"They say that dreams are only real as long as they last. Couldn't you say the same thing about life?"

I'm presently making a huge mistake:

I'm attempting to multi-task while watching Richard Linklater's Waking Life.

Bad move. Most of the film is dialogue/discourse, and most of the discourse is thick with philosophy and heavy ideas. A lot of the people are speaking quickly and I'm having trouble keeping up, since I'm not devoting my full attention to it. What I'm catching, though, I love. It's giving me a much clearer sense of Linklater and his aims in film.

Now that I've seen Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, A Scanner Darkly (which I really didn't like), and this, I guess I have to go back to the beginning of his filmography and see Slacker and Dazed and Confused. And I want to find subUrbia on VHS still, since I really enjoyed reading the play.

As far as I can tell, 1990s Linklater seems to be preoccupied with Gen X angst and 20-somethings coming of age. One thing I love about Before Sunrise and Before Sunset is that in seeing how Jesse and Celine grow and mature between 1995 and 2004, you consequently see how Linklater's grown. I also like that about Ethan Hawke. Ethan Hawke in Reality Bites and Before Sunrise is not the same as Ethan Hawke 10 years later.

A lot of people don't like him. I do. The more interviews I read with him, the more I respect him. Gen X-ers came of age in the mid-'90s and he had to do it on film for an international audience. It seems like he had to endure condemnation for that for so long, that looking back, he has a different kind of an attitude that seems to say, "I'm doing what I want, I'm looking for fulfillment, and if you don't like what I'm doing, fuck you." Very Jersey, haha. He did, if I recall, go to high school here. This is from an interview that came out right after he did Before the Devil Knows You're Dead.

EW: Do you feel more in the zone creatively now than you did at the peak of your infamy as a Gen-X icon 10 years ago?
Hawke: Absolutely. We as a culture love to celebrate people in their early 20s. But it's not a comfortable place to be in your mid-20s. You don't know who you are as a person. You're screwing up left and right. It's very awkward. I've found that the older I get, the easier it is to be the person you want to be. Self-importance has a stranglehold on people in their early 20s. That's the razor's edge you need to walk: to take yourself seriously but not too seriously.

Did it make you feel vulnerable to revisit [your] novel [when adapting it for film] after being so criticized for its self-absorption?
If you're me, there's a lot of advantages that come with it and a lot of disadvantages that come with it. People never hesitate to tell me when they think I'm an asshole.

So aren't you tempted to bury that part of yourself and hope people forget?
I can't. I buck at that. I was too young to be held accountable for how you felt about me when I was 23. I enjoy life too much to let myself be defined by that.

Are you happy with how it turned out?
It was a weird opportunity to get to make such a personal film in such a corporate age. To use cinema for self-expression in an age when everything is supposed to be a commodity for sale, I felt so privileged, and all of that was such a luxury. People who don't like my film don't like it passionately because they get this idea that self-reflective art is an act of egregious narcissism. And if that is true, what do we say to Emily Dickinson, Jane Austen, to Proust to Whitman? You start to take a certain pride in their hatred of it. But the truth is, I'm really not only interested in self-reflective art. There's also a bunch of other stuff I'd rather do.

That's encouraging.

I understand why people denounce anything that even hints at self-importance and -involvement--I do it too. But part of me thinks, what is art for, if not for expression? And what's wrong with a little self-reflection, when so many people go through life without ever stepping back and really looking at themselves? Or without anyone ever really looking at them?

I'll probably look back at this some day and laugh at how self-involved and self-reflecting I was. I kind of am already. I'm okay with that. Everything is absurd, and sometimes all you can do is laugh at it all.

Peck: We're just the gatekeepers, Cor, I'm telling ya...

...We're just the gatekeepers. We spend four years scaring you about college, and then when you go away, you realize, it's really not that bad - it's just like high school.
Me: No. You spend four years getting us excited for college, and then we go, and we're disappointed that it's just like high school.

Oh, the "wisdom" of Mr. Peck. What a nut.

