Death to Perfection

So here in Vermont my grandma has a lot of novels, and because I am a fast reader I like to scour the shelves in the morning for a book and finish it within the day. Today’s is Stained Glass by William F. Buckley, and it is pretty good and I am halfway through it, but it is pissing me off.

Tt is a spy novel set in the ’50s so it features both spies and aristocrats, the two very most annoying types of people to make fictional characters out of. Why? Because they’re perfect. They are fluent in many languages. They are educated at the very best universities and excel academically, socially, romantically. They have all sorts of hobbies and interests at which they are experts. They are jacks of all trades except for those they are masters of. they have no weaknesses. It is extremely lame to feel jealous of a person who doesn’t even exist.

I have never met such a person who is truly good at everything without some sort of cost. A lot of smart people are not very well-adjusted and a lot of educated, accomplished people are insufferably arrogant. But I can’t help but think that’s true only because I’ve never been to Europe. Maybe that’s where all the perfect people are?

It annoys me that by pure chance I was not born into circumstances where it was likely that I would learn concertos as a teenager or end up at the Sorbonne, especially since I know I could. This is mitigated by the fact that I don’t want to learn a concerto or go to school abroad, but then again, I might if I had been raised in an environment more hospitable to lofty ambition.

The big challenge here is one that has always been an insecurity of mine – appreciating what really kicks ass after cutting away cultural indoctrination. There are people my age who are far more successful than me, but in whose eyes?  I can do most everything pretty well, with the caveat that it takes me a long time to care enough to do them. Why do I minimize myself by analyzing my life against the pace of others? And if I don’t, is that a copout, because I am modifying my perception of value to include what I feel I offer?

That’s another thing that pisses me off – you know how Gandhi (I think) said “be the change you want to see in the world” and people will put that in their Facebook quotes section so they seem ambitious? I hate the imperative tone, the implication that awesomeness is reserved for the future, a pie in the sky beyond the grasp of any regular people. I am the change I want to see in the world. I am fine even though I am not a 4.0 Ivy League prat (though admittedly I could have been) and I have never been on TV. Instead of Gandhi I would order people to change the world to what you see in yourself. That is why I think Fear.less is great, because it helps people. Because I feel that the purpose of life is to help others and cover their weaknesses, I can’t stand specious “success” that is of no benefit and doesn’t uplift, I can’t stand arbitrary achievement for achievement’s sake and I can’t stand people who have no weaknesses. Well, I wouldn’t if I met one.

Also I find myself terribly compelled to write a book, though I don’t know what it would be about yet. The reason for this is twofold. One, William F. Buckley is a good writer and so my appreciation for the craft is currently blazing.  Two, perfect characters are so damn annoying and I would subvert this by populating my pages with deeply-flawed people.

Inconsolable Rage

It happens.

A while ago I decided I wanted to start playing the piano again and I downloaded a pdf book on chords and stuff, how to figure all that out again. The author was adamant in his attitude that piano should be fun and you should play only for yourself. I totally agree and this makes it extremely annoying when people make unsavory comments on what I decide to play, alone, from downstairs in the basement.

“That song sounds like the same thing over and over.” Yeah, it’s almost like I’m practicing. “What’s that other one you play that’s more lively?” The song I want to work on today is slow and has a minor key. But it’s nice (and “but” shouldn’t even have to be said) and that’s why I’m playing it. Get over it. Complexity, optimism and repetitiveness are not qualities I consider when I decide I want to learn to play a song. I don’t play for other people. I don’t want to become the piano man. I hope I never compose a song that gets played by anyone who could be called the piano man. I don’t want any of my music to join the realm of as complete drunken overplayed absence of meaning as Don’t Stop Believin’.

Mowing the lawn today, I thankfully avoided shredding a toad. I was quite happy about this, and the more I think about it the more I’m hoping it has some sort of hidden deeper meaning in the context of the rest of my past couple days. It’s probably because I saw the toad and then swerved to evade it. It didn’t jump out of the way without me noticing. I actively decided not to kill it. I was reassured of my own benevolent power. I was in control.

