It's not even a super depressive thing usually. It's just like, god dammit, I should just kill myself. Not like, oh god take me! Or some crap. Like I'll be in traffic during rush hour (in LA), and just be like, "You know, if I were to just kill myself this problem would go away." It usually starts off as a joke, but it's surprising how reasonable a solution suicide actually is. Anyways, the suicidal paradigm is one which I've entertained, but never seriously considered. And then recently I noticed a lump on my chest and got worried about the actual possibility of cancer. I put off going to the doctor for 3 weeks, and eventually did after talking about it with my family and a good friend who all said that it could legitimately be serious. So, it turned out to be simple inflammation that will go away within a week of taking something as simple as Ibuprofen. But yeah, I was worried not gonna lie. It seems silly now, given how non-threatening the reality actually was. But I had some pretty morbid dreams within those three weeks. Every night I fingered that lump wondering why it hadn't just gone away already. Of course google didn't help because it was pretty much like "Oh yeah man, you forsure have cancer and will die in like a month. You should go make peace now." "But I'm only 20?" "Yeah well, lump/mass on any part of the body = death sentence. Sorry. Besides, it doesn't help that you smoke and for all you know the atmosphere is so shit these days that in a couple generations getting cancer will be a coming of age trope for 12 year olds. It'll replace losing their dogs or overcoming their fears of their weird neighbor." But yeah, things are going pretty well. Always a delight to write out my thoughts on this blog. I'm going to go back to moping about traffic and homework and shallowly contemplating suicide. Cheers.
The "inner-world". It's the only thing which you can say you experience for sure. The tall ass trees you walk by on your way to the grocery store are things out there in the real world. And yet, you perceive them in your mind like your eyes are a live camera downloading all the data from the world into a live feed. It works somewhat similarly too, you can even access the footage a little later. But it seems to get a little distorted the further away you walk past the trees. By the time you walk the first block, you almost see the light more than you see the trees. The way the sun hit them and made them look kind of radiant. Or when you access the memory, you see the tree, but it's more like a sense of how big it was. Or how Californian they were. Palm trees, beach babes, Katy Perry. That inner world is abstract and symbolic. It can be sensory too, I guess. But the sensations you actually remember seem to connect to something else. Or someone else. Generally, the inner world ties everything you perceive to yourself. Everything you see and pay attention to becomes a symbol of something you care about. And it guides you to where you need/want to go. And sometimes you're wrong. Your inner-world needs fine-tuning. The things you focus on, the symbols you create based on reality stop having anything to do with what reality actually is. Beach babes and Katy Perry. California. Hollywood. Those kinds of things. Maybe I could have seen those trees and thought about how tall they were, marveled at how this piece of nature strives for the heavens. And how solid a structure. And what if I built myself like a tree? With strong roots planted beneath the surface that provide for my needs while they hold me firmly on the ground so I can gradually grow toward the heavens. And interestingly, to live life this way will probably result in something like happiness. But it doesn't have that much to do with material reality, right? I really can be a lot like that tree. Growing gradually towards the atmosphere. Towards the void of space. Toward the sun. And not sun like: "go toward the sun! burn yourself in passion!" or some shit. Like, literally just going in the general direction of an ultra-hot star that's just there. So when I said, grow toward the heavens, what was I really talking about? Compare it to human existence, we're just as deluded as the metaphor of the tree. That makes it an accurate metaphor. But it gets me no closer to understanding just what exactly "the heavens" could really be. But Katy Perry does have really nice tits, so maybe that's why I preferred to link it to that. So fuck the tree, then. The tree's growing toward nothing important. And so am I. This makes sense, this lines up with reality. But it's an odd place to live in. I had a deeply felt image come to my mind once. Of the abyss. It was represented as a black circle with several white stars dotted within it, accompanied by the same sound you would get if you took someone yelling "Ahhh" and then lowered the pitch a lot and threw in mild distortion. And the picture itself seemed like it wanted to distort, but it didn't. It's like I wanted the picture to move in my mind and it almost seemed like it did for a second before I realized that the imagined person viewing the imagined picture/sight and wanting it to move was the one imagining it to move. And even he realized, and subsequently so did I, that the picture was not moving at all. But it was very stable and blatant in what it was saying. That it was real, that what it was telling you was there, and that it was absolutely nothing important whatsoever. And that it was what you found at the very edge, the very last "obstacle" upon your search for something that means something (although it's not an obstacle, because it can't be moved. It is "it"). That search from Mt. Olympus, where nothing was found at the top but rocks and dirt, to "the heavens" where nothing was found but moving gas, and then the entire search through outer space. This berserk rampage through an incomprehensible environment that is without any motivation beyond what is even acknowledged by the people who care as wild fantasy. Everywhere you look it's just that black circle with white dots in it. I also imagined reactions to it. From crying to laughing to both. And to just acceptance of it. To suicide committed nonchalantly or with great intention and emotional reactivity. But, again, it's nothing important, really. And I can understand that and I can take a breath from time to time and just look around and realize that I do seem to inherently care about what's going on. Otherwise, I really would have just killed myself. But the overall game of life seems to be a pretty good game, after all. So, yeah, I wonder if that idea or any of the similar ideas I've had are too far removed from reality. Either way, this year I learned a lot about life. So even within the smaller scope, I've realized how different the real world is to the way I viewed it. Anyway, I think I've missed the chance for a neat conclusion and I'm really tired. So: sudden end (got that idea from Monty Python).
