing he's capable of being better than he is, for lack of better words.  Pretty much the opposite of...
23. Greenberg - Believe it or not, I really don't like Noah Baumbach all that much, but this is the one movie of his featuring one of his trademark terribly unlikeable protagonists that actually made a scary amount of sense to me.  I like it a lot more for its personal meaning than for its artistic merit.  Speaking of which...
24. Vanilla Sky - I can't tell you how much I should hate this movie... but its got far too much in the way of narrative structures I actually like to really hate.  Character-driven science fiction in the same vein as Firefly, Eternal Sunshine and Vanilla Sky is the best genre for examining the "what-if" questions in a way that is actually fulfilling because the protagonist's journey is identical to the viewer's, even especially if the protagonist is a jackass. 
25. Mulholland Dr. - I almost gave up on this movie based on the fact that it didn't seem like anything but the TV pilot that I later found out it was supposed to be for the first hour or so.  But once Naomi Watts reveals her character's hidden depths (i.e. the audition scene) the movie becomes one of the most massively cerebral and engaging experiences to be seen on film.  
26. The Fountain - Yeah, fuck me for putting what many consider to be Aronofsky's worst movie as the best, but this movie has a better plot, writing, and acting than people give it credit for in addition to some of the best cinematography and the single best score of all time.  
27. The Blair Witch Project - I realize that these past several choices have all been controversial, but this movie was deeply unsettling because the idea of getting lost is something that I've never seen explored as in-depth as it was here in the horror genre despite the fact that it is a terrifying experience.  Mission accomplished, stupid dead teens in the woods. 
28. Danny Boyle - I can't choose between his movies.  It's like asking to pick a favorite child, and if I could I would pick all of them.  Trainspotting, Millions, 28 Days Later,  Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours and even the weird "slasher in space" Sunshine are all favorites because even though they often cover very dark, grim subjects, few filmmakers can capture the sensation of happiness on film quite like Boyle.
29. The Matrix - For the same reasons everybody else likes them.  The sequels are good too, despite popular opinion on the matter, if only for the action scenes.  I remember the freeway chase and the battle in Zion more fondly than any action scene from the first one, even if the latter two are overwritten and sort of nonsense. 
30. Serenity - I enjoy watching this movie whenever possible due to the fact that it is the conclusion to my favorite show of all time, Firefly, but it also works very well as a standalone.  One criticism from the standpoint of a fan of the show is that it isn't as heavily invested in all of the characters as the show was, but that makes it quite a bit easier to follow for an outsider than one might think.  In fact, I saw the movie before I'd even heard of the show and enjoyed the idea of the Space Western quite a bit.
31. Spaceballs - Spoof movies are a genre that needs to be vindicated, and I'm afraid that the genre has been thoroughly killed and buried by the shit shoveled out by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer.  If there is ever to be any evidence that spoofs were ever good, look to Mel Brooks.  This one is a personal favorite of mine. 
32. Being John Malkovich - Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich.
33. (500) Days of Summer - At the time that I saw it, possibly the most uplifting movie ever made.  Now, a guide for the neurotic young adult on how the world of love and relationships works.  Owes a lot to Eternal Sunshine despite being a far less complex viewing experience. 
34. Howl's Moving Castle - I recognize the superiority of Spirited Away, but this is a list of my favorites, not the list of the best movies I can think of.  This is the movie that got me into Studio Ghibli and it is undoubtedly one of their better products.  Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away get honorable mentions. 
35. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - Appreciated above all others for its artistic merit and (sorry) epic time-travelling finale.  Despite the fact that the previous two movies were higher-grossing and the plot of the books doesn't come to the turning point until the end of the Goblet of Fire, this was the game-changer for the movies as it demonstrated that they were more than stiflingly faithful adaptations of the novels, that these children can act, and that time travel doesn't suck.
