The wizard will wait

What does that mean?

I dunno, something.

And if that aimless beginning implies a certain aimless-ness of my life of late, then it may very well be true. But then again, all aims have their seasons.

In actuality little of my ambition has been lost, perhaps just buried for a moment here and there, covered over by some disappointment and miscalculation.

Ah, miscalculation, and that perhaps is the rub, for so much easier and indeed more successful would my ventures be without calculation, but the requirements of pushing myself beyond my comfort zone, the limits of which are my death, does require a bit of skill and cleverness.

And a bit of a gamble. So I calculate. So I lie. So I pretend and dabble and fail and fumble, but then again... As a priest pointed out at my last Confession, I am too hard on myself. Yes I do need motivation, but I'm trying, I'm striving, and if I don't always succeed...

Ah well, all of this rumbling does not solve my problems, of which there aren't any... well not really, nothing urgent, nothing pressing, hence the aimless-ness. In this sort of uncomfortable haze of a life, relying not on the thrill (because life does go on without it) of life but rather the inertia... it's easy... and that I'm trying to get free (perhaps the solution is that I need to get out of California, except I'm in New Jersey), well that's something.

Still, I'd like something more to come from my life, and in response to that I think I ought have faith in He who I love above all else, and in Him is the hope of all possibilities, of striving toward all goodness, and finding it in His Infinite Love.

God's Love, it's just so beautiful.

So what am I complaining about... really I mean come on! I have God with me, always, forever, what more can I ask for, what more do I need? And if the road is tough, perhaps it is just tough to bring me closer to He who shouldered the Cross on a very tough road, and if I fall sometimes, perhaps it is just so I have the honor of Him picking me up. And the Lord remains always.

And so, even in the cold midnight, it's still a beautiful day.

So take it to your head, take it to your heart and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

And God Bless.

If I should be lost, will your songs lead me home

I'm still off. I dunno, my mind is a bit away from well, relative to my worst I'm still doing quite outstandingly, so things aren't bad, I'm just a little unwell.

But perhaps all I really want is someone to sing me to sleep:

Sing me to sleep

Sing me to sleep
For I am tired.

I shall seize the day nobly,
Pursue my ambition,
But with justice as my guide.
I will write the greatest novel,
I will write the greatest play,
I will write the world a new point of view,
New values and ideals.
I will save us all
And keep us all safe.
I will recreate the Earth and make it better.

And this day was an effort towards those goals,
And it has drained all the energy from me
Each and every drop.
Is it foolish to pursue my hopes until my body is weary and broken?
Is it idiotic?
Dangerous?
Suicidal?
Perhaps it is correct at least for me,
perhaps I do not know,
But I cannot make the effort to ponder such weighty matters at this hour.
Tomorrow I can,
But tonight I cannot.

So sing me to sleep
For it is time for me to rest.

-Rand

The politics of the fool

I often repeat myself in sessions, often because a point reoccurs to me and I forgot that I dealt with it before, or in better cases because I figure out another angle on something. Now even in the latter case one must be careful lest laziness and the recursion of revisiting revisted topics lead to madness and rather poor reading, however, given the complexity of the human mind, a good topic often deserves more than one angle and more than one session to boot.

But who then can determine whether the booting requires the revisiting or whether upon that road lies madness, madness! I CAN, for I am Rand, the great and glorious.

And so I shall revisit the fool, or rather my fool-ness or fool-i-ocity, or if you insist on the grammatical, my foolishness.

I've dealt with the topic as an ideal (dedicated to God, of course), but let me now migrate a bit into the practical, or perhaps the pragmatic, or perhaps just the otherwise.

At this point in my life, I'm rather satisfied with the role of the fool, with some qualifications and ample wiggle room. Indeed, I do aspire to the path of the holy fool. However, it is not necessarily my natural role, largely because there is only a minor fraction of our souls presented in our outward faces, thus one can fit many of these fractions in a mind, and thus many roles can be elegantly natural.

That is to say, I can play other roles.

I can play the insistent idealist, the apathetic pragmatist, the careful politician, the passionate artist, the dedicated scientist, and the austere monk. And I do play these roles all from time to time, and more.

But when push comes to shove, my default face to the world is that of the fool. For better or for worse. For now.

I can justify this position in a variety of ways. I find it grating to take myself too seriously, moreover I find it grating to take others too seriously, yet I hate to offend, and I hate to cause trouble. But most importantly, the fool does tend to entertain.

This is a principle point. I like making people happy. I enjoy the happiness of others. I like interacting with happy people. And me playing the fool often makes people happy.