So my last blog entry with very dramatic. I think there's truth to what I said, but I also think it was inspired by a recent disappointment as well as a few cups of rum and coke. I think what I've learned from the experience is this: expectation and disappointment are intrinsically and therefore irrevocably intertwined. Expectation, especially in the modern age -- but even before all the technology and prosperity, often balloons up so high as to overshadow reality. Imagine the earth itself, or the universe whatever you want, within the balloon of expectation. Imagine the balloon was of the same size, as in: it was in line with what life truly has to offer, or even a little smaller. It's a reasonable size then and won't likely pop. But imagine that your expectation balloon is so large that it far dwarfs the feasible realm of possibility, carrying within it imagined figures and experiences you dreamed about and mentally masturbated too, and then inevitably: it pops. All the figures fall out because the false gravity of your balloon, the only thing holding them in place, has leaked out of the puncture and thus weakened its grip on your imagined utopia. It's funny, as big as that balloon was, all reality needed to do was to aim one fiery arrow out into space and destroy the balloon. Anyway, that's probably pretty obvious to most people. Hell it was always obvious to me. But sometimes you forget and you still position yourself to lose the idealized world you created. I think, to be happy, it isn't to avoid this truth. That expectations and disappointment are irrevocably tied. But to work it into your understanding of the world. Expect the best, expect the worst, and let life do its thing.
We fall apart at the end. We lose at the end. We go through the motions of trying to predict a positive end in the short term. Short term as in 50 years. But we all lose in the end. The best possible outcome is being really happy before you lose. But you lose. That's non-negotiable. Yet we still want to live. It's inexplicable. It's the human condition. It's knowing this. It's the opposite of bliss, the opposite of ignorance: knowing. You can distract yourself. Be happy in love. Be miserable in love. Love your hobby, hate it when it knocks you on your ass. Love your girlfriend, hate her when she reminds you that you're nothing. Love life, hate it when you know it's a rigged game. It's rigged by its nature. Things fall apart. The purest gold will decay in the years to come. The purest love will languish sooner or later. The silver lining is forgetting. But it's only called forgetting because you'll remember eventually.
I feel like the first batch of stories I wrote almost belong in their own universe fueled by some kind of HUD of perceptions. Ideas about people and the world. Observations. Depth of life experience. Perspective. And in just a few months, I've changed so much as a person, for the better I think, and I'm no longer able to write exactly the way I did before. Because the underlying assumptions of those universes I created, I no longer take for granted. Or at least not in the same way. It's not like I've completely changed to the point I can't recognize myself in my previous writing. But, yeah, I guess it's just change. And, hopefully, improvement. An epiphany I've had. When your universe can no longer sustain the impulse of your writing, expand your universe. You know what I mean? When your spirit of exploration, your will to truth, has become too eager to handle the small universe that you've created, it's time to expand. Of course, this opens the floodgates of craziness, of ups and downs, but nevertheless, you must go out and expand your universe. To quote Kanye West, just say it out loud, see how it feels. In a way, that quote is about exploring who you are and your place in the external universe. So just stay in the moment, experience every moment with 100% of your attention, and put yourself into new situations. When you do that, you expose yourself to new data with which you'll eventually build a functional mental framework around. That's the key. Educate yourself. Add more ideas. Not in the industrial, assembly line approach of school. Not that school isn't a tool. But you should make school work for you, you shouldn't be working for the school. But you don't need school, entirely. Fill your brain not with curriculum or agenda, but with the profound truths of life. Explore them. Fill it with a story, a legend. Beyond a legend, a universe. Integrate these ideas with intelligence, critical thinking, appreciation for nuance, logic, and reason. And love. And understanding. And perspective coming from direct immersion of the present moment.
