mix tapes.

It's something I keep coming back to: making mixes. I make new playlists in iTunes for myself all the time. But I love making them for other people much more. I love the challenge of assembling 80 minutes' worth of music for a given person.

Some people like to make mixes based on their own personal preferences. I like to make mixes based on what I think the other person will like most. I like combining songs and artists I know they like already, with other stuff they might never have listened to before. I like picking a mood or a tone - or a few - and trying to coherently structure the mix accordingly. Should I use fast songs? Slow ones? Sad ones? Happy ones? Dance music? Chill music? Everything?

I've made several this year, and I've received mostly positive feedback. This makes me happy. The way I see it, making someone a mix that they enjoy overall means that I know them well enough to recognize what music they would like. And then, listening to that particular mix will evoke that person as I listen. Not any one track, but that specific arrangement of songs will remind me of them. I like that. I like knowing that when I'm 3500 miles from here, I can listen to these sets of songs and still feel close to my friends. I hope my mixes make my friends think of me the way they make me think of them. It's a gift.

"Good luck exploring the infinite abyss."

It's interesting, seeing the things people will do to fill that inexplicable, unreachable void that parasitically inhabits so many of us. These things range from self-destructive, to brave, to completely futile - and aren't mutually exclusive in design. It's like watching someone trying to fill a pinpricked cup and not understanding why it won't hold water: amusing at times, and often absurd, but there's pathos in it, too. And sometimes it's just frustrating to watch and not be able to help.

Although, I don't know how to find the hole in the cup I'm holding, either, much less how to plug it up. So I guess I shouldn't talk.

"It was November...

...the month of crimson sunsets, parting birds, deep, sad hymns of the sea, passionate wind-songs in the pines."

Look how icy those blues are. So blue, so blue.

I hate November. In theory, I love it. Or, I suppose, I love my romanticized mental image of it. Crimson sunsets and sad sea hymns? Deeply, painfully lovely. The experience? Just painful.

"The elemental vastness of the windblown world."

"Elemental vastness."

Around here, November is a month of transition. The brisk, rosy days of October and Indian summer don't fade - they drain. The skies are emptied of their life and left drab and dull, and even the sun cools to a stark, hard white, piercing through the listless clouds. The nights are darker than ever, except for the glinting stars. Sometimes the stars help, crowding the "spiritual firmament" with a friendly glow. But sometimes they hurt. Sometimes they seem so far away, and the world seems bigger and emptier than ever. Deep breaths of night air just cut like knives through your lungs. Everything reassuring is gone. And the windows of the apartments, the dorms, the houses - their warm yellow lights warn away trespassers. It gets harder and harder to fill the space between.

All I can remember of last winter is the emptiness of the spaces between, and how badly I want to close the gaps.

I'm getting restless again and I don't know what to do.

----------------
Now playing: Simon & Garfunkel - Bookends

Every stupid, miserable word that falls from my mouth or slips from my fingers sounds feels looks is wrong. Every attempt for smooth, fluid motion stops short and fails in action. The words just die, flat and useless, the moment they materialize. It just all feels so hard and plastic. I want loose and elastic. It's like I'm trying too hard. It feels false and premeditated. But my mind is blank and I flounder - I have to try just to come up with anything at all. These aren't images. They're empty structures with fluff plugged into them. Something's missing.

I need to read more.

I think I need to start sleeping more.

----------------
Now playing: Ray LaMontagne - Be Here Now

I'm pretty convinced time is doing something funky right now because the past five days have felt like months, but they have passed at the speed of light. If the rest of semester - and year - goes the same way, I'm in trouble.

I know that I know it.

"The response we make when we 'believe' a work of the imagination is that of saying: 'This is the way things are. I have always known it without being fully aware that I knew it. Now in the presence of this play or novel or poem (or picture or piece of music) I know that I know it.'"
- Thornton Wilder

I would add "person" to that list.
Art is an awakening to something you always knew existed but were never quite aware of.
You could say the same about love, I suppose.
I love being woken up. Especially by people I know.