Though to be truthful sometimes I wonder, whether people actually do enjoy the act, and as importantly whether they like the sincerity behind it. Because as much as my fool-ness is an act, it is an act based on my thoughts and feelings, essentially it is me expressing myself. And in that sense, it is me being myself.

On the other hand, I could for example be myself by throwing myself 110% into writing, however... being a writer or an artist, while requiring one to draw upon others, is an essentially solitary craft. That's fine when I'm alone, but to make this the face I use to interact with others would risk pushing others into roles relative to my artistic drives and ambitions, denying them a real relationship based on mutual humanity. That is not to say others have not taken the writer role and ran with it, limiting its excesses so that their relationships are full and rich while mining its virtues for all that they can get... I'm just saying that as a public face, I don't think the writer is for me.

I could go through many other roles and pick them apart. I can also pick apart the role of the fool, for example the barriers it throws against me being taken seriously or being able to deal with people seriously.

What it comes down to, with the pluses and minuses, is how comfortable you are with dealing with the minuses, and how much you like the pluses, and ultimately, how much God wants you to follow that path. To be fair that's a lot of factors that are hard to figure out all in their wholeness. Hence one often bounces between things back and forth and finds revelations and insights and mistakes, and so on and so on, et al.

One thing you also fine with roles that fit you better or worse, is those that don't fit you at all. I've tried playing the counter-cultural, the over-achiever, the techie. Parts work alright for me, but I find only a minimal passion. Ususally to find some real satisfaction I need to mix it up with some foolishness.

And this is an aspect of my problems with my life at now. To say overall, I must say the work environment doesn't suit me well. I am every now and then able to pull out my fool card, but there's an essentially lacking element for me to comfortably play that role, or really any role with satisfaction. To have some satisfaction in my human interactions I must have some confidence that how I interact with people is either appreciated or at least enjoyed in a general sense, and I must have some confidence that my faux pas's, my miscalculated gestures, my inarticulate attempts at communication, these will be generally tolerated. That is actually a rather heavy demand to require of everyone, and so I don't. But for me that is the basis of a real, meaningful relationship, otherwise all you have is confused postering.

The work environment seems to lend itself to the confused postering. Afterall, a faux pas can get you fired. But moreover, there is this great ambiguity about relationships. What is the proper ettiquette of a professional relationship, what is too far, how do these relationships weigh and interact with other ones, how do these fit into life outside of work. It doesn't help that my professional role has no real need to inteact with anyone besides my boss, so what is the professional relationship of coworkers who have no professional need to interact. I am always perpetually insecure with my relationships, but with my professional relationships, I find it is a constant drain of stress. And this isn't the fault of anyone, this is just the nature of me and my circumstances.

Let me backtrack, with most people in the office, there is a degree to which they approach that mark of trust where I find my relationships both meaningful and comfortable, and there are some who are just easy to deal with and wonderful to be around. But as a whole... as a whole work is stress, there are times when it is less stressful, and I sometimes wonder if work could be otherwise... but then again, in the long run, perhaps that's irrelevant. Afterall, work is but so many hours, and life is so many more, and in those hours I should be able to find time to play the fool.

But then again I wonder... I am undecided the extent to which I want to write off some degree of comfortableness at work. Moreover, if I can hit that degree of comfortableness, there is a good chance that I harnest a general affection for the people at my office toward feeling more satisfied with work, and yet... It is all so complex, the hodgepodge of different emotions and thoughts that run an office's social ecosystem, and my tradition has been to step back and create my own social ecosystem when my frustration with my current one runs too high. But with work, I don't really have the option of stepping back...

But then what would the fool do? If I really do aspire to the path of the holy fool, what ought I do. More importantly, and in all seriousness what would Jesus do?

The answer is a path of love, but here's the question, does that path lead me deeper into the office-universe or further away?

I am not idle on this question, but I am ambivalent, but in the end, I am also awesome.

Which does give me the edge.

And so despite my confusion, despite my cowardly indecision, despite my frustration, I still must ask myself in the morning, how can I be a fool today?

So anywho, take it to your head, take it to your heart and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight folks!

And God Bless.

Exile

As I am feeling out of sorts and out of place, perpetually, this seems appropriate, is it perfect ready? Perhaps not quite, but it has come along and fits my feelings well, and I AM RAND!

