I, too, have seen the best minds of my generation Wasted. But I cannot mourn The progress of science Reducing to absurd numbers Pixelated persons, fated vectors The argument for determination Gets stronger and the divine diminished, So well-defined as accidental inevitablility. Our knowledge base within this Seemingly infallible paradigm growing Not quite as fast as the population. Not only destroying the planet in some Small tragedy but diminishing the importance Of any one man or woman. Our new-found equality has confused our sex Our new-found temperance has confused our sex And our drugs. (results pending on rock and roll) Better living through chemicals (is it okay to feel better from taking medicine?) Has confused our humanity and Our humanity presses us to create, pro-create A generation better off than ours As we are better off than those before Better living through discontent (it is our nature to be discontent) But the teleological approach fails In the eyes of time We are all not even mites, Bound to a finite expanse In the context of eternity A finite number divided by infinity Is so close to zero that it is.
Alright, I'm setting this to private for now so I can get thoughts out without worrying about how others will interpret my words.
What are emotions? An important question if I am to determine whether or not I have lost my connection with my own. I am certainly not free from them completely. The fact that I am currently depressed (oh connotations) bespeaks of the continuing presence of emotions. Worry. Loneliness. Fear. Anxiety. Stress. Jealousy.
Ok, so clearly I haven't become devoid of emotion. Why have I tried to supress anger so much? As a child, my natural inclination was to cry rather than get angry. I recognized this as a difference between me and others. Did I purposively cultivate this difference to give myself a feeling of uniqueness, and thus, importance/significance? Unclear. Anger causes strife, puts tension on relationships. Possible reasoning: eliminate anger, keep friends. but pacifism loses friends through neglect.
Alexa said that she thinks she's crazy for demanding the real. That seems so sane. I think I'm crazy in that I think of the actual activities/functions/logistics of my brain/mind as separate from me. As far as I can recall I always have. *I* want this song out of my head, but *my mind* is contrary and turns up the volume. *I* want to think, or alternatively, stop thinking, but *my mind* has disallowed the desired option. As a child, I couldn't stop thinking, and that frustrated me. I still overthink things, and that has a lot to do with my socialization troubles. But this overthinking is almost always confined, nowadays, to the situation at hand and is invariably circular. But I no longer think about larger problems and work them out. Was it the failure of my earlier solutions that dismayed me, or is it that I've merely gotten older and stupider and can no longer grasp the abstract concepts of my own mind and form them to solutions?
I wouldn't be so upset if I didn't care. But it doesn't seem that I care about *anything*.
Becca asked what I was thinking about, and I said nothing. and it was true, more or less, I couldn't put a finger on anything that my mind was occupied with. Have I managed to block off the *I* from the *mind* to quiet the incessant babbling? Sounds like enlightenment. But I want the thinking back. It wasn't that I was thinking of something and couldn't or refused to express it. I genuinely wasn't thinking anything.
I can't even think well enough to work out any of these problems right now. I'm jumping around topics like I'm insane, or maybe ADD. I'll come back to this later on Adderall.
I worry that I cannot control my own fate, that I am my father, that I cannot make a long-term plan and be guaranteed of results. OR am I worried that I *can* control my fate? That seems to be the answer that a psychologist might give. That my feeling of being out of control stems from a fear of being in control. Linked to self-doubt, I'm sure. But I don't think that's right. The fear is being out of control, that I am destined to things. Because then *I* don't matter, and I'm just along with the ride with my mind and body.
To make a decision is to think about the future. To think about the future is to think about an end. One should choose the most worthwhile end. An end's worth is correllary to... what?
What do other people live their lives for? God. Family. Humanity. Experience and reason (my only two tools) have shown no evidence of the existence of any supernatural force. There are things as of yet unexplained about the universe, but if current trends continue, these things will be explained. Even if there exists a supernatural force which has created life with an end in mind, it is not clear to me what this end is, or how best to work toward it. Without a life-creator, can there be a purpose to life (and, by extension, family and humanity in general)?
How do other people not worry about this all the time?
Follow that and you will eventually get to Veterans Memorial Parkway and it'll be… lemme think.. hey, that's the first light you get to that way, isn't it baby? Coming from Oliver? 301 Bypass? ... I don't know what that is. And.. Ok. Meghan says that you will go through one light, and the next light will be 301 Bypass.
I'm becoming increasingly worried that any and all of my free time to be/create/experience is going to be sucked up with obligations to school and work. For the rest of my life.
Enough ambiguously phrased one-line journal entries. Enough bland and tasteless literature. Enough manilla life.
That statement made, I find myself again at an em passe. What have I to say?
I'm worried. I am worry. Worried about the future. The future that is so much as yet uncertain. (Oh, to know. To put the pieces of determination together in the right order and finally see.) My work this summer has brought me in contact with some sad individuals: thirty-somethings still working in food service, twenty-something college dropouts (or high school dropouts) with children's mouths to feed on a waitress's salary. It's so easy (it would seem) to become trapped in the working world. Locked into a cycle of bills and payments with no room for escape, for life.
I'm almost done with college. A year. Year and a half at most. I'll have a degree. Philosophy/English. Have I wasted my time here, as so many parents and "realists" have said? I hope not. I have learned. I have questioned and found answers, answers that hide more questions. I have understood. I have become educated. What I have not done is made my way towards a piece of paper that guarantees me a job.
But there's still time, right? I'm still young? I don't need a career by twenty-two?
I think I can support myself on a teacher's salary. (It's not as though I have anyone else to worry about)