Generally speaking, I think we lose a little and gain a little every day. Some days we lose more than others; some days we gain more. Keeping it in balance and finding the perspective to see the gains outstrip the losses is how we keep on keeping on.

Pet peeve.

I hate it when people think I'm indifferent and indecisive about everything just because I don't care about stupid shit.

I'm pretty easygoing about a lot of things. Most of the time, I'd rather that someone else pick what tv show we watch, what music we listen to in the car, who drives, where we go for dinner, what time we go to the movies. If it doesn't matter to me, and it matters to you, why should I decide? I don't want to hear you bitch if I decide and you don't agree, when it doesn't perturb me either way. It makes other people happy, and it's so easy, so why pretend to care about shit I don't care about?

But just because I can go with the flow about little things, doesn't mean I don't care about anything.

Art and "Why?"

I suppose no one ever stops thinking about the "Meaning of Life" or whatever you want to call it, even if they feel like they should stop thinking about it and just live. There are a few things I've concluded in the past few years, though, without really meaning to do so, and I'd just like to jot them down before I forget.

Art is life.

My favorite quote from Dead Poet's Society is this:

"We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for."

We live for art. That's basically what he's saying. And this is what that means to me:

As humans, we each lead singular lives. We are all individuals with our own individual perspectives, views, feelings, thoughts, and these defining elements will never be reproduced in someone else in exactly the same way. At the same time, while we experience separately, much of what we experience is the same, and while we embrace our uniqueness and celebrate originality and independent thought, we embody a strange yet innate contradiction by constantly seeking companionship--by looking for ways to assure ourselves that in fact, we are not alone.

No one wants to be alone. Even if a person takes cold comfort in desiring solitude, it's not truth. No one wants to feel like he is the only person on earth in history to ever experience what he is experiencing. Everyone wants to be unique, and everyone is--but everyone also wants to be understood and heard.

To me, this is the cause of all art.

Art is the attempt to share your perspective, you own individual assessment of an experience, with someone else who can identify with your experience. It's letting others see an experience that they share, through your eyes. It's communicating your thoughts and emotions and ideas. It's introducing others to your way of seeing and feeling. It's inspiring them to reevaluate their own way of doing this.

Art brings people together. It gives them a shared human experience. It makes them feel like they are not alone. It lays the groundwork for connection on a deeper level. I don't think you can love art without loving people. Though sometimes art is making people feel uncomfortable, forcing them to confront something real they would rather avoid, it is still truth. Art is truth--personal truth in words, images, sounds, movement. To create real art, you must believe in what you're creating. You have to be passionate about it. If it doesn't mean anything to you, why should it mean anything to anyone else?

Art is courage. It's risky. It means finding your own personal truth, embracing every vulnerability, channeling it, and opening it to the world. And the world is frequently unkind. I think that stops people from trying to get people to listen and see them. It stops me. I have this habit I've developed of assuming that 1) no one cares about what I have to say, 2) I don't have anything to say worth listening to, and 3) I don't really want to lay myself out so vulnerably, anyway. It's terrible. They're awful excuses, and they shouldn't stop anyone from trying to make himself heard. We're constantly bombarded by images, sounds, words, all the time. There's a lot of garbage out there, and a lot of stuff that just doesn't mean anything to us--but it may mean something to someone. By not sharing, we're potentially depriving someone else of something meaningful. (I've gone off about this before.)

The Pop artist Ronnie Cutrone said that Andy Warhol taught him not to waste time trying to define art because you can't do it. I don't think that's true. I think you can define it--it's when you try saying what is "good" and what is "bad," that's when it gets tricky. I think that to me, "good" art is something that successfully communicates the artist's perspective, inspires interpretation, or both. There's plenty of entertainment that is not art, and I can appreciate it--but it doesn't mean anything to me. The only way I can criticize anyone's creation is look at it and ask myself, "What does this mean to me? What could this possibly mean to someone else?" If either answer is anything of significance, then I can't just dismiss it, can I?