Exile

It doesn't really matter
My thoughts, my feelings, my fantasies
They are divergent from reality
Never resting on solid ground
My actions are feeble
Constrained by fear and impotence
Like breath against a hurricane
The mechanics of fate overwhelm me

Perhaps I should travel in exile
To a foreign land
Where my skills are rare and my talents novel
Where my actions are exotic and my faults mysteriously
To a place where I can be king and dictate the fate of others

But that is but a thought, a feeling, a fantasy
Divergent from reality
And it doesn't matter
Not at all

-Rand McRanderson

And I knew if I had a chance I could make those people dance

And maybe they'd be happy for a while.

I'm far from ready to say Bye Bye Ms. American Pie.

In fact, I just might write a book of love someday, I DO believe in God, because the Bible tells me so, and music will save my mortal soul... I think I've over-exhausted semi-jokes based on references to American Pie Lyrics.

But my friends, the music can't die, no matter what they tell you.

Anywho, those lines "And I knew if I had a chance I could make those people dance / and they'd be happy for a while" are classic. And like most great songs, they are classic in such a way that resonates within your soul, in a grand general sense but also in a specific personal sense. For me those lines often renew my sense of drive in my writing.

Many a writer will make grand plans to change the world, to influence great leaders, and indeed, I have a hope that my writings might help shape culture for the better. But those dreams are just hopes for happy accidents, take them seriously and they become nothing more than vanity (But isn't everything vanity?).

After all, we are subject to random variations in fame, popularity, and all such. And while I do believe God intervenes in this universe and intervenes personally for me, I do not think that every intervention is for me, and some indeed might cost me (but still they are always the right ways for the universe to work, above all else Lord, thy will be done).

Yet then again, being a writer, being an artist, being a programmer, it's not about grand influence. Yes it's about the art, but the art could exist solely in your imagination if it is just for art's sake (though that is a bit of a condensation of certain thoughts I have on art, condensed and vastly simplified because that is a post for another day). Yet the dream of being able to give some joy, to spread some beauty to other people, to make those people dance, if only for a little while... that justifies the creative process, and when all my creativity and hard work seems for nothing, I often am able to just remember those little smiles I've given to people and it all seems okay.

And indeed, it is more than okay, if you can spread some joy, even for the least and lowest of people in the world, after all, these are Christ's brothers and sisters, and if you can make them smile, Jesus too will smile. And if you can do that, all the empires and powers of this world just seem pretty irrelevant.

Always remember my friends, you're better than this world, after all you were created by someone far beyond it. Never let it take you down, and if you ever need help, remember you can always call on me, and even when I fail, there is always God, and if you trust in Him, He will deliver you. But that's enough semi-mystic Christian revelry for this session.

So take it to your head, take it to your heart, and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

And God Bless.

Jersey City here I am

What an odd turn of events. For most of my life Jersey City was a place existing but not a matter of thought. And here I am, living in Jersey City, few blocks away from Journal Square station. Damn, and last year I was wondering whether I was going to move to San Francisco. I go back further and I find this point in my life is even more unimaginable (I'm pretty sure that sentence lacked grammatical sense, but there's a gist of it that I think you can understand it).

Yet here I am. The mind reels.

I remember when I was in Elementary School and figured that I was going to be a doctor and then a politician. I suppose that would put me in Med School right now. But that figuring was based largely on a utilitarian consideration of what would best allow me to help people on a small scale and then on a large scale. Though the latter part of the dream, presidency, persisted with me for quite a while. And then there was the island...

But that's neither here or there, point is, despite various plans and schemes, and for many reasons, I graduated college with neither a plan or a profession and... something, something.

And so I found myself working with computers and stuff. And then I found myself doing an 1 1/2 hr. commute to NYC and neglected my life outside of that. And then I found myself unemployed. And then I found myself getting a new job. Dude. But then I still had the 1hr commute or so to Jersey City. And so hence I'm here.

Actually that all made perfect sense.

What makes less sense is my sense of purpose, et al., which was once quite a bit stronger. I dream dreams, it's what I do, and I have still some great ambitions, but I've come to terms with the fact that success is something that may come or may not, and I'm not terribly worried about it.

Which leaves me not terribly worried about much. Which bugs me. But then again, whenever my feelings fall upon that zone, I always end up remembering stuff.

I got family, friends, dreams to work on. I'm doing alright. And In those family, friends + dreams, I do have stuff requiring urgency et al.

Honestly, I have to say I have at times been neglectful of my friends, family, and perhaps even my dreams. But that's what tomorrow's for right?

And so raise a glass with me, mine will be filled with orange juice of course, and let me toast to all the girls I've ever loved and God, the founder of the feast.

So take it to your head, take it to your heart and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

And God Bless.