36. Shawshank Redemption - I am not a film critic.  This movie doesn't embody the sort of mastery that has earned The Godfather or Citizen Kane or anything their labels as the greatest films ever made.  But I'll be damned if this isn't one of the most uplifting, soulful, resonant movies ever made, and it's unfair to judge cinematic greatness on terms outside of the impact on its audience.  Speaking of which...
37. Toy Story 3 - The first movie created a new art form and did so with style.  The second movie demonstrated that this art form wasn't a gimmick and could convey emotions as well as a live-action film.  The third reduced this man to weeping like a little girl.
38. Primer - If you haven't picked up on it yet, time travel gets a bad reputation due to the number of instances in which it is demonstrated poorly.  This is the example of time travel plots done right.  The events of the plot are confusing as fuck but the time travel mechanism is explained, and the paths of the protagonists through time are clear.  Also notable for being a champion of low-budget cinema.
39. Let The Right One In - The timing of this movie amidst the Twilight-fueled vampire craze is hilarious, because I get the feeling that the vampire romance in this movie is exactly what Twilight was aiming for but instead got the exact opposite - both the genuinely frightening implications of being in love with a monster and the inherent sweetness of the relationship between the leads drive the movie.
40. The Fox and the Hound - My favorite Disney Animated Classic, for obvious reasons.  Anyone who doesn't like this movie has no soul.
41. Leaving Las Vegas - Damn depressing.  I watched this movie with the belief in my head that, against all odds, the main character would stick to the predicted narrative structure of overcoming his addiction and getting the girl.  Nope.  Two hours of a man drinking himself to death.  
42. I Love You, Man - A movie starring Jason Segel and Paul Rudd about the beautiful relationship known as bromance.  What's not to love?  Also notable for being the source of many phrases that have actually entered my everyday speech (and the phrase "totes" which has entered everybody's everyday speech).
43. The Truman Show - Duh.  Let's see what else is on.  
44. Donnie Darko - A must-have for a list containing lots of critically-acclaimed films involving time-travel.  Too bad Richard Kelly is like the M. Night Shyamalan of indie movies.  Apparently this movie being good was an accident.
45. Dark City - A movie that caught me off-guard.  I was expecting a movie similar to The Matrix, which this is compared to all the time.  They are similar in terms of their simulated reality concept, but beyond that they share almost nothing except being good.  One thing I liked more than The Matrix was how the ability to alter reality at will - essentially being the God that Neo was made out to be over the course of three films - was deconstructed more completely in five minutes.  
46. House of Flying Daggers - I needed to include at least one martial arts epic.  I used to watch a ton of them, for a reason that mostly escapes me to this day.  This movie is over-the-top gorgeous, dramatic, and thrilling.  
47. The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra - I couldn't not include this.  An extremely affectionate parody of cheaply-made 1950's era sci-fi B movies that is so realistic you'd almost mistake it for one at first glance if you didn't understand those sort of Earth jokes.  
48. The Dark Knight - Easily the best superhero movie since the revival of the genre in the late nineties.  I shouldn't have to explain why because you've seen this movie.  
49. The Crow - I'd intended to see this for a while simply due to its awesome soundtrack, but I didn't anticipate the movie to be so... cool.  I mean, a lot of that is probably owed to the comic, but the main character is immune to bullets, kills people off in awesomely brutal fashion, plays guitar on rooftops, is crazy good at parkour and kung-fu, and wears clown makeup while doing all of those things to really angry 90s alternative rock.
50. The Royal Tenenbaums - Wes Anderson saved the world with this movie. With a movie invoking the dysfunctional family reunion trope you would expect a feature-length sitcom, but instead get a dramedy where each and every character is interesting, endearing, and believable despite their unbelievable lives.  That just goes to show you how far acting chops can get you. 