But now I'm getting off on a tangent, and a really complicated one at that. I didn't mean to make this so long. These thoughts are full of contradictions. There's no logic to any of this. If you can find some, congratulations. If you can use logic or reasoning to destroy the validity of any of this, that's cool too. There's not really logic to anything I stick up here, 'cause that's not really my thing. This is all just what I know based on my own intuition, my own feeling and reaction to what's around me. It's just how I feel, in the most basic sense, about what I love and what I see.

I like day and night equally, for the same reason:

I like light.

Make sense of THAT one.

A poem.

I wrote this a week or two ago and just forgot to post it. It needs work but whatever.

the hours fade away
peel
pare
husk
pumice to the heart
rubbed red and raw
the guards, they fall apart
dissolve into the dark
releasing brief relief
a voice to sing to speak
to mutter to uncover
to liberate and loosen
a tongue stiff but not forgotten
thoughts and words and longing
fears and hopes and wanting
chaotic and disheveled
they were crossed
with inhibitions
lost
in self suppression
fraught
with old tradition
until the night surrounded
unwound the tightness halting
the reticence untrusting
stripping weary wanderers
of their wariness inhuman
but now they see the dawn is coming

and each retreats.


The spacing is screwed up as usual but whatever.

the process of discovery

learning = opening mind

open mind = discovery

discovery = awakening

awakening = new perspective

new perspective = freshness

freshness = renewal

renewal = life

I don't understand.

We're so selfish
We're slaves to our impulses
We're afraid of our emotions
And no one knows where the shore is
When divided by the ocean
And the only thing I know is
That the answer isn't for our eyes
That the answer isn't for our eyes...

- Feist

I was thinking:

We have words, but we don't use them.
We have words and we don't want to use them.
We use them, and we don't want to share them.
We have actions. We have means of expressing ourselves.
We don't express ourselves. We don't share ourselves.
We're given everything we need and we don't use it.

To be human. To live. Is to share an experience.
To experience together.
To give your experience to another.
To take in another's experience.
To connect with another through an experience.

Selfishness goes beyond hoarding material possessions.
Selfishness is refusing to give or accept sympathy.
Selfishness is refusing to experience.
Selfishness is refusing to share pain.
Selfishness is refusing to share. To talk.
Selfishness is refusing to show love.
Selfishness is refusing to love.
Selfishness is refusing.

We isolate ourselves.
Hide in comfort.
It's not human.
I suppose it's defense.
It's not living.

Why are we so fearful?
I am.
But why?
It doesn't make sense.
I don't understand.

I almost died in about 8 different ways today...

...just from going to Shop-Rite on Rt. 17 in Ramsey.

1) The wind.

Okay, not the shopping center's fault. But the wind was going at a pretty steady 25+ mph, and when combined with #2, the result was not good. #2 being...

2) Rogue shopping carts.

One actually darted across the main drag of the parking lot, hit a curb...then backed up and went back across the road. And stopped in the middle. I was almost impressed. Except for the fact that, ya know, it nearly slammed into my car.

3) Cars. And the parking lot itself.

Why is there an unwritten law that seemingly states that all supermarket parking lots must be unqualified disasters? They're never organized functionally, and there are always people running stop signs, making wide turns, going the wrong way down one way sections. This one is no exception.

4) Old men. And old women.

The old folk who frequent the Shop-Rite in the middle of the day should so not be navigating shopping carts, let alone three-ton automobiles. One old lady decided it was a good idea to turn her cart out into the middle of the aisle without looking to see if anyone was walking. I was walking. And the old men who wander around with baskets look so lost--they stop in the middle of everything to check their lists and read the aisle signs and cause major traffic jams.

5) All women, for that matter.