And when I am freedom will I be a waving flag?

Once again, I am referencing K'naan's superb song, Wavin' Flag. Sometime I'll break down the lyrics and point out possible references to K'naan's native Somalia and the awful situation there, but I would probably need to do a little prep work before that. One must not claim historical authority when writing on a topic without some backing.

Yet I often find myself drawn to that song because it speaks to freedom, something dear to my heart. Of course, freedom is hard to define, and one definition, which I reject as illusionary is that freedom can only be achieved through the loosening of bonds and obligations. I find that a perverse philosophy that leads only to self-nullification.

However, I find myself dangerously close to that place.

Out of college, secure job-wise, more money than I really know what to do with, and with most of my siblings established in independent lives, most of the old obligations that once bound me are fading. Those that remain, to my Church Youth Group, to my parents' vision for my life, to tradition, etc. are actually somewhat loose, though at times they seem to snap tight at me, and I, on occasion, find that to follow them too strictly or too fully would be diluting of who I am or simply unnecessarily painful. Still I make an effort, though probably I ought to make more, but if those are the only obligating forces in my life, well, I'm likely to find my life rather shallow and unhappy.

And then what of Rand, the great and glorious? What of that greatness and glory? Well I am a student of False Bravado and do believe in great and grand dreams. I am also ever the fan of the fairer gender. And while both these topics seem out of reach at times, they are something to aim for, and that aiming does bring some obligating force, some urgency to life.

Except...

Except, all that urgency centers around me. Yes, it centers around me doing good stuff and being good to people, but the central notion is that I have some gift to share with the world, or at least some specialness to share with a wife, and sometimes it's hard to maintain that. Consciously, I can tell myself that, but in the chemical roots of my emotion, boiling through my subconscious into my doubts and self-hatred, I don't instinctively believe in myself. Heck, I don't instinctively believe I deserve to live, but I think I've pushed that pretty far down (though the meds help, but always, all good things flow from God (but more on that below).

So I'm left with a struggle with my subconscious, which undermines my efforts and makes it far more difficult to cite some proof against my doubts.

But all of that... that's crap...

Let me make something clear. We are not dictated our natures by our emotions. My chemical imbalances do not have a right to grant or deny my future. They effect things certainly, but the fundamental decisions of life are made by ourselves. And by God, who then gives us a choice to follow Him. The choice isn't always spelled out in directly religious terms, after all, you can have the faith to move mountains, but if you do not have Love, you have nothing. Love, I believe a choice to follow Love, not as a particular relationship or circumstance, not as a simple emotion or need, but as an ideal, as a cause, as a force, as beyond description... that is the path of God.

That's my urgency. And from that flows my ambitions (though focused by what I believe God wants for me) and from that flows my belief in romance (for if nothing else, romance is a beautiful work of God's great art) and from that flows my love for people (in God's image, what else do I need to say?) and from that flows a belief in myself...

I feel tempted to hate myself at times, at times to be apathetic and uncaring toward myself, but while I try to steer away from self-centerness and arrogance, I can confidently say that I am loved by God. Personally, passionately, infinitely. God even sent his Son to die for me. Yes, this is the Love offered to all mankind, but God has no limit and neither has His Love. And if God deems me worthy of love, who am I to disagree?

This is my belief, and this is a religious one, but to those of different religions or the non-religious let me point this out. If you are capable of love, you are capable of something immensely, infinitely beautiful. Don't doubt your self-worth, don't even consider throwing it away. Even if it doesn't seem that way at times, everyone has a capability for love, even if they choose not to use it, or choose not to see it. And that makes us worthy, beautiful, and gives us an obligation to spread love.

After all, if Love is to conquer all, why not we do the conquering for it?

Perhaps I do not fully mean this, but here's a statement capturing the ideal to which I aim.

I love you all, take care of yourselves and each other.
(not that I won't be doing that myself, lest you mistake me for someone using that classic goodbye, I am not going anywhere, at least I don't think so, at least not profoundly, at least not yet)

So take it to your head, take it to your heart, and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

And God Bless.

Because Doom don't go away

So I suppose I ought to announce a grand re-entrance to the world of ambition and worries. That is I have faced the life in the moment and decided to exist outside of time. And so on...

Essentially, I've re-embraced my philosophy of false bravado and fool-dom.

But the danger, which I find myself bouncing back and forth from, is that it is not enough to want to be the fool, one must believe one can want to be the fool.

This was essentially my difficulty with living in the moment.