Where We Are Now

I need to keep writing.  I've spent literally half the day asleep and three quarters of the day in bed, so some low-quality rambling introspection is necessary to even validate my existence.

I'll be the first to admit that I am not a person of good humor.  Witty, maybe, but not of good humor.  I'm pretty much a cynical bastard who derives an uncomfortable amount of pleasure from the misfortune and suffering of others.  Say something stupid?  I'll call you out in a heartbeat and make you feel stupid.  It's not that that's necessarily something I can help but choose not to.  I am not - nor have I ever been - a particularly compassionate person.  However, I recognize the need for compassionate people in this world.  I've become possessed by the idea that a little bit less cynicism in the world might keep myself (and others) from becoming possessed by the idea that this life is not worth sticking around for.  The universe is chaotic neutral, but that doesn't mean that the Kalamazoo community or Ann Arbor community or the human community has to be.  Cynics like me can sit back and mock others for bothering to defend a guy who tYpeZZ Liek DIs ONda inTanet, but that doesn't make us exempt from wanting to be defended - or more importantly, loved.  There is no point in wanting to mock the human experience when we all live it as brutally earnestly as the next guy.  At the end of the day, everybody wants to be loved.  The lonely blogger teenage nerds, the crying toddlers, the abandoned elderly, the victims of bullying and the bullies themselves all just want to be loved.

The longing for love is a powerful need.  It's arguably more powerful than the experience of being in love.  I wouldn't know, personally, but I think that this is the explanation behind the urges of a man or woman to cheat on his or her significant other.  It's not about the forsaking of one's beloved.  It's about seeing opportunities for feeling loved elsewhere.  It's not a very smart opportunity to take, mind you, but it's there, and it's tempting for a lot of people.  And unfortunately it's not always a longing that is met.  As I said earlier, the universe is chaotic neutral.  Whether or not we're able to find love is never dependent on whether or not we deserve it more than anybody else.  It's only dependent on where one is in space and time - whether or not you're in a position to meet "the right one".

The problem with that last statement is that it's not actually true.  The only thing we have control over when it comes to finding love is our disposition.  You could be a cocky misogynist who still manages to get the girl because he has no doubt in his mind that he is capable of bedding this dumb bitch and exudes a confidence that is (to the seductee) incredibly attractive and (to the cynic) incredibly infuriating.  Alternately, you could be the cynic who doesn't even manage to speak a word to the beautiful woman sitting next to him on the bus because in his head he's battling a blizzard of self-defeating thoughts, like "You're way too neurotic for women to find you attractive," and "She's way out of your league, what chance have you got with her?"  The key to finding love is confidence, and the key to confidence is loving oneself. 

Loving myself is something I've absolutely never been able to do.  I was just born without self-esteem, I guess.  I don't even necessarily want self-esteem.  Self-esteem is often just an excuse for being the asshole.  But even self-esteem doesn't necessarily involve loving oneself.  Take the cynic, again.  If self-esteem is relative, the cynic thinks he's king of the world.  But he is not capable of loving himself as long as he views life as a predictable and futile pursuit of happiness.  He just doesn't recognize that the answer to the universal longing for love is staring him right in the face.  If you want love, love yourself.  That's as close as it gets.  It's not companionship, no, but it's as close as you're gonna get until you're in the right place at the right time to meet the right one. 

The reason why I don't love myself is because I base my self-worth far too highly on what other people think of me.  I feel unloved.  I feel unimportant.  I feel like because I recognize that everyone is the hero of their own story, everyone is just as capable of passing a collective judgment on my value as a person as I am, if not more capable.  But nobody else knows me.  Everyone's too self-absorbed to know me.  Everyone feels unimportant and unloved because nobody else is willing to look outside themselves because the longing for love overrides all desire to bother to look past oneself and actually love somebody else.  That is until they reach that coming-of-age moment and learn to look past themselves and actually learn how to be compassionate and learn how to love other people.  Love is far too much of a social experience for anyone to find it by navel-gazing and sitting on their asses waiting to be in the right position in space and time. 

Which is my problem.  I'm not done navel-gazing.  I have no fucking idea how to love myself.  You don't learn that shit by recognizing that that's where you need to start.  You don't realize that you love yourself.  If you don't love yourself, you simply just don't.  My problem is that I have absolutely no idea how to learn how to do it, either.  I'm really, really confused by my own existence.  To love someone you have to know him, or at least feel like you know him.  I don't know myself.  Hence the navel-gazing.  Is the ability to focus one's attention on someone other than oneself gained by knowing oneself, or is it just apathy?  How does one get to know oneself? 