I hate the rich moms who come into Shop-Rite while their kids are in school. There are a few different types, but they all fit one type or another. There are the ones who come in wearing their $120 jeans, long sleeve shirts, and puffy vests. There are the ones in the $120 jeans with sweater sets and the Kohl's handbags that look almost designer but not really. Then there are the ones in the $120 jeans with the expensive coats and designer bags. And they all invariably have giant diamond stud earrings, straightened hair, obnoxious highlights/dye jobs, and too much make-up. They walk around with their coupons and their little daughters who are wearing Coach leather shoes and Guess for Kids clothes. They block up the aisles and they don't pay attention to where they're going with their shopping carts because they're too busy babbling on their Blackberries or bluetooths like it's their job. And really, it is. It's probably the most work they'll do all day.

Anyway. Just felt like a rant. Now have an hour to read 80 pages of The Sound and the Fury. Woot.

----------------
Now playing: Martha Reeves & The Vandellas - Heat Wave (Stereo Mix With Fade)

Beliefs and ideas that answer unspecified questions.

A book called To-Do List, listography.com, and McSweeney's has me on a list kick.

- Nothing is black and white. There's always a gray area, an exception to the rule, something that makes your absolute fall to pieces and consequently drives you insane.

- Nothing lasts forever, and that's a good thing.

- Perspective is everything.

- Sometimes it really is necessary to convince yourself something is true when you know it isn't.

- There is often no rational explanation for how we feel.

- Everyone needs someone or something to talk to. Preferably someone or something that will react. No matter how much you don't want to, people need other people. People want to feel needed. Sometimes the best thing you can do for someone is let them see you need them.

- Everything we do has an impact on something else, no matter how minor.

- "It takes all kinds of people to make a world."

- There's a time and place for everything, and if either is off by even a little, it changes everything.

- There is a small but distinct difference between making an excuse and giving an explanation.

- Sometimes all you need is for someone to have faith in you.

- Miscommunication, misunderstanding, and assumption are the root of way too many problems. Just talking straightforwardly can fix that.

- Mass media is messing everyone up, majorly.

- Instant messages, emails, phone calls, letters. They give people space and bravado so they say things they wouldn't otherwise say in person. For better or worse.

- Sometimes, taking a deep breath really does help.

- Your probability of being happy in life is a lot higher if you find a passion and follow it.

- Images affect us more than anything else. We absorb thousands every day and don't take much notice, but they're there.

- Simplicity and complexity are both gifts.

- Everything is relative.

- Appearances are superficial, but image isn't unimportant, even though the way others see you is often very different from the way you see yourself.

- Life is a lot easier and more pleasant when you stop caring what others think and how they see you, when you stop trying to impress people, and just be yourself. Everything is more real.

- Photography is great as a means of recording something that will become a memory, but it hinders living in the moment, and sometimes sacrificing the photos are worth it.

- There is a lot to be said for abstract thoughts and goals and dreams, but sometimes something concrete and tangible is necessary to believe.

- Everyone should believe in something.

- Life is happier when you let there be magic.

- Self-denial is admirable, but being able to indulge in moderation is, too.

- Everything in the world, in life, rests on a pinpoint, and all you can do is try to keep it balanced.

- So much pain could be prevented if, more frequently, we just asked "How are you?", "Are you okay?", or "Do you want to talk?", and actually listened to the response.

- Political correctness is overrated. But, at the same time, insensitivity isn't.

- Never let anyone, even yourself, tell you that you're not allowed to feel the way you're feel, or that you're not supposed to feel the way you do.

- Everyone is connected. Realizing a connection is the hard part--making it a full, rich, reality. But succeeding, even with only one person, is one of the greatest accomplishments.

- Sometimes you have trust others to get them to trust you.

- Everything works for good.

- Meditation or relaxation frees the mind. Freeing the mind opens it. Having an open minds lets you see the humor, beauty, and good everything.

- Getting angry is healthy. Holding onto your anger isn't.