By instinct I believe not in my self, and even with my conscious determined false bravado...
And thus just in the moment I can't remind myself to believe it and...

But in the end, it's alright and it's okay and I'm awesome... RAND RULES!!!

Unfortunately we need to sleep before Brooklyn

Le sigh. I wanted this to be a post on my triumphant return to the active and ambitious life of a fool aspiring toward holiness, but I am sleepy, verrry sleepy.

So here's the BEASTY BOYS!

Because I'm easy, easy like Sunday morning

Least this week.

So I've decided to summarize my experiment in perspective (detailed two days ago) as an experiment in "living in the moment." That doesn't quite explain it, as it also has an element of minimizing worry, and other details, but that phrase sums it up decently. And by my pre-decided and a little arbitrary timeline, I got another week in this.

So far it's been interesting, from a human nature study point of view (less so from a living point of view), but my new attitude has been hard to hold for a while, and is only now starting to sink in.

I find myself with less highs, fewer lows, less ambitious, more calm, a little blander overall. Perhaps. But I'm also starting to be a little more comfortable with doing some of the things I want to do that I used to worry about (like these sessions actually), and while I'm a bit reluctant to admit it, perhaps there's something to all this.

On the other hand, I'm getting less of that sense of that good struggle to do right, but...

I dunno, worrying too much about that kind of stuff (though I'm still maintaining my faith and my desire to do God's will and be a good person as a whole) is what I'm trying to avoid so...

Anywho, I'm still rocking, just in another way, at least I think so. I guess I'll figure it out in a week (though I may need 1-2 wks in my old attitude to fairly evaluate things).

So take it to your head, take it to your heart and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

And God Bless.

There's a reason Rand has only one arm

Actually I have two arms, but I always wanted someone to say that about me. One arm is a nice distinguishing mark, aside from the whole being a large disability thing. It suggests suffering, but the fact that the rest of the body is okay suggests strength. It would also be a nice way to segway into the fact that I have mental/emotional problems without making me seem weak.

Ah, but that's just my constant desire for a slightly scarier appearance. For a while I was growing out a beard too for the purpose, but eventually there was a job fair, and while I wanted to look scary, I also wanted a job (unfortunately this resulted in one of my most annoying occasions of shaving since the thickness of the beard meant I had to run over the same area 4 or 5 times). Eh sara, sara.

I guess it all comes down to me wanting to rule the world, or something like that. I just always envisioned myself as someone dynamic, dashing and bold. A leader of men and a challenger of the powerful. And yet instead I find myself moderate to low in those regards. People don't disrespect me, but my opinion carries little extra weight. This is not to say I'm not popular. Rather it just means I'm funny.

I'm a funny guy (for example, right now I'm in a full on clown costume, or not, you just had to press me on that point didn't you, didn't you! Well, I'm sorry, we can't all be wearing clown costumes, Phil!). I find it easier to write funny stories than serious stories. I find it more natural to tell jokes than win arguments. Instead of charming girls, I make them laugh. Instead of charisma, I have humor. But I always wanted the other way around.

That's not to say I didn't want to be not funny, I just wanted to be well, not that funny. Maybe capable of telling a well-crafted funny story (most of my funniness isn't well crafted in the way I would have wanted it, it is usually obviously bad jokes that wink at themselves and overly outrageous jokes that bend reality more than exploit humorous skill) every now and then, but usually I wanted to be a man of action and stirring speeches. But that's not the way it ended up.

It's not so bad really, but it's annoying sometimes. I wrote a session a while back dealing with this in a more indirect way by comparing my dilemma with that of a cute girl (see if you can guess who it is Howard, it's not the girl I recently had a crush on, but it is a mutual acquaintance But then again, when I shed my preconceptions and prejudices about what I want to be, I find I really enjoy being the funny guy. I love to make people smile. That's just golden.

Maybe this means I'm sad sometimes pondering my lack of gravitas. Maybe it means that I need to work extra hard to be taken seriously when I have something serious I want to do. Maybe so. But I like people, and I like to make people happy. And while I would prefer it if my serious actions were the ones that made people happy, if it's my humor, well, if I can get that smile, that's just golden.