I'm at an impasse with myself.  There is no way I can proceed from here that doesn't involve, well, distracting myself until an actual solution comes to me.  I've finally obtained some medication (even though for some reason I experience all the side-effects even at a dosage low enough to not affect anything other than my will to move) and I'm supposed to be seeing a therapist, even though in reality she's way overbooked and not terribly intellectually stimulating.  I don't expect any of these to fix me.  The only thing that can fix me is me, and that means being able to separate myself from my mental illness.  Which is a problem, because I can't do that.  Self-loathing isn't a symptom of a disease, it's a reality.  I just have to be able to identify which bits of that self-hatred constitute the depressed, self-sabotaging Nigel and which constitute the possibly-normal Nigel who is capable of using the knowledge of his own flaws to make himself a better person and love himself and be loved in return and ride off into the sunset on a silver unicorn with his blushing bride and millions of doubloons.

By the way, I still think I'm right about all love being conditional, even though that did admittedly come out of a moment of pure misanthropy.  Loving yourself unconditionally is impossible.  We set up a ton of conditions for loving ourselves, and they're often the same conditions we set up for loving others.  We don't hold ourselves to higher standards than others, they're the same.  That's the basis of the golden rule.  You appropriately despise someone who hurts others, but you deserve to despise yourself the same amount for hurting others, too.  And that's what anyone with a trace of self-awareness will do.  This is just more evidence that love for oneself and love for others are intertwined.

I mentioned earlier that the longing for love is a symptom of the need to be loved, i.e. we will die without love.  This is true.  I am not even nineteen and I feel as if I'm wasting away.  I can feel myself dying with each crack of my joints.  I just want to experience with happiness that it looks like other people have before I do, in fact, die.  And I want it to be soon because right now just kind of sucks.  I'm not being cynical, I'm stating a fact.  Compassion is a symptom of the ability to love oneself and, in turn, the ability to love others.  I want that ability.  I need compassion.  I need love.  I need things to get better.  I need to come up with a solution, not just a "fix" as everyone keeps telling me.  I need to figure out why I am who I am and how to accept the part of me that is me and reject that part of me that is a disease.  I need to get out of bed and interview other people or something.  I need to live before I die. 

This is really hard.

Here's the first step to recovery: overcoming writer's block.  In spite of what one would guess based on the general morbidity of the shit I post here, I can't write when I'm depressed.  It's impossible.  I could psychoanalyze myself on paper and try to explain why this is true when the majority of overhormone'd teenagers flip the fuck out when they're sad and go crazy all over the internet in a desperate bid for the attention of their peers in hopes they can find some companionship - somewhere.  The morbidity comes from the fact that I am just a morbid person.  I'm not necessarily truly unhappy when I write any of that.  I am sometimes, but apparently it's not a cathartic activity because the less happy I am the harder it gets.  This is evidenced by the fact that I "started" this blog at a time when I was scared, but happier than I'd been in a long time.  Possibly ever. 

My problem is that I certainly didn't realize it at the time, indicating that I am incapable of experiencing happiness as it happens.  It's not like I'm twisting around my own memories to convince myself that I was happy at a given time, I just was.  I don't feel like I savored it.  This is a bad thing because I'm reaching that point where I can't even remember what it feels like.  I know the conditions.  Just not the sensation of pure, prolonged elation.

Anyway, I figured that an easy topic to try to write about would be just how my semester went: badly.  I took a class called the Psychology of Interpersonal Relationships which I think I mentioned at one point pertained to several things I've discussed.  At the end we had to write an internal reflection paper which basically resulted in me explaining that I'm too fucked up to be remotely introspective without wanting to hang myself, and proceeding to explain where everyone else is at fault in terms of how they interact with people.  The answer?  Maybe later.  Maybe not.  It depends on whether or not I decide that all relationships are built entirely on lies, deceit, prejudice, apathy, etc.  Right now I'm leaning toward that being true, but that could also just be my broken head at work.  We'll see. 