- Whoever said "patience is a virtue" was right.

- You never really "get over" losing someone you love. You just learn how to accept it and turn it into something else. And if you loved them, you never really lose them, because they've had an impact you--they've made a difference in your life and it's a part of you. The pain just mellows out.

- "Nothing is unforgivable. Not where there's love."

- Passion is transformative and the expression of passion is the epitome of beauty.

- "What you feel only matters to you. It's what you do to the people you say you love, that's what matters."

- Sometimes, what we do is not a reflection of who we are.

- It's a good idea to reevaluate your priorities from time to time.

- If you like something that becomes popular, you don't have to stop liking it.

- "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish."

- "You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier."

- Everyone is at least little hypocritical sometimes.

- "A person doesn't need to be perfect to be exactly what you need."

- Taking care of yourself is just as important as taking care of others.

- Group thinking is dangerous. Listen to others, be open to them, but in the end, think for yourself.

- Pick your battles.

- "[Don't] worry if people like you for the wrong reason. Just use that energy to build on it."

- The people you choose to surround yourself with, and the way you act around them, are a reflection of who you are.

- Tears ≠ weakness.

- A certain amount of fear can be healthy as motivation, but it can creep up and dominate you. And really, "There's no reason to be afraid. Ever."

- Good intentions are not always enough.

- Knowing what you want is the first step. Then all you have to do is go after it.

- You don't decide who deserves what. That's not the question, anyway.

- Being forgotten is a form of death.

- We have so many broad generalizations and labels for everything and everyone, but it all defies categorization in one way or another. Or completely.

- Truth is in the reaction.

- Sometimes, if you can't fix it, the best thing you can do is not worry about it.

- At the end of the day, no matter what has happened, life goes on.

- Despair is easy. Faith is hard. That's why it's more worthwhile.

- We tend to run away when things get hard, and denial and avoidance can be ways of running.

- You always have a choice.

- Not all conflict is bad. Conflict is necessary to life. (But I still don't have to like it. Haha.)

- Being nice to people in small ways is so easy, and they add up.

- It's easy to corrupt an experience or feeling in retrospect, to question how real it was. If you believed in it in the moment, then it was real.

- Everyone has his own style, and it doesn't matter what it is, as long as you own it.

- If you're going to break the rules, have a thorough command of them first.

- We don't often act rationally with the people we love. What you say/do often differs from what you feel. The best love prompts acts of sanity, as well as romantic stuff--you treat them the way you know you should treat a person you love.

- "Everyone goes haywire sometimes, and if we don't, then maybe we ought to."

- Even when you've got nothing, you can still tell stories.

- Sometimes fighting means stooping down. Sometimes it means standing up.

- "The human condition is defined by irony."

- Life is good.

Maybe I'll add more another time.

1/21/09, 10:01 PM
1/26/09 12:54 AM
Just added more.

I finally figured out the problem.

I have answers. I really do. Not all of them. But some.

AND I'm willing to share them.

Because, I have answers for anyone who isn't me.

The answers I have for me don't match my questions.

I've figured out the problem.

Now I just need a solution.

And sadly, 42 doesn't work here.

I get that we're not supposed to have all the answers to all our questions, and I don't really want them, but it would really be nice if they matched up once in a while. If only for a change of pace.

----------------
Now playing: Chris Ayer - The Center Ring

Rationalizing.

"The trick to loving is letting go."

- The Jane Austen Book Club

So let go, so let go,

Jump in,

Oh well, what you waiting for?

It's alright,

'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown...

- "Let Go," Frou Frou

"Memory is a wonderful thing if you don't have to deal with the past."

- Celine, Before Sunset

We hold on too tight. We're nostalgic. Photo albums, journals, home movies--we love to relive as much if not more than we love living itself. Yet it's painful. To hold onto these memories hurts. We end up wanting the past back instead of hoping for a better future and enjoying what we have now. The past can be a trap and being too preoccupied with it is dangerous.

