Sea of Relativism

It's nearing nine thirty, and the taste of second-rate coffee is in my mouth, which makes me more aware about how dirty my teeth feel after drinking it, more than anything. I hope no one wants to have any sort of intimate conversation later, because that conversation will smell a lot like bad second-rate coffee breath and dirty-feeling teeth. Yes, teeth have a smell.
Anyway,


I am sitting in the uppermost floor of the library on campus, looking over Bowling Green, discerning McDonalds signs from Arby's signs and wondering what music people are listening to while they drive down roads five miles per hour faster than what they should be going (Yet they look so slow from up here...)

I just finished studying for a Biology exam. Disaccharides and Lipids and Atomic mass and Atomic numbers and things like that. It's interesting.

I think the most interesting and important thing I have learned (or haven't learned...) from classes like Biology and Astronomy is that our perspective of size and space is only limited to just that-- our perspective.

We are trapped, in a sense, to a certain perspective. A building is large. An insect is small. These are our perspectives.

However, through science, we have been able to break free from our preconceptions about size, and we find that (like most things) size is relative.

Now, based on research, we know where we fit on the scale of Big and Small, and we have found that we (and everything in reality, for that matter) are both very Big and very Small.

I think that is a beautiful thing. I am very big. I'm ginormous. HUUUUUUUGE. I am bigger than a three year old.

That's something...

But I also am able to be big in personality, in confidence, in being alive. I can be a big person.
Yet, I am also mind-shatteringly small in the midst of the cosmos, which is something we all share.

I am overpoweringly everything. I am also nothing. This is the human experience.

 If we keep looking at the small world, we find that it just keeps getting smaller, the farther into it we look. Same goes for the Big world. Things just keep going and going and going. It's like there's no wall or barrier that says "nothing can be bigger than THIS big," because, when it comes down to it, what does "Big" mean? Dictionary definition: Of considerable size.

Of considerable size?

Small: Of a size that is less than normal, or usual.

...Yeah.

I guess this is to say, we as people are confined. Very confined. Because the words we use to describe the world we live in are unreliable.

Also, some people confine ourselves because they are afraid of the word Relativism. We assume that Relativism means that there is no truth in the world, that we can make truth, and as long as it is "true to me," it is true.
I'm not going to get into that. What I do want to say, however, is that the idea of things being Relative to each other and to itself is a valid, scientific idea. A person is big relative to a mushroom, which is huge compared to a Carbon molecule, which is bigger than a proton.
This is just another support to the idea that we need to stop holding so tightly to the idea of Absolute Truths about everything. If we cling to absolutism, we deprive ourselves of understanding, and that is a sad thing.

...
Or, I guess it could be happy thing, relative to who you are....

I'm lost in a sea of relativism.

Mercury?

Hey I found this at one of the many consignment places around town. A 1960s style Mercury snare. Nothing crazy. And the store manager insisted that I take the sticks with me.

She felt like they shouldn't be separated.

Before I complain about the faults in my Education...

This is a free school under a bridge in the slums of New Delhi, India. Apparently at least thirty kids have been getting a free education by these two guys on the right for the past three years.

And this post was originally going to be about how frustrated I am that I have to clock in forty hours this semester of working at the Theatre and Dance library as part of my Production II Assignment. It was something about how education is supposed to serve me, and that I'm not supposed to serve education. But then I guess any of the thirty kids learning arithmetic under a bridge would be happy to work at a library and also learn the things I'm learning. I hope I can learn how to love learning as much as anybody in these pictures. (Or maybe I'm glorifying all of this and there are probably a couple kids in there like me who sometimes don't exactly want to be there.) But, I mean, in a broader sense, this is proof that the freedom of knowledge can be persevered, as long as someone cares enough to make it happen.Like that one Dr. Seuss quote. You know which one.

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing's going to get better. It's not.

 I leave you with this smug-looking guy who's up to no good.