I also took Physics 140, which is basically just Newtonian Mechanics, and is possibly the worst-taught class I've ever imagined.  I hope that I passed that because I will not bother to retake it if I didn't.  As an aside, it's far less likely that I passed any of my classes this semester than the previous one due to everything that's been going on, so just keep in mind that failure is a possibility for any of my classes besides the psychology one.  It's not that it's hard (although it is, to some extent).  It's that the grade in that class depends strongly on online homework that consumes an unholy amount of time to complete and, worst of all, doesn't teach you anything.  This is one of the least effective learning tools I've ever even heard of.  I don't want to spend that much time not learning.  It's fucking absurd.  However, I do know that I got a straight A in the lab for this class.  My self-esteem is skyrocketing. 

Calc III was my favorite class, if that says anything about how much this semester sucked.  I did about average up until the recent final, which I am absolutely positive I have failed.

My engineering class was called Solar Power and Photovoltaics and resulted in me being exposed to even more work in various engineering disciplines that I couldn't give two shits about.  I think I passed it alright, though, fortunately.  We'll see.  This class was by far the scariest because I came out of it no closer to deciding a discipline than I was when this semester started.  On the contrary - I'm even farther.  Next year I'm taking a Civil/Environmental Engineering course and that's it as far as engineering goes. 

Much to my chagrin, next semester I'll also be continuing the same route for Calculus and Physics.  In order to finish up my prerequisites (which, depending on my major, will be finished after this), I'll be taking an art history course that sounds like the coolest shit ever called Art, Science, and Technology.  I'm sort of optimistic about that.  I don't know. 

I didn't really make any new friends other than my neighbor, and even between the two of us there's a huge disconnect in terms of personality.  I don't really know why she likes me.  I feel like I come off as a huge asshole around her.  Maybe it's because I am one and she's the only one who makes me see it. 

Cool.  That was really quite terribly written, wasn't it?  I can't write at all anymore.  It's not good.  I feel bad about that.  Baby steps, I guess.  Or maybe I should stop.  It doesn't matter either way, does it?

Love

is conditional.  And those conditions are nearly always petty.

Why in the fuck am I still writing in this?  Nobody reads it, I've completely jumped off the deep end in terms of sanity, and I can't come up with a coherent thought that lasts longer than a few sentences even when writing.  My thoughts don't even come out in words anymore.  It's just feelings.  As "emo" as that sounds it's to the point where I can't even articulate my mood because I'm that fucking out of touch with my own brain.

I'm done.

Nostalgia Vortex

I'm stuck in one of those situations where you would kill to experience anything that you ever hated because it's that much of an improvement over the present.

Also, I've been thinking about death ALL DAY.  Not really healthy behavior at all. 

Apathy

That's the answer to the obvious question.  I think I'm sort of the opposite of most writers/bloggers in that I cannot write for shit when I'm not in my right mind.  Here's a brief summary of where I'm at right now, though:

• Mental health is wildly inconsistent and overall terrible
• I get wound up and angry far more than anybody over the age of 15 should
• Overall, grades are much poorer
• Convinced I'm in the wrong field of study but inexplicably can't think of anything better.  Apathy is also a huge hindrance in this area too, because I can't think of anything that I am good at and that I like. 
• For the first time I can remember since I was like 14, free of sexual or emotional attraction to anybody (even Friendzone and especially Girl A, let alone anybody I'm meeting in school)
• Still looking for something to do over the summer - study, work, whatever
• Addicted to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Shamrock Shakes, and Pokemon Puzzle League
• Most likely depressed, I will admit I'm avoiding treatment out of shame/skepticism
• A lot more homework to deal with than expected/wanted and more than last semester
• Trying desperately to come up with a life plan in an attempt to correct my current aimlessness.  Implausibility aside, this is one of the few good things I've been up to lately.
• Finally, making friends in class.  Specifically my engineering class where we often work in teams.

I wanted to end on the happy stuff.  I mean, life isn't treating me all that great right now and frankly I'm quite scared of living.  It's only hitting me just now how unprepared I am to live independently - monetarily, romantically, emotionally, etc.  But I'm also realizing how important it is for me to be able to do these things if I'm going to stay alive.