So anyways, take it to your head, take it to your heart, and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

Even these things persist

Greetings folks and peoples of people-like nature (that includes you semi-animalistic furry folk as well). I would like to share with you a rule I've recited in various circumstances. Given an infinity of opportunities even things with small probability are likely to happen. Given my history, a breakdown had medium likiness of occurring, so that it would occur sooner or later was almost certain. Perhaps, I dunno. But today I skipped out on my classes, gave up on all activity and wallowed in depression. I did that for about twelve hours and then, I got over it. Ah chemicals, they make up your body, but they tend to just fly here and there without prediction. To some extent I think my emotional collapse this morning and my recovery this evening was chemical. But like all good mental problems there was an element of nurture. I had been building stress on myself since school started and I had to do some homework pretty quickly and I was feel emasculated by the fact that my parents aren't going to let me keep a car at the school for casual purposes (basically I have to run it by them). My recovery on the other hand was guided by my faith. The fact that God loves me is a great strength restorer, and while I might respond that God shouldn't love me because I'm unworthy, I remember that passage from the Acts of the Apostles, verse 9: "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean." I guess that includes me if I trust in Him. And I think this has the larger implication of the idea, I can't say that God is wrong to love me, God is always right, so I guess I am worthy of God, and I guess if I want to do right by God, I got to do right by those He loves and that includes me.

So that's about the summary of events. I'd rather not go into matters any more severely because that would be boring, whiny and therefore lame. But the meat of the matter is that I had a breakdown and recovered decently fast, although not fast enough not to miss classes. It's irritating because I had hoped I was done with breakdowns severe enough to do that. And it's worrying. I have 1 year till I graduate, technically even less than that (I suppose it's actually about 8 months), and if I have these sort of problems while I'm working, I'll actually have a great deal of trouble, as in trouble which will get me fired. And unless I can build a good job record early on, in this tight job market my later ambitions will be a bit tough. So what to do about it?

What to do, what to do, skitter me shoe, what to do?

Just thought I'd puncture the mellowdrama a little and I don't really have a needle that came go through your brain to the part that's imagining the mellowdrama, so etc., etc., la-dee-da-dee-da.

But back to the matter at hand. So what should I do with these breakdowns? Well, I'll see my psychiatrist, I'll see my psychologist, I'm going to start seeing a pastoral counselor, but really will that do anything? If I really need, I'll change my medicine, although overall I've been doing pretty well and I don't want to lose how I've been doing so far. Besides, to really get rid of the feelings that generated this collapse would take something drastic, something fundamental, something I really don't know.

I used to figure that if I just kept moving forward in my life, if I kept myself busy that might be enough. But I'm moving forward, I'm obscenely busy, and still... Business could be part of the problem but last semester I had constant collapses and I had one of my easiest schedules since Freshman year. Maybe if I had more energy, if I wasn't tired all the time and I could take full advantage of those brief moments when I'm truly productive. But I doubt it. These emotions seem to come to me no matter what has been accomplished, no matter how successful life is. There's a part of me that wants everything and isn't satisfied even if I have it. And then there's a part of me that just truly hates myself and will take advantage of every dissatisfaction, every moment of doubt, every failure, every mistake to try to destroy my soul and make me take my life. And that won't go away just because my life moves forward, it'll take something drastic, like I said.

A change of medicines might do some good, maybe, but if I'm looking for a fundamental shift like I said I needed, it'll take a fundamental change in medicine and that'll either help me a lot or screw me over immensely. In fact, it'll likely also take a lot of trial and error so even if there is some one medicine or medicine combo that can help me immensely it'll probably take a lot of bad tries that'll screw me over first, and given the time it takes to see if a medicine works or not, unless my psychiatrist has a good idea of how it will help, it's probably not a good idea to mess with a decent medicine combo, which I have right now.

So then what? Well, there is a fundamental change schedule in 8 months. Graduation, that should give a nice little shock to the system, and maybe, perhaps that'll set in motion some changes. And then there's the classic. Get a girl, girl solves my problems everything's better. That was always my plan in high school, more or less. But I really shouldn't rely on that, and I rely doubt women can just suddenly, magically make things better. But they can at least provide me a relief from loneliness. At least if I can find a woman to fall in love with. When you're in love, just being in conversation, just being near the woman you love gives you strength. Perhaps that might help. Maybe. I'd like to think so. And that is something I can work on, if I give it some effort and some time. Maybe, maybe, a thousand times maybe (Is that a phrase of some sort? Maybe a paraphrase or something of the like? Maybe.). Anywho, I doubt still it'll erase my problems, but it might make things better.

Then there's always the option of living with it and hoping that it isn't too often, that isn't too much. And trying to lessen it and make it less often through gradual efforts and the training of my will. I have fought off several possible collapses recently that delayed this. Perhaps that's just how I need to live. Fighting it, losing sometimes, but maybe winning more and more. And maybe someday, all that fighting will be enough, and my problems will be completely under control. I doubt it but maybe.