Though I'm not quite as cynical as that conversation with Peck makes me sound (stop laughing!), I do always laugh when people go on and on about how "different" college is from high school. Especially the ones who insist that in college, cliques are nonexistent. False. "Drama" gets left in high school? More false.

I was talking to an old friend about the latest drama in a circle of people that I'm on the outside of now. He says to me, "Why are we even talking about this? This shouldn't even be brought up. Aren't we supposed to be hearing about GOOD things happening to people we know? New jobs, career choices, being in love, engagements, that sort of thing? Isn't that supposed to be starting now?"

That's what you'd think, isn't it? And I guess it used to be true. Back when people married younger, and undergraduate school meant more. These days, fewer couples marry right out of college, or right out of high school. And for a lot of jobs, where you earned your bachelors isn't nearly as important as where you got your graduate degree. It's strange, how the timeline shifted like that. Even more strange are the implications of that shift.

"It used to be that you came out of school, and you got married - those who were going to get married. But my peers are getting married in their early 30s, so now there's like this extra 10 years of that angst."
- Zach Braff

He makes a good point. It seems like teenage angst is no longer reserved just for teenagers. It's extending into our twenties - throughout college, and beyond. But why exactly is that? What is different about twenty-something year olds today than twenty, thirty, forty years ago? Since that angst is extending past our teens, has our rate of maturity decreased? And if it has, why has it? What separates our generation for those before us?

I think responsibility is a factor. How it's taught, how much is given. I feel like people often "grow up" when they are forced to - when they are dealt responsibility and must accept it. The concept can be taught, but I guess it's really a more hands-on thing. And with an increasing number of kids going to college, that's another four years that they delay entering the real world. Another four years where they only need to take limited responsibility for themselves. In theory, I guess college is, in part, supposed to teach you to take responsibility for yourself and your actions and whatnot, but it's really just another sheltered environment where, if you don't actively choose to accept your responsibilities, you can skate by. It's hard to actively make that decision, when the alternative is so convenient. Who really wants to be an adult, with responsibilities and obligations? I prefer the Peter Pan route.

And now I'm just rambling. Shutting up now.

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Now playing: Chris Ayer - We Are Birds

"To die so young is more than merely dying; it is to lose so large a part of life..."

"Don't it always seem to go,
That you don't know what you got till it's gone?"
- Joni Mitchell, "Big Yellow Taxi"

So my Facebook homepage feed told me today that a guy I had a class with last year joined a group called "Stay Strong Nick." Description: "To a brother who could always make us smile, you're forever in our thoughts and prayer, we love you brother." Recent News: "Nov. 3- Nick was in a severe car accident last night. *Nov. 4, Nick passed away late this afternoon...our deepest condolences go out to his family." Related group: "STAY STRONG GARY..YOU ARE IN OUR PRAYERS". Description: "PLease leave and stories or memories you have of Gary. RIP GARY DEVERCELLY..you will always be in our hearts..we will never forget you "CALI" We love you G-Baby 9.4.88- 3.30.07"

This is the part that Blogger keeps deleting on me that I've written twice already and am now trying to remember:

I hate these groups. Mostly because there are too many of them. Far too many. It's lovely that people gather together to share memories and love for a lost loved one, but none of them should be lost. No matter what the reason - an uncontrollable terminal illness, a freak accident - it's a tragedy every time. Too often, I feel like it's probably the result of some reckless act of youth. When we're young, we have this subconscious belief that we are impervious, that we are immortal. I hate that. Nothing can touch us or hurt us. I feel like this is almost a natural, inherent attitude, that occurs in everyone in various degrees. Bad things don't happen to us, or to the people we love - only to other people. Other people get into horrible car accidents, other people get alcohol poisoning and die, other people get assaulted - it's always other people. And this attitude is reflected in what we do. We get careless and thoughtless, we take so-called "calculated" risks that only calculate what we risk in terms of ourselves, not in terms of others. We do stupid things because "it's only one time" or "just this once." We flirt with fate, because nothing can get to us - nothing can reach us, in our youth. We've got it all: we're young, we're healthy, we're carefree, and we've got our whole lives ahead of us.

