Random Musings

January 2003

Thursday, 09 January, 2003:   Initially I was blocked tonight. Nothing wanted to flow. I kind of think that I ought to do something special for this first entry of the new year, but nothing comes readily to mind.

Listening to Cat Stevens tonight, great music, not enough like it anymore really. Peaceful music, very calming. The music of someone who seems to have been on a similar journey to my own. I'm going to really explore Buddhism this semester, I should have the spare time, and I've ordered a couple of books on the subject. Hopefully I'll learn a good deal, I like the philosophies Buddhism espouses and its methods appear to fit me. If more research and understanding shows my initial feelings to be well founded I shall have to go about locating a temple locally, the only way to really learn, of course, is from those who practice.

Paige got me involved in a short story going on at one of the forums I frequent. Fun to write in that goofy fiction way on a different forum than DW.

Friday, 10 January, 2003: Snowed today. I've always loved the snow, especially right as it's falling when it coats everything with a sparkling purity. Even the dull greys of the drab city are overlaid by nature's beauty and for an instant I can see Nature hasn't been banished from the city. She just prefers to manifest herself in other places that are rather more friendly towards her. The looks I got while catching snowflakes on my tongue were priceless.

My thoughts drift homewards, I wonder what's going on in everyone's lives this weekend. Also, I'm looking forward to those books I ordered. So many new things to learn. Sooner or later I'll find what I'm looking for, I just hope that I figure out what I'm looking for before I find it.

I'm still not sure what I want and where I want to go in life. On the one hand, I love the idea of getting involved in the corporate world and making money. On the other hand, there's nothing I'd like less than getting myself trapped in a city and finding out that I've sold my soul for reservations at an exclusive supper club and a three-piece suit.

"Just for now I'd like to rest,
In the shade of a Maple tree.
To the blue Canadian sky,
I'd say a prayer for the world out there." - Gordon Lightfoot.

Sunday, 12 January, 2003:
"I've been doing my best:
What else can I do?
Is there something I've missed
That will help me through?

I have reached the top of my wall
And all I've found is another way to fall." - Graeme Edge

Edge always has been my favorite of the Moody Blues. Dad never cared much for him though, thought that Edge was "too melancholy, too dark". Something in Edge's words that hits me in the right place though. Graeme goes on, "We all can see what we shall be, but knowing's really not controlling". For one reason or another, that's the song that's on my mind tonight.

Was reading back through Paige's journal and she mentions once that she has trouble writing when things are peaceful. Got me thinking about how and when I end up writing. I realise that she's right. I don't write in peaceful times for me either, I write when there's something gnawing at me. That's probably why I write at night, thoughts come that are relegated to the dark recesses of my mind during daylight. I suppose that's probably the big reason behind this color scheme too, that and I find white on black to be easier to read than black on white.

Sold some of my spare 914 parts today to a guy who's a student at one of the neighboring universities. Going up to his house was a blast, he lives up a long, curving hill and I got a chance to really wring out the 924S. It's great fun just to wind that car up in third gear and listen to the exaust note change when the switch is made from hard acceleration to hard braking. The guy with the 914 also had a very sharp 1976 912E and his housemate had a 911T (2.4 litre) with an exaust note that was to die for. I will go so far as to say that there is nothing that sounds as good as an un-corked Porsche flat-six of completely air-cooled vintage. No water jackets in the heads to muffle the purposeful sounds. It actually sounds very much like a WWI-era aircraft engine, a little rough, lacking in polish but far from lacking in power.

And now that I've gone through that, there's still something bothering me and I don't know what it is. Pavel or Paige would tell me to just keep writing until I accidentally blurt out whatever it is that's on my mind, but I'm not sure that's the best thing from a brevity standpoint. No sense in rambling on and on about nothing. Then again, it's not as though this page is really mass-produced for an audience. The few people who actually check this page aren't going to mind. Still, there's the knowledge that people are reading it, and as much as I hate to say it, that knowledge limits me sometimes.

I just wish I were sure that I want what I think I want. I really rather envy Paige and Pavel, no norms and cultural expectations to bind them in some pre-ordained "proper procedure" for everything. Pavel's never been a victim of the social norms, and Paige seems to have managed in her own special way to have thrown them off. Meanwhile I sit here and waffle back and forth, praising the two of them for escaping that which binds me, yet not making much effort at all to make my own escape. I wonder sometimes if I let myself get into things just because I think that I ought to be into them. If I'm not letting myself get pulled away from the narrow path and onto the path that is broad and flat and easy.

But I'm learning. Slowly, slowly, but still learning.

"I'm learning to fly but I ain't got wings.
Coming down, is the hardest thing." - Tom Petty

And even as I think that, doubt enters.

Thursday, 16 January, 2003:  I got a free hug tonight!

Saturday, 25 January, 2003: I want to drive until the road ends, and then just keep going. I want to drive into the darkness and just keep on going. Not into the light, just farther into the darkness, into the heart of it. Far enough to obliterate the self. Not to end life, just the self. I want to break away from it all, live on my own terms, not be bound by all of these damnable fads and fashions and constructs that try to tell me what I can and cannot do.

I'm surrounded by people with whom I have very little in common. Girls who are more interested in how they look or what to wear to the next sorority dance or who's sleeping with the hot guy from that fraternity across the way. Guys who are only concerned with "laying" a girl or with the latest drinking party is going to be held. People who don't read unless it's required for a course (and some who still won't). People who are more interested in what happened on last night's episode of whatever reality-show tripe happens to be popular at the moment. People who are simply focused on what feels good right now. Not that there's anything wrong with that per se, but when that encompases all of one's existance it just doesn't work. Yes, there is much visceral pleasure to be found in the unexamined life, but there is not very much humanity.

I don't have a release here. Nothing to work on, nothing to really keep my hands busy during the day once the schoolwork is done. Nothing into which I can pour myself and leave other things behind. I need to find something with which I can tinker. Alas, there's no room here to keep what I need to tinker. No way to set up a workshop, no garage. Nowehere to go and nothing to do. I could go out and attempt to amuse myself with the latest banalities but I know that I won't find involvement there. Much as I hate to admit it, I need people too. I need to go out and interact with others who are feeling as I do. I need to go out and find a Paige or a Pavel here in Pittsburgh. Someone who can help me get free.

Untl then, I just need to drive.

And an hour later, I'm back again.

I want to shut it all out. I want to not feel it. I want the feeling gone. I know where it will lead me, and I know that there will be no avoiding it in the end. For now though, I want to turn it off. To make it all stop. To become, as the song says, "comfortably numb". I just want this feeling to let me go.

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Last Updated: 09 January, 2003