Hedonism and Consumerism?

Hyperopia

"I (fill in the blank with hedonistic or consumeristic activity)..."

The results:

• week after: "I wish I had done more studying/working/saving money."
• year later: "I wish I had had more fun."
• forty years later: "I did too much work and not enough enjoying life."

I am in the hyperopic phase really... concerned about after graduation, with money on my mind...

Maybe I have a disorder. Will I turn into a pack rat like my great great grandpa due to a recession/depression?

More on this later...

Being me

It feels quite nice being me. And especially when I know that it is useful to others. Being me and just saying what I think. It is freeing and liberating and validating...

I couldn't replicate the elation I felt after that intersection of the trajectories, those attractions which pulled my path into the path of anothers.

Someday, I will always feel this way.

When they lie, it makes me mad

I revert to a child's expression of anger sometimes. Tantrums. Stomping. Growling.

Needless to say, I entered a research award contest. They postponed to "reveal date" from March 1 to March 13, but really meant "sometime around after the 13th." So the 14th came... nothing. Sunday the 15th will procure much the same. Then Monday will come...

I hate this waiting because it is a huge distraction for my tasks at hand. MY HONORS THESIS! I must get back to work despite my childish frustration.

I actually watched the mail lady put the mail in the boxes, stalking her to see when I could go down and retrieve my... Nothing! That's just life huh?

I wish that life were more like my deadlines. There is no wiggle room. The day its due is the day I turn it in. I expect the same from others. How disappointing that the world expects 100% and gives back a paltry 50% just cause it felt like it.

The rain doesn't help, it makes misery wetter and danker. But really part of my misery is a severe anxiety about completing my thesis perfectly. Every letter, phrase, passage, and citation absolutely perfect. HA! That right. HA! So this so-called draft is really setting the standard of a final, and so then my final will be the standard of a professional publication. I doubt that I can do that sometimes, but I continue to surprise myself as well, so what do I know?

The thesis is in the works. I have maybe 30 pages, and usable pages about 20. I plan to write 70 pages, then cut back on them all. I am fashioning sections of the paper to allow for a better revision.

I HATE REVISIONS btw. I hate going back over looking for typos, reading out loud, rewriting. That process of revision and drafting is miserable and necessary. So then the fact that I hate it does not surprise me, but the fact that I can write it at all does.

Cheers to "almost" making it, with always the hope that you will make it all the way. So I don't let on to my profs the situation, and feign a confidence I think I am now even beginning to believe. Maybe that's a good sign.

I believe in fairies, I do! I do!

Times Like Then

Past. Present. Future

In the past, I used to walk over a mile to my middle school at 6:30 in the morning. It was scary and potentially dangerous.

At 19, I felt too scared to even walk in my college town neighborhood alone.

At 21, I went into the middle of San Francisco alone. I was scared still.

At 22, I am most afraid of failing, falling short of the uber high expectations I have set for myself and have influenced others to hold for me. Will it pay off, this tenacity? Or do I need to fall?

All those times I walked alone, I was all alone. No one there, no one helping me. I made choices. They paid off sometimes. The time I didn't jump- I suffered.

So, all alone, in the bliss of my own frightening solitude, I will venture to complete the next greatest thing I have written for the scholarly world.

Starting tomorrow, I will be on that long walk, not knowing if I'll make it or not. But also knowing, if I don't try-then I know for certain I'll never make it there.

My motto: Try and surprise even yourself.

Moral Contradictions and Willful Ignorance

Sometimes I get frustrated. Some people are so wrapped up in issues.

For instance, money. Fuck money. I know some unnamed people (who even if they read this wouldn't know I'm talking about them) who think that's what life is made of. Reality check: it is not. By catering to an obsession of money and cash flow, and who has it and doesn't have it, and why people should or shouldn't spend it is usually wrapped up in some sort of self important egotism that says, "You know what's best to do with money, so go on- tell everyone what to do!"

I feel I have nearly perfected the teflon to avoid this said character(s), but every once in a while they set a trap. They mention figures or gloat about size, and it does become somewhat of a pissing contest.

I figure these people do it to further their agenda of self importance, and thereby it is just a silly and sad consequence that you or I are the ones squashed beneath their heavy boot of morally and fiscal oppression. We can't help it- the trap is set... and all lube and teflon gone, you walk away with scabs that just serve as later reminders that "Hey, I really fucking do not like this person spouting on about the meaningless ins and outs of their accounts."

When they tell you any of the following things, first note this behavior, then precede to back out of the room and conversation all together.

1. they tell you where they hold bank accounts
2. they tell you about their interest rates
3. they tell you about how they paid such and such off
4. they tell you about how they are woefully and dreadfully out of money
5. they issue you a lecture about money issues in general
6. they reference someone else as an illustration to lecture you
7. they give you tips on how to organize your bills and expenses
8. they offer to organize your bills and expenses
9. they say they wish someone else (ie you) would just let them sit down and critique their spending because they are certain it is just atrocious
10. they buy ridiculous things right after this fiscally conservative lecture about a hypothetical person
11. they think you are certain to crash and burn if you do A, but if you do perscribed B, you may compromise the ill outcome with outcome C
12. if they say how much they make a month
13. if they tell you how much the made last year
14. if they say they have it figured out
15. if they come banging down your door for a few bucks you owe them

More on this later....