Except that's not always the case. Bad things happen. Often to people who don't deserve to have bad things happen to them. But they happen. And when tragedy strikes, we feel it deeply, but often only fleetingly. We mourn in that dramatic melancholy that belongs only to the young - the kind that lasts only a while before our world moves on, and in a sense, we forget that it ever happened or could ever happen again. Not everyone does this, but many do. And then we go back to our reckless lifestyles until one day, we stop, for whatever reason - there are many.


"Like the wind crying endlessly through the universe, Time carries away the names and the deeds of conquerers and commoners alike. And all that we are, all that remains, is in the memories of those who cared we came this way for a brief moment."
- Harlan Ellison


We never really value our lives or the moments we're given. There's so much in every mundane, little moment that we take for granted. Cracking a joke with a stranger. Sitting around in silence with a friend. Meeting someone new. Going on a trip. Getting a new job. Listening to a speaker. Eating your favorite food. Dancing. Taking a solitary walk. Splashing through puddles. Alone, these things are simple experiences that everyone can understand. Woven together, they're your life.


"There is so much in the world for us all if we only have the eyes to see it, and the heart to love it, and the hand to gather it to ourselves--so much in men and women, so much in art and literature, so much everywhere in which to delight, and for which to be thankful."
- L. M. Montgomery


We waste a lot of time being angry. I guess that's okay, on one level - without the anger and pain and bitterness and negative emotions and bad moods, the good stuff wouldn't seem so great. But letting that control us - it'll drive you nuts. Shakespeare said, "Sweet are the uses of adversity," and they are. Everything that we experience, it becomes a part of us, and being positive about everything we experience makes our overall life that much sweeter. Of course, that's easier said than done.


"I don't know, you know, I always think that if I could just accept the fact that my life was supposed to be difficult, you know, that's what to be expected, then I might not get so pissed-off about it and I'd just be glad when something nice happens."
- Jesse, Before Sunrise


I guess we just do the best we can and that's all there really is...

I dunno. I'm not really succeeding in the whole transposing thought/feeling to words deal tonight.

Haha. On that note, one last quote:

"I quote others only in order to better express myself."
- Michel de Montaigne

So this is actually pretty funny.

Today I felt overwhelmingly in touch with reality. Meaning, I was stuck in a stupidly pessimistic mood all day.

Seriously though, all I kept thinking today was, "Wow. Life sucks." And I didn't just mean my life, and I didn't just mean the way things are now. I mean The Way Things Are (Babe, right) in general. Being an adult holds absolutely no appeal to me today. Just being in general doesn't hold much appeal to me today. (No, I'm not suicidal, I swear. Just a little grouchy.) Anyway, I still blame registration.

In 7 hours, I have a class that I feel is a complete waste of my time. Immediately afterwards, I have an appointment with the convener of the Contemporary Arts contract major, which I'm a little nervous about. I was warned that unless I have a very legitimate reason to want to switch from Communications to Contemporary Arts, and none of the other Comm Arts concentrations will give me what I want, and I have a clear, distinct plan for what courses I want to take and what kind of focus I want, I'm not going to be allowed to switch. In which case I'd have to settle for switching to the Writing concentration in Comm Arts. There are fewer courses that I don't want to take in Writing than there are in Media/Cinema Studies. Except it'll stink if I have to do that, still, because then I'll lose the few Media/Cinema Studies courses I want, I still won't be able to take "Children's and Adolescent Literature" or "Photojournalism," and it'll just be lame. Not that it possibly won't be lame either way. But anyway. After that, at 2, I have Idea Development. Then I have to work on and upload my pictures for Digital Photography (self-portraits, all of which I hate) and then work 7-9:30. I have a midterm Wednesday that I need to cram for, too.