Defining Success

I don't usually write in response to articles, but I was a-stalking Dear Coke Talk (introduced via Facebook a while back and I cannot stop reading) when I came across this article about Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior.  Read that first or else this won't make any sense.  I think that the purpose of this article/book being promoted is really to invoke debate more than actually convince people to raise their children with this sort of vigor, but here's my rebuttal/rant anyway.

I actually don't think I'm very qualified based on my own personal set of values to believe that this sort of parenting is ineffective.  The reason why is because I agree that these sorts of harsh methods are actually effective at getting kids (and people in general) to perform better at whatever the task at hand may be.  I just question why it's necessary.  Medicine is not the only career where financial success is a guarantee.  There's also the issue as to whether financial success can even be called success.  I've had my fair share of Chinese Mother figures, so it's not like I'm completely in the dark as to what experiencing life in a household like this is.  The difference is that the only time when I feel it's appropriate to act like this is when the student (and I mostly think this applies to teaching situations) asks for it.  Being harsh as fuck when it comes to getting a kid (or otherwise) to learn something well is the best method of teaching short of just being really good at getting kids to understand what it is you're trying to teach.  No, it's not very humane, but it works.  Once you thoroughly beat any interest the kid has in learning something out of him, though, there is absolutely no reason to continue.  Parenting, unfortunately, isn't an opt-out job.  And since parents (although they think they might) don't know what their kids want any more than their kids themselves, I don't believe they have the right to force their kids down a certain learning pathway and be total dicks about it.  This notion applies especially well to religion from my perspective, although for many of the more conservative religions folk that's far too hard to accept (especially since their kids are damned for all eternity if they don't love Jesus or whatever), so that entire aspect of "Chinese parenting" isn't exclusively Chinese. 

However, I do respect the idea of wanting your kids to be financial successful.  Money is certainly capable of buying happiness.   It's just that I think choosing the career for your kid while he's still in the womb grossly overreaches the boundaries of a parent in their kids life.  Parents are there to imbue you with the obvious lessons like "get an education and work hard all the way through life" and that should really be enough.  Choosing what activities your kids are and are not allowed to do on the sole basis of whether it's a distraction is downright harmful because it denies kids their ability to pursue something they are passionate about.  Saying your kid will become a doctor will more often than not be translated by a kid as "you're not allowed to love music or art or psychology or philosophy or literature etc." because, honestly, not that many people want to go into medicine.  And for god's sake, it still isn't the only field where financial success is a guarantee.  I'm going into freaking chemical engineering.  That's the third highest-paying college degree in the US right now.  Am I passionate about engineering?  Not particularly, but the financial perks, as I said, are awesome.  On top of that I'm pretty good at math and science (more so than the more subjective/creative areas of study).  It's something that right now I feel benefit me the most, and I know myself better than my parents do.  Every kid knows themselves better than their parents.  Psychologists believe that parents don't even play that large of a role in the development of their kids anymore.  Which is an even larger argument against controlling every aspect of your kids life.

I'll reiterate, though: parents do reserve the right to teach their kids to be successful.  And they reserve the right to drill that harder than anything.  But what is success?  I think it's happiness.  Parents don't fucking know how to make their kids happy.  People don't know how to make themselves happy.  Money can buy happiness but only a little.  Passion is the main source of happiness, and a parent can never give their kids passion.  Passion is something that has to be discovered - granted, sometimes the same passions get passed down through generations, but more of that might have to do with genetics and the same general upbringing endowing kids with the same creative gifts as their parents.  (Yes, I consider creative fields to be the ones to be passionate about, due to my own shortage of empathy - I don't understand how people share passion for things like accounting...)  Myself?  I've found myself lately seeking to become two things: an environmentalist and a teacher.  I don't mean these things so much in the professional sense of the word, but, regardless of how I define them, neither of these general "states of being" (for lack of better words) are known for being a great opportunity to make money.  My parents certainly taught me to strive for success, but did they do that by limiting my academic options to "only the absolute best" and my extracurricular activities to "violin or piano only"?  Fuck no.  I guarantee my parents would have readily supported an education in music had I chosen to do that instead (and I'm under the impression that this was an option, even though I honestly never considered it very strongly).  My parents didn't force me to sacrifice anything for the sake of a grade.  Does this mean that I'm successful?  I'm certainly not happy, so I wouldn't say that I am very successful.  But I think Amy Chua would be able to say I'm only a moderate failure as a child, which is the highest of compliments for someone of my comparatively low intelligence.  And I didn't have to sacrifice any part of who I was or actually wanted to be to get there.  Not that I'm "there" yet, but you get the picture.