I asked one of my psychiatrists one time, will it ever be easy for me to live? Right now the act of living is often difficult, because at the end of the day and at the beginning of the day especially, and sometimes just randomly throughout the day, I feel waves of depression crashing on me. But he said, that if I learn to deal with it every day, than just as with practice, dealing with it will get easier. I like to hope so. But the thing is I have been dealing with it, for a long time now, and it's still pretty damn hard. But sometimes that's just the way things go. And you still need to push onward.

"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther … And one fine morning -

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

I suppose I'm chasing that green light to. And so still I push onward.

The song remains the same, until it changes

So I've been a bit late in posting of late, so sue me. Well, I'm not going to give a whole post today either so sue me some more. Actually don't sue me, sue Joe, he deserves to be sued, sue him now!!! Anyways, I thought maybe though I'd give you a story I've heard, it's recounted in the Sandman book called the Wake, but I've heard it before then, and I think originally it was attributed to Calvin Coolidge.

Party representatives gather around an ex-president.

"Why won't you run again? You still can have another term! And you'll be in the highest seat of power in the world!" they say.

The ex-president is quiet for a moment and then calmly replies "There is an old tiger skin rug in the Oval Office. Theodore Roosevelt, I believe shot it on one of his hunting expeditions and made it a part of the office decor. That rug has seen every major diplomatic deal, it has seen the greatest backdoor deals and the most humiliating arm-twistings, it has seen great men rise and fall. It is certainly at the center of world politics. Yet do you think that tiger would rather be back in the jungle, far away from world affairs or if it had a choice do you think it would remain on the office floor?"

They said, "In the jungle of course, it would rather be alive than dead even dead in the Oval Office."

And he, without a smile, without an inflection in his voice simply said, "So would I."


Nice story.

Applicable to me? Well not directly so. Maybe it just reminds me that if I groan under the strain of the desire for power, is real power something I would want to take on. Maybe it means nothing to me. But maybe when looking at public officials, you temper your feelings of respect or contempt with a little bit of pity. For their own reasons, noble or ignoble they have left the jungle.

So anyways, take it to your head, take it to your heart, and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

My American Dream

Greetings all, now given how I explained that many of my sessions have titles that have nothing to do with that actual content of the session, I must now contradict that and give a session that does factor in with the title. But then again I did give the cavet that the non-relation between session and title was not a definite rule (or at least that was implied) and I said that that was mostly the case for personal sessions and this (at least once I get through this introduction) is a topical session, so in short if you're surprised by the title relating to the topic then you're a bum.

So having read that you would probably assume the title had something to do with the American dream and if you did so then you would be right. However if you assumed that this session was actually about my personal American dream you'd be wrong, the "My" part of the title is actually just a shoutout to Scrubs which I usually watch while I write my sessions. I will at some point visit the subject of my American dream because I'm just that interesting, but today I will start with a little something I've been thinking about which is my favorite movie Rushmore and one of my favorite books The Great Gatsby.

Both I think have to do with the American Dream, The Great Gatsby more famously but also Rushmore. What is the American Dream you may ask? You may ask, but you'd be asking a computer, and that would be a little crazy but anyways I think the American Dream really comes down to chasing a goal and a dream with all your passion and not giving up. The Great Gatsby was like that, Jay Gatsby chased his dream of being a man that could win Daisy's heart, that is the ideal rich swinging 20's man. But Rushmore was like that too. Max Fischer is always chasing after a dream with all his heart and passion, at first I really couldn't tell what his passion was about but then I thought about that opening scene where he is dreaming about giving the perfect answer to the ultra-complicated math problem and that gives the whole class no homework (or is it A's) for the semester (an unattainable dream for him since he is an absolutely horrible student, just like being Daisy's perfect man was ultimately unattainable goal for Gatsby since the means which he used to become a rich man stained him in front of Daisy). And then factoring in his absolute love for the school (the Rushmore of the title, a elite private school which he got ad and all his ton of extra-cirricular activities it occurs to me that his dream, his true dream is to be the absolute perfect student. Unlike Gatsby his dream intially is not attached to a romantic factor (although it actually might be a desire to please his dead mother who first recommended him to the school), but later it takes on a romantic dimension when he falls in love with Ms. Cross a teacher at Rushmore for little kids. His dream takes on an added dimension now, to become the man that Ms. Cross wants (he believes he can do this by building an aquarium and acting as spunky as her late husband, and also by becoming a perfect student as his later attempts to get good grades I think show), I think these two dreams are actually intertwined especially considering Ms. Cross is a Rushmore teacher.