Recently in a few facets of my life people are no longer seeing eye-to-eye with me and the frustration I feel is immeasurable. When one senses that one’s words are beginning to bounce off walls, it’s important to somehow be reminded that you still have control over something.

Looking Forward To

What are you looking forward to?

We are occasionally blessed with things in life that are both A) pretty much guaranteed to happen if we stay our course and B) good. Remaining aware and reverent of these events is a good way to maintain stability in times of stress or boredom. One time in May my roommate and I went on a late night run around the UIUC campus as it started to storm. Wildly. We were ducking lightning strikes and getting soaked and it was nuts. We eventually retreated into a building, unsure how long it would take for conditions to get safe enough for our return. I kept thinking, in all likelihood, at some point in the near future I will not be here. I will be home. I will not be in this wet, disheveled state. I will be near a warm bed, in the company of dear friends and a pretty girl. We hauled ass back to our dorm before it was safe, and when we burst through the front door, there was a spontaneous and ebullient outpouring of joy that involved crazy dancing. Thinking about the future made living it better.

Things I have to look forward to with no foreseeable obstacles to their occurrence, in rough chronological order:

• The publication of Fear.less
• Girlfriend visiting me (or vice versa)
• Vacation to New England
• Start of the school year
• Bunch of my favorite bands’ albums coming out in September

I use this thought process when I am sick. When I become better, I imagine the afflictions back into each body part and acknowledge that they are no longer there. Time has passed. I have transcended the illness. Feels grate.

Why I Hate Heroes 1

I could go on forever and ever and ever about why this show is so irredeemably flawed. Seriously, it’s like a how-to manual on making an awful show. No, even worse, because it started out okay. It was a decent show that fell apart, and then the pieces fell apart.

Anyway, they’re gonna turn the de facto main character gay. Seriously? There is no way in hell this show will make it to a fifth season. If it does, I will scream. I will do crazy naked things for the Internet’s viewing pleasure.

I’m not a big fan of gimmicks and this is just insultingly obvious. Stop being gimmicky, dammit! Give the characters some real depth for once! Come on! I can barely comment on this. It’s so grating that I’m surprised it’s even a part of my universe at all.

The Future

I’ve realized there’s a certain feeling of security in always having work to do. When editing Fear.less I had this. I knew exactly what was coming next – another batch of stories to pore through. Now that that’s pretty much done, the future is uncertain. That’s not to say I’m not excited for it though.

Maybe I shouldn’t be saying this out loud, but it’s entirely possible that Fear.less’s success may pave the way for sequels and spinoffs. I would feel grate to be a part of Fear.less 2 or Home.less or whatever. Working on this project has illuminated for me the social media world and my own abilities. But only slightly, and that is why I would like to continue to be on board.

I saw some of the pages from the Fear.less e-book proper and it looks damn sweet. I never realized just how much content we had. This will be a good book.

One Month

I have now had this blog for one month and been working on Fear.less for just a little over that. I am very thankful for these diversions to give me something to do. It seems insulting at first to call Fear.less a diversion until you realize what it’s diverting me from: humongous boredom.

We have somewhere between 0 and 1 stories left to edit, which I am enthusiastic about. Ishita and I have come a long way in picking the stories apart, separating the wheat from the shit. Many of the stories are truly quite touching and it is my sincere hope and conviction that they can inspire people.

I’m actually not sure what is left to do. A while back we considered that we may be responsible for organizing the order of the stories, in the manner of a tracklist on a music record. I’d like to have a part in this because the flow of the stories can really enhance their resonant power and also it’s fun. I will continue to post on the Fear.less blog and in the Facebook group and page. Soon I will discuss the ramifications of my slow immersion into social media and the other opportunities that may come my way and I hope that I discover something rewarding soon, particularly since summer is only half over so I still need stuff to do.

I still feel a lot of insecurity in my skills but I have been assured that they are there and just need to be cultivated but I am definitely pleased that I was able to concretely and meaningfully credit a project like Fear.less.

This is not a very exciting post at all so to keep things interesting will somebody please tell me what the hell this is?