Reasons to be Pretty

Today I performed a monologue in front of my class and it didn't go too well. It's from the play Reasons to be Pretty. Pretty much, the character I'm playing is the opposite of me. His name is Kent. He is married and works at a factory, and he is thirty years old. He's just kind of a dirtbag, honestly, who cheats on his wife. And the monologue is about how he hates having such an attractive wife, because he's paranoid about other guys looking at her, or her cheating on him. He's really territorial. The crazy part about all of this acting business is that I'm supposed to like Kent. Usually people like, or at least, agree with themselves. If I am to be taking on the personage of "self" to Kent, well, I'll have to like me, too... So this will be a very strange exercise for me, to try to get into the head of somebody I've never been, like, or agree with. Wow. Acting. Crazy, huh? And the play is a good read in general, if you don't mind a lot of language and couples fighting and break ups and things. Oh, and I changed my header on this here website blog thingy that I do. Now, that strange, open-eyed stare will greet you every time you load this page. You're welcome.  

Now that that's out of the way,

I can hear the thin
noise of a Smiths song
seeping through my walls,
like a memory.

And night's murmurs
reach me through windows,
which tonight for
once I looked out of,

But nothing and everything
were interesting to see,
So I lay back and conversed
with a canine, and the wind
broke into my chimney to
reassure me wind exists.

I looked at my body in
the glass above my mantle.
Truly looked into my pores
And found this shack is tilting
in a field of dancing grass.
Whatever that means to you,
I'm in need of rebuilding.

I have, to some extent, rebuilt.
But work is to be done;
I am beginning.



I'm cheesy. You'll have to deal with it. Yes, I write poems about things like quitting Facebook. I'm that guy. Get over it. You silly goose.

24-hour-water-mark

It's almost been nearly twenty-four hours since my account was deactivated, and I can already sense some minor changes in things.

I feel like the euphoria and thrill of stepping into the unknown has worn off.

Look how boring life can be. One gets euphoria and thrill by deactivating a Facebook account. I can't imagine what kind of emotions I would experience if I were to actually go on a real adventure. It would probably be asking too much of me. I'm one for small steps, I guess.

I also get to feel very pretentious when people tell me they'll message me something on Facebook. My non-chalaunt reply of, "Oh, you'll have to text it to me. I don't have a facebook anymore," escapes my lips, giving me all of the ego fuel I ever received by simply having a Facebook account in the first place.

This is a lose-lose situation.

I think when it comes down to it, with or without Facebook, I am an egotistical person. It is not that Facebook makes me egotistical, or not having Facebook doesn't make me egotistical. The fight with my ego will be a fight that I will have to deal with to some degree or other, with or without the devices that play off of ego (such as Facebook). It is inherrent to my humanity.

So maybe this will branch into more than just deactivating a Facebook account. Maybe this could be a journey into destroying the illusion of Ego, or even just understanding what Ego is. It's easy to say "Oh, I'm such an egotistical person. Look how self-righteously demeaning I am." But I don't even know what ego means. Is it a bad thing, a good thing, a necessary thing? Who thought of the idea of Ego in the first place. Where are my psychology friends that can answer these questions for me?

I've realized since my deactivation of Facebook, I have latched onto this blog like a leech. I guess I need some sort of dose of self-expression, be it simply putting words on a screen for somebody to read.

I do miss scrolling. And seeing funny pictures of puppies, right after liking a quote by Gandhi and poking people I'm too afraid to have real conversations with in real life. I miss those days...

Facebooked

So I deactivated my Facebook account.

Yeah, whatevs, Isaac.

How many of us have pulled that move?

The classic, "Man, dude, I just spend way too much time on that Facebook, broh. I just think, man, that I just need a break. You know, man? It is time for me, yaknow?" But then three weeks later (or days, hours, etc.) after this noble deactivation, one comes to the sullen realization, "Man, dude, I just came to the sullen realization that this Facebook, man, is a gift. And it really is just a necessary tool to use if you are to survive in the social world. Amiright, bro?" And he would probably offer me a high five. 

And I would probably give him one.

But man, dude, bro.

This Facebook thing, man, is suffocating me. Amiright?

I don't know. Maybe I don't want to be defined by a small picture on the upper left hand corner of a blue and white screen, which tells the world exactly what I want them to think of me.