Nothing lasts forever; everything must end. For better, for worse, that's just how it is, and you can either try to hold onto it--whether you do so consciously or otherwise--or you can just do what you can with the time that you have, and when it's over, appreciate that it happened. You can try to stay in a moment that has passed. You can try to recreate something that's gone. You can try to hold onto something that's not there. But sooner or later you will have to keep going. You will have to move on. Then you can either hold onto the memory and live in it, or you can live in the present and let it be. Love that it happened, learn from it, embrace it, then let it go.

I suppose that letting go really is all you can try to do. You can't try to hold on anything for too long or it will just slip away faster. Just enjoy what you have, love what you have, immerse yourself in the present. Let it wash over you and bask in it, and when it's gone, let it go.

I wasn't going to just rant and moan and get all preachy but I have a migraine and need to sleep. Maybe I'll fix this up another time.

Edit 11/12/08
11:28 AM
I didn't really clarify any of that. It's fluid but it's mush. I started off saying, "We hold on too tight," and that's really what I meant--not, "let go of everything and don't remember anything," but, I guess, only hold memories in the open palm of your hand. If they stay, they stay. If they fall away, don't try to close your hand but let them fall. Then there's room for more.

Laaaaaaaame. Whatever.

"We all hope...

...It's what keeps us alive."

- Charlie Fox, Speed-the-Plow

Ha. It's what kills us, too.

On Writing...and I don't mean the Stephen King memoirs.

At times I look at this thing and hate myself a little, for it, for various reasons. One of them is this:

I use this pretty much just as a space to jot down random thoughts, to work out on paper things that swim around my head til I can't see straight for all the extra noise. I like it because it's logged online and I'll never accidentally delete the file or forget to save it properly. I like it because I don't have to stress about the quality of writing that goes down here--it's just thoughts, and that's all.

Except that's not what it should be. I love finding simple ways of putting thoughts, of working them out in a way that makes sense to me. I like breaking down thoughts and putting them into words that everyone else can understand. And I like writing in a style that is more, "This is what I mean, I think, does it make sense to you?" than the "I am pretentiously condescending to explain this to you" vibe that I feel like my more formal writing tends to unintentionally convey. (I have a mortal fear of being pretentious. And of being seen as pretentious.) Yet, I've been cheating. I say that I'm trying to put my thoughts into writing that is easily accessible, and perhaps to some extent I am doing that, but at the same time, I'm just being lazy. I don't try to write well. I forgo all attempts at lyricism, which I love; I don't bother editing at all, really; I let myself ramble instead of trying to be concise. My poor diction betrays my weak vocabulary, and my imagery and figurative language? Practically nonexistent.

I like writing. I like to write. But I don't work at it. And I mean, while Kerouac's Belief and Technique for Modern Prose has its strong points, it doesn't work for a lot of people because, well, Kerouac was brilliant. He could sit down at a typewriter and just let the words flow from him like music. He could command language in a way most people can't. For most people, it takes hard work, dedication, and practice to become a strong writer and develop a personal style. I need to do that.

I also think being a great writer requires experience and exposure. It means reading more, and reading different forms and genres and styles and writers. It means listening to a wider variety of music (despite my post on pop music) and absorbing the rhythms and beats and cadences and melodies. It means looking at paintings and photographs and seeing the textures and angles and perceptions and lighting and color. It means reading and watching plays and hearing the dialogue and seeing the body language among the actors as they interact. It means watching films and seeing all of this combined with even more layers of personal interpretation on the audience's end. It means going out and being around people, talking to them, and Andy-Warhol style observing them and listening to them and being interested in them, because to me, humanity is the essence of writing and all other forms of expression.

Thus, my latest resolve is to try to improve and grow as a writer through these posts. Though I'm sure many of them will still end up being ramblings and musings of random thoughts, I am going to try to dedicate at least some time to doing that better. To being better.