All in all, I can't shake the feeling that this all could just be a waste of time and money. I don't know what I want to do. I can't go to the Contemporary Arts convener and tell him that I want these specific classes because they'll help me in the field of work that I wish to enter, because I don't know what damn field that is. Writing for a newspaper? Criticizing for a magazine? Screenwriting? Photographer? Starving author? Museum curator? Librarian? Okay, maybe not a librarian. But really. I may end up doing something where I don't even need a damn degree. I haven't the slightest idea to what I should devote the rest of my life.

And then I thought about how scary that is, that uncertainty. And then I thought about how scary being an adult is, in general. Having a job/career. Having bills to pay, rent/mortgage to pay. Finding a place to live to begin with. Taking a leap of faith and getting married. Heck, forget marriage - finding someone you love enough to marry is huge - there are so many people out there, and the way we're becoming more and more conditioned to isolate ourselves, connecting with people isn't exactly easy. And then once you do get married, having kids and being fully responsible for them as well as yourself, and raising them. Being a good parent. It's all ridiculously, ludicrously frightening. Laughably, really. And why? Why do we toil through all that? It's painful as hell. So why. Why. What's the point.

I never really get like this. I guess I'm feeling morbid today.

I was talking to my suitemate the other day about how, in The View From Saturday, E. L. Konigsberg's various characters basically say that these are the 3 main reasons for the decline of Western civilization: 1) The kids of this generation know how to nit-pick, but not how to write a B&B letter. 2) The ballpoint pen - it's cheap, quick, and completely without character. 3) People don't take time to take tea at four o'clock. At that last one, Kay starts talking about how much more relaxed people are in other countries - the way the some cultures stop all work in the middle of the day for siestas, the way the English always have tea at four, etc. It really made me think of how we're so conditioned, in the United States, to move fast. We rush around, schedule ourselves so tightly that we haven't got any time for ourselves, let alone for a nap or tea every day at the same time. We always have a goal - there's always something better that we're trying to achieve, the grass is always greener - this is impressed upon us deeply from the time we are children. The society in which we live stipulates that we must work hard and push ourselves to the breaking point when we are in high school, in order to get into a "good" college. Once we get there, it's not just fun and games - we have to keep up our academic and athletic and artistic performances so we can get into graduate school; we have to be very "involved" so we can get placed in good internships. And we need to have good connections - in an increasingly competitive job market (since there are more and more people qualified for professional jobs with the increase in college attendance), it's all about who you know, right? The internships and good grades are supposed to help us get good jobs. Once we have said jobs, we are constantly trying to improve our status at work. Get a raise or a promotion. Make more money. All that jazz. You end up barely having enough time to breathe. A career is not your life, it's how you make a living so you can have a life. Except these days, it turns into your life.

One of the only things I liked about the movie The Last Kiss was something Rachel Bilson said, which is strange because I hated her character most of all:

Kim: Having a crisis are we?
Michael: Do I look like I'm having a crisis?
Kim: Everyone I know is having a crisis. I know you're not supposed to get them until midlife but I think something's happening to our metabolism
Michael: Our metabolism?
Kim: [nods] Yeah, I mean the world is moving so fast now, we are all chasing something so fast that we start freaking out long before our parents did. Feel my heart.
[puts his hand in her chest]
Kim: Feel how fast it is?
Michael:...that's a fast heart.
Kim: ‘Cause we don't ever stop to breathe anymore...
[takes his hand off her chest]
Kim: You gotta remember to breathe or you'll die.

I can't imagine life post-college. I really can't imagine being done with school. Okay, so if I go to grad school, then it'll still be a while. But I can't picture what my life will be like when I'm done with school. I think some people become teachers just because they don't want to have to know what their lives would be like outside of school. Ugh. I don't want to teach. In theory it sounds great - helping people learn, enlightening them, being a part of their lives for a while - in practice, not so much. Unless it's either a private school or a good college or university or something. Even then, not so great these days.

Bleh. I better snap out of this soon. I really have to get my act together and start focusing on my classes more. I need motivation again. I keep losing it. Bleh.


"We don't have much room...
We all need a little more room to live."


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Listening to: Something Corporate - Konstantine