And I don't want to give the world a false opinion of me. Because I know the wall is just a representation of me, or an advanced me... An edited, rethought me on a wall for everyone to see. Look at me.

No, calm down, please. I am not insulting you, if that is what you are thinking, and I understand if you might be. I am only pointing out the problems in myself that I have been made aware of, and am now sharing with you. Perhaps other, better people do not use Facebook as an ego-fix. 

The higher the number of little red notifications, 

the higher, higher, higher it goes-- your own conceit. 

Self-validation after self-validation. 

Little red notifications.

The ego-fix of a bizarre generation.

I am not saying that at all. At least, I hope that most people are not as bad as me when it comes to Facebook.

And maybe I just need time. Time to not do anything at all. Pauses between when I am doing homework, or playing music, or sleeping, or eating, or whatever else I do in a normal day. I want to have time to simply feel where I am at, rather than use facebook as a time-filler, metaphorically "liking" things people say, or scrolling down a news feed of people, most of whom I barely know.

Maybe I need time to feel the house, my friends, my art. To feel them and experience them without the feeling that I'll have to document it all later on a metaphorical wall that is really nowhere and everywhere at the same time.

And I don't feel safe. Dude, have you read Brave New World?

So, I mean, there are a lot more reasons, and they're all probably just as boring as what I've already said.

The point is, I'm trying to do what I feel like I shouldn't. I'm trying to not use Facebook. 

The reason I feel like I shouldn't use Facebook is because I feel like it's too easy to use Facebook; yet it's too difficult to not use Facebook.

 When it comes down to it, it is the easiest thing in the world to have a facebook account. And it is among the hardest things in the world not to. I wonder if someone designed it this way. Are we being controlled, or monitored? Maybe these theories are too much. But is it enough to simply question?

Let's just say, in my life, the negatives far outweigh the benefits of Facebook, and I want to see if I can step back from it.

Even now, I absentmindedly check the imagined closed tab up top to check if I have any notifications, in between thought patterns.

In the meantime, I guess I'll be on here.

The thing that I can use to prove to myself and to you that I am serious about this whole quitting Facebook thing is that I gave my password to my roommate Chris. I then asked him to log into my account, change the password to something of his own design, then deactivate the account. That way, if I wanted to reactive my account, it would not be as easy as just logging back in. I would have to go through Chris. And Chris, being Chris, has decided to go all John Locke on me (Please note the Lost reference), and said that he will give me the password only after I ask him three times. On the third time, he will give me the password. Just like with John Locke and Charlie with the Heroine in the nun-figurines. It all feels very epic when it can be compared with Lost.

I don't know how long I will last. It is actually a very scary thought, to go days or weeks or months without Facebook. And the fact that it is scary is even more reason to be afraid of Facebook and to run away.

So this is me, Running.

I wonder if you doubt me. I doubt myself. But I want to know what it's like, life without Facebook. The fact that that is a difficult thing for me to imagine is more than enough reason to me to explore it.

This is me going beyond. Perhaps it is small. Or perhaps unnecessary. Or even, regretably, too much. But I will let you know.

Maybe I'm not expressing myself well. I want to know that I can be free. I guess that is what it comes down to. Perhaps this is immature of me. All I can say to that is we'll see.

I am running away. Or trying to. I'm not doing a very good job. I feel like an escape convict from a mental institution who just broke through his cell window and used the bed sheets through the window technique. But I'm very klutzy and am afraid of heights. And the cops and their dogs are at my heels. 

Maybe I"m over-dramatizing this.

So I guess if we were friends on Facebook (I like how that's a normal term now. There's a differentiation between Friends and Friends on Facebook. One is real. The other is official.) 

Anyway, if we were friends on Facebook, I suppose this is the way you'll keep up with me now? 

I just realized how egotistical this all might be. Hey, I'm not using Facebook anymore, so if you want to know anything about me, you're going to have to go to my own personal blog and visit a website that's all about me and my real spiritual battle with fighting off the demons of addiction to Facebook.

So here's to that. I hope that through this as I become more connected to my physical state, rather than my social state, I can come to some realizations. Or I just put myself through all of this for nothing.