But ultimately tragedy ensues. With Gatsby it is the loss of Daisy whose husband reveals Gatsby's true nature as a bootlegger and ultimately shatters his image as the perfect rich man. With Fischer the fall is more prolonged and complicated. First, he is expelled from Rushmore due to his pursuit of Ms. Cross, then after several rebuffs he is finally told off by her after he gets her fired from Rushmore. He also loses his best friends, an eccentric millionaire who becomes his rival for Ms. Cross, and his sidekick who like Daisy has his image of the protagonist shattered. Fisher is ultimately defeated, and actually he takes his defeat worse than Gatsby, for a moment giving up his dream (although it is suggested that Gatsby does this as well, you have to take into account the unreliable narrator who is also trying to justify his life I think, where he eventually gives up dreaming). I could bring out the parrellels more, but that would take time I don't have (maybe I'll turn this into a more formal essay and post it up somewhere later), so then we must move on to the aftermath of the fall. Here the differences between the two become very striking.

While Gatsby retains one good friend, the narrator, who attempts to encourage him, he is ultimately surrounded by fakes and as the narrator points out "careless people" like Daisy and her husband. These people ultimately cause Gatsby's demise because they play around with people's lives and then avoid the aftermath, like Daisy's husband whose affair sends his mistress running wildly into the street, and Daisy who finishes the job by killing (accidentally running her over, but still carelessly) the mistress. This sets into motion Gatsby's demise (they actually might have had a more direct role by directly the mistress' husband to Gatsby's house, but this is a matter of interpretation). With Fisher it is different, and ultimately I think it is because he is not surrounded by careless people, but by caring people. His disillusioned friend, his father, the girl he rejected all help him to recover and pick a new dream, a better one, which is to try to help all those around him. And in the end, despite the grave problems his friends and associates have he does help all of them. He achieves his dream, he may have been hurt badly and lost some hopes along the way but ultimately he recovers chooses a new direction and really wins.

Gatsby I think could have also chose a new dream if he was given the time, especially since he was stronger than Max and did not sink into the depression Max did. The narrator might suggest he did but again I think this is just the narrator trying to justify his choices, when he left Gatsby, Gatsby was smiling. Even if he had the depression I think Gatsby could have recovered after all he recovered from his first rejection from Daisy and maybe hopefully with the help of his friends he could have chosen a new dream especially since he recieved the news that he was better than the whole lot of the rich people with a smile, perhaps understanding finally that it was true. But he didn't have the time to recover or choose a new dream, because the rich people in whose circles he hung around were careless, most especially Daisy and her husband, and they destroyed him with their carelessness as well as destorying the poor husband of Daisy's husband's (I should by now start using his name Buchannan) mistress (Myrtle). Fischer triumphed because he lived in a better world of caring people.

Maybe that's what we need in America. Not a country that's less ambitious or less willing to pursue our dreams, even though often the dreams are ill-chosen (Max's dream of being a perfect student was certainly ill-chosen since it was a dream that was ill-suited for him, someone who was bad academically, and overall it didn't make sense because eventually you have to leave school (a fact he was trying to avoid in the beginning of the movie, partly simply by ignoring it or trying to add another year his stay at Rushmore)) and/or lead to spectacular failure. What America needs is people who are caring, who will pick up those who fail and help them regain their cofidence and find a new path. Maybe America needs people who will take responsibility for their actions (which Max in the end had to do as well, which was part of his process of recovery and his new dream of helping those around him), instead of Daisy and Buchannan who ignored their responsibilities and the fall-out from their actions. Maybe in such a kinder world, Gatsby could have survived and reached his potential. Maybe instead of the narrator saying in the end I think Gatsby was alright (I'm paraphrasing), he'll say of course Gatsby was glorious. And if that's what I need, and I think it is, maybe it's time we all aimed are lives towards that and started treating each other with a spirit of love and caring, without forgetting though to dream the magnificent dreams (I think dreaming that magnificently is also an act of love, a love for the goal and a love for the world that allows it, as well as a love for the human spirit that is capable of such passion and the Creator of that spirit), the kind of dreams that made Gatsby great even in defeat. That's at least how I think, and that's at least how I think. Anyways, I thought it was neat that I could combine ideas from two of my favorite works, and so now that I've done that I realize I actually need to get going (to Rutgers, to get credit for an internship to help me along in pursuing my dreams, of course, I must be careful never to forget to act with caring). So anyways, take it to your head, take it to your heart (this phrase actually works very well for this session), and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!