Yeah, it's racist.  Bite me.

Realization

This doesn't really count as a post, but I just realized that the seminar that I'm taking this semester called "The Psychology of Interpersonal Relationships" essentially reflects the most popular topics of discussion right here on my blog/online diary.  I realized this while writing a short paper on "defensive communication".  So basically, prepare for more posting about semi-interesting things. 

Also, I'm still kind of on the fence on whether or not I want to take this class or not.  As much as I like this sort of subject it's quite obviously fairly steeped in bullshit and eats up a fair amount of time on my already mundane Wednesdays. (Hey!  That's the name of the blog!)

2010 in retrospect

So I actually like doing these posts - I certainly enjoyed doing it last year, despite saying that I hated reminiscing about things immediately after they happen.  The only problem with doing that is often you're too emotionally involved with what you're discussing that you say things that you don't mean later.  However, that's not necessarily a bad thing, because it allows you to observe how you've changed and grown as a person. 

Unless of course there is absolutely nothing to discuss.  Oh hai, 2010.

(btw this movie pretty much sums up how fucking retarded 2010 was)

In 2009 I predicted that 2010 would "be my year."  That was not true by any extent.  2010 is a year I've described and hopefully will continue to describe as the single most static year of my life.  As I said on Facebook, this is as close as you can get to describing a year as if it were an episode of Seinfeld.  No hugging, no learning.  2009 (and 2008, before I purged all pre-tour posts) were marked by profound personal growth that led me in a giant circle of faux-self-discovery to where I am today, which is essentially the same thing that I was before high school.  Basically, I ended this year the same way it began, which was the same way that I was before those damn hormones decided to kick in:  a hypercritical lonely nerd.  The only difference is that now I've gained a little bit of self-awareness.  Maybe it's not even that.  Maybe high school is about exposing you to all the different types of people and teaching how to deal with them, whereas college exists as nothing more than a really expensive platform to show you what you want to do for a living. 

Aside from a lack of growth, 2010 was also static in that nothing happened to me this entire year.  Nothing.  I started off the year lamenting the fact that I didn't have any very close relationships with people outside of my own family.   I guess I improved on that a bit after graduating, maybe.  I don't know.  Romance?  I'm also aware of how unwise it is to post this information here, but I've definitely failed about three times over (quite literally) with entering a romantic relationship.  Hoo boy.  All three fucking cases involved getting turned down by incredible women not because of disinterest in dating me but because I was too late to ask these women out before they went off with other, universally more attractive guys than me.  In every fucking case.  I told myself not to be bitter about these things, and I'm not actually bitter toward anybody in particular.  It's bitterness directed toward impossibly horrible timing and probability (three times - I couldn't make this up) as well the fact that being turned down for no reason other than "not in the cards for you, buddy" allows zero room for any sort of personal growth, because I'm not doing anything inherently wrong.  Which is my main problem with 2010. 

Music?  I didn't play any this year.  Well, I did.  But I was apathetic about all of it, even whilst playing it.  Safe to say that passion was deftly killed by boredom.  I also lost my mind a few times.  The evidence is in the unpublished drafts in this god damn blog.  Maybe that was also because of boredom.  Who knows?  The brain's gotta keep itself occupied.  Fortunately yesterday I got to play marimba for the first time since May.  For five minutes, mind you, but still enough to be successful.  It felt great.