Or, hopefully what will happen is this won't be a big deal at all, and all of this will be super easy.

Yeah... here's to that.

Oh. And here's to this dog.

I love this dog.

Twenty 1

I recently turned twenty-one, which is a birthday that I guess everybody values because you get to drink a lot of alcohol in public and not feel guilty about it anymore. And on your birthday, people buy you alcohol. So if you have a lot of friends, you won't even be able to remember their generosity the next day. Luckily, I'm not as popular as most (my friends are great, but few-- something I like most about them), and so I could fully remember who gave me what drink and why, with only a slight head ache the following morning.

As most people say, you don't feel different on your birthday. I guess that's true for me. I think for every birthday I've had since I can remember, I felt the same. Maybe that's because I'm the same person and don't know how to change. Or maybe I do, but I change when I'm not looking, when I'm trying to change the things around me and forget about myself.

Maybe that's how anybody grows at all-- they stop worrying about themselves, the things they wish weren't true about their insides, and begin working on the world around them. Maybe through that, the world changes you as you change the world. And that might be a good thing, or a very bad thing.

That's another thing about growing up. It's the feeling-- the sensation that the world is getting older with you. You find out new things about it, dirty secrets, muddy corners, darker shades in the world that you had never thought existed, that you probably should never have known when you were young. Like that glare of judgment you get from a family getting into their car that's parked right by your's, and you accidentally kind of sort of almost hit them... almost. Just because you didn't see them (No, I was not drunk driving, Mom...). It was a sober mistake. But the look in their eyes was a sort of knowing hatred-- like they knew every part of me and hated it in one big swiping assumption. The feeling of being hated by someone who does not know you-- I guess that's a part of getting older, even though this example might be a bit weak. I have more.

I've only gone a week into being twenty-one, and I haven't done a very good job at being twenty-one. I'm not talking about being responsible with consumption and all that. I'm talking more about me being who I thought I would be if I were to ever turn twenty-one.

Let's say you had a button. And if you pushed this button, it would send you back  five years ago to the cramped halls of my Christian high school in Mexico. You push that button, then you find my five-years-younger self and you ask him this question: Where do you think you'll be in five years?

I think the image that I had for my future self was a lot cleaner than how I turned out to be. I probably had better posture in that image in my head. I probably had a lot of room in my conscience filled with idealism and faith, rather than the cynicism and doubts that I hold onto now. I probably saw myself having read a lot more books, and I probably would have prayed a lot more to some God or other. And I probably would have payed a lot more attention to intricacies. I probably would have cared a lot more in my pursuits to define beauty, to understand what longing means, and to even try to wrestle with the concepts of love.

Instead, I am me. I am dirty (though I try to take a shower at least once a day) and my back is a little bent, both from my own carelessness and also from the weight of growing up. And gravity. I am naturally cynical, and I have the bad habit of giving my doubts more attention than my hopes. I've read my share of books, but still have yet to finish Crime and Punishment. And the intricacies of life have flown past me like the robins and sparrows I saw flying above me, as the first signs of spring.

As for love, I have tinkered, and it is a monster that I do not understand, and my cynicism and doubts make me believe that it is a far-off ideal that perhaps I will never fully experience. But here's to hope, and here's to growing up.

Troubt

For I have nothing now to say;
My words escape me, truth and lie alike.
And from my mouth they slowly fall
Never truly having carried much weight.

Were I to say, and say and mean,
An easy phrase to tie around my neck
And wear to protest any doubts
that Belief is something that comes easily?

Are words in truth, or truth in words?
Which is container, and what is contained?
Which is first-- Believer, or Belief?
What is first-- The tamer, or the tamed?
Is music in the notes, or in the chords?

Or Both.
At most,

What is Truth without its brother Doubt--
Wrists conjoined and tied together
And wandering together far until they're found
By believers starving to believe,
Who mangle and tear, and tear apart
The brothers till they bleed
Around their wrists, but still remain undone.

And few make the mistake, which I have often done,
to throw out Truth, preserving one.

But that which binds together these is cruel enough to know
That they won't undo easily, save through death or life. Or both.