Politics?  Normally this wouldn't be anything worth noting, but I've just lost all faith in the American political system due to corruption in the process of electing our representatives (campaigns can now be funded by multinational corporations without any sort of cap on the amount campaigns can be given, and campaigns don't have to disclose the identity of their donors), which is also probably part of the reason for the huge swing in favor of extreme conservative candidates with the election.  If we knew who these corporations were, I guarantee that they'd back the campaigns that promise less government restriction on commercial/environmental/whatever activities.  Need evidence of how much corruption was already in place before the election?  Rep. Joe Barton of Texas makes a public apology to BP after Obama urged them (well, demanded) to set up a fund for families whose income was damaged by the big oil spill this summer.  Are you fucking kidding me?  If you're a puppet for environmental-assfucking energy companies, at least make sure you keep that little tidbit a secret, you retarded asshole.  And that's just the tip of the iceberg.  There's also the BP oil spill, carbon emissions reduction failing, the newly GOP-controlled house setting up a massive probe to investigate the "fraud that is global warming", denying 9/11 first responders healthcare coverage, extending tax cuts for the richest people in the country despite an enormous deficit, denying extending unemployment until the aforementioned tax cuts were extended, shooting down a gender-centric pay equity bill (basically just for shits and giggles, no good reason), and most of all just being a bunch of assholes who are completely out of touch with the people they're governing.

College?  Don't really know very many people there.  Got a few close contacts.  It's going well, grade-wise.  One time I was told how much we'd all changed since entering college.  So, so wrong.  The reality is that extrinsic change isn't necessarily determinant of intrinsic change.  Such is the case with college.  You're given a blank slate, but when you're an open book is there any opportunity to change yourself?  Not really.  Well, I tried to give myself a bit of an ego.  Whether or not I'm better off as a result of that attempted change is unclear.

I'm a fairly pessimistic person, you see.  But I'm sort of realizing - though I can't be sure, the idea only came to me two days ago - that my problem stems from a fundamental lack of understanding of the nature of mental illness.  Growing up I had problems with insomnia and anxiety (both of which I've overcome, insomnia especially), and I was put in therapy through the ages of twelve through thirteen.  My therapist concluded that I was fine and sent me off without a diagnosis.  I had serious issues.  Being told that insane amounts of mental agony on a daily basis is completely normal is not a good way to get a kid to grow up happy.  And since I did get over them alright within two or three years, I concluded that therapy and self-help books and all that are bullshit (which I still think they are) and that drugs aren't necessary.  Rejected the notion that I have faulty brain chemistry.  Attributed all my fits of anxiety and depression to whatever the circumstances were at the time.  I never wanted to think I was crazy.  Hell, I probably am crazy.  Mental illness is both a precursor and a prerequisite to craziness.  Am I mentally ill?  I damn sure don't ever want to think it, but with each day that my emotions zip around like a seismograph in Southern California - unpredictably and occasionally ferociously - there's a stronger and stronger case building for it.  The only problem is that I feel that if I can't diagnose it, nobody else can.  Which stems from having either a massive ego or from being ignorant.  Mental illnesses are, by nature, unpredictable and detrimental patterns of thought - but whatever it is that's eating me isn't really capable in my mind of being lumped with the generic clinical depression or bipolar disorder.  This fact also doesn't help my whole argument for clinical psychology being a load of shit.  I'm not really sure what to do about this.  I don't really have the shame to pick myself up and get "help" or whatever it is they call having people put words in your mouth to get you to feel better these days.  And frankly I don't want to have to be told that I'm fine again and that this is normal life for everybody.  This fucking sucks.  All change that matters is intrinsic and that doesn't happen when all extrinsic circumstances do are keep you from changing rather than facilitating it.  But if therapy and/or drugs are what it takes, whatever, I guess.  New year's resolution: Come to terms with this.

The main problem is that I don't even know what I want anymore.  Everything is out of my control right now - essentially, all I can do to make my life better is try to overwhelm myself to the point where my only concerns are outside of the realm of emotion and critical thinking.  Make myself into a god damn robot until the world catches up to me.  Or else keep thinking about until I figure out what I'm doing wrong and catch up with the rest of the world.

Whatever.  Oh, 2011, how I long for your sweet embrace.