I find it rather annoying when people claim that art is purely self-expression. Art is much more than that. Art is an expression of the deepest truths of life, the universe, and the human condition. Self-expression is the vehicle by which a work can arrive at the level of art. But the person doing the expression must necessarily be someone who's noticed something interesting regarding life. An artist observes the world, like a scientist and with a similar goal as one: to find the truth. Whereas a scientist documents and analyzes every detail of the world, life, and human nature; an artist observes the world and distills their observations down to essential truths, and captures that truth in some kind of medium. A musician captures life through sound. Their focus is often personal emotion and universal experience. For whatever reason, sound can be produced in such a fashion to invoke deep emotion and understanding within us. A person who knows how to make such sounds AND has something interesting to express with those sounds is a musician. A visual artist captures life through visual replication/interpretation. From drawers to sculptors to CG artists, they all observe the lines that make up our world. They observe the relation between these lines and the human condition. They replicate the lines to capture moments or reinterpret the lines judiciously to comment or express what they see. Once again, they must have an interesting outlook to be an artist. A writer observes events. The events themselves as well as the factors leading to them from the working of the world itself, to the emotions and behaviors of people or even animals. A writer's medium is the written word. A word contains within it the power of communicating ideas with other people. Everyone can use words. A writer, however, uses words to convey their unique observations, perspectives, and truth. For all of these, of course, there is a discipline that must be followed. A musician can't just pluck a bunch of strings on a guitar and grind their vocal chords together to produce a cacophonous screech. A writer can't just write words in whatever way they want. A visual artist can't.... well for some reason they seem to get away these days with literally throwing their shit against the wall and seeing what sticks. And I mean the literal literally, not the figurative literally. There's all kinds of crap in visual arts, but I'm digressing. A visual artist cannot just figuratively throw shit against a wall and see what sticks. All artists need to learn the technical skills of their discipline and be very skilled at them. Anyway, the three of these categories together, which I think all forms of art can be loosely thrown in to, create a human understanding of the world distinct and perhaps even more effective than the efforts of science. Science tells us nothing except what is there. And it could be an interpretation that this is all that is "true". But it's difficult to be satisfied with that. Not to argue that what is scientifically true isn't usually true, but we still have to figure out how to act in the world. That's where art comes in. This art triad helps us all arrive at a deeper sense of understanding of ourselves and of the universe. Music gives us a vicarious, primal trip through the corridors of our minds. Visual art shows us a way of seeing the world according to a human being. Stories show us what happens in the world, why things happen, and our role within the happenings of the world. I feel I should mention the performing arts. In my opinion, they basically do the same thing as all three of these in some combination -- and in fact, it's worth noting that stories are not strictly the domain of writing, and sight is not strictly the domain of visual art. If they don't do any of these things however, you're not witnessing art, you're looking at a dumb primate jumping around for attention. The only example that comes to mind right now is gloving. That is not art, no one will ever convince me that that is art as I've defined it here. Is it a form of self-expression? Absolutely. A glover is expressing that they have hands and can put gloves on them to make pretty lights dance around in a manner bereft of any semblance of meaning or beauty. And there's nothing compelling about the display.
I'm not lazy to be clear. I've worked so hard before I've actually seen pretty colors dancing before me and fell asleep spontaneously, waking up in my clothes with spilled coffee on my desk. When I am motivated, nothing can stop me. And yet, I can be stopped. When my motivation is destroyed, nothing can make me move short of a gun brandished about my face. Basically, I need to believe in what I'm doing. Right now, I just don't. And it's really hard to get moving. I don't know if that's just life, and I'm at that part of life where I have to do the things which I don't believe in (distinct from doing the things which I don't necessarily want to do), or if I'm seriously going down the wrong road. How does one know what they're supposed to do?
What should I listen to? The voice of dissidence in my head that goes "Fuck college. Fuck college. Drop out. You can do better. You can find your own way. This is a detriment. It's a load of bs. Fuck college." Or should I listen to the voice drummed into my brain by society, speaking with a sense of cushioning around every syllable: "Put in your time. Follow the well-traveled road. The grass is smooshed down already by the contented ahead of you, providing the right path for you to be a successful engineer. And maybe you'll make it as a writer. If so then you can smoothly transition off of the road. You'll skip the bumps and brush on the path of the other road entirely. That's how life works. That's how everyone says it is. Or maybe you'll never make it. Maybe if you would make it, you'd know by the age of 9. Like Bill Gates. He dropped out of harvard, not just any college. Or Stanley Kubrick, who was a genius even though he barely made it through high school. You're not them. That's life. Dreams are only for a few people. The rest of us should embrace being employees." And I go with that voice for awhile. Until a few weeks later, it comes back again. "Fuck college. Fuck this waste of time. Fuck this waste of money. You can do it."
Seasons The summer comes with the promise of easy living, The winter follows with the promise of purpose. I'm from California, where winter is only 10 degrees cooler. Nonetheless, the sun hides its face during the winter. And it's the sun that beams rays of the fruit of a year's suffering. The dark afternoons of winter scream out, a calling: Find yourself, again and again, like you've done dozens of times. Then carry yourself out, with divine devotion, and get there, wherever you're going. The further you get, the closer summer gets. The further you get, it feels like easy living is right around the bend. Take it easy. Lose yourself. Hate yourself. Smoke your eyes bloody. Then find yourself again, when winter comes around.
I feel like a parrot sometimes, reiterating concepts, hardwired into my heart's desires through years of complex association, in words that aren't my own. My inner motivations, desires, and thoughts are real, although when I dissect them to the root, it's amazing how much falls away. All the things I'm preoccupied with are synthetic. They're all peripheral. Would it be nice, for example, to have fame, glory, money, friends, love, etc? Yeah, totally. But again, they're all peripheral. The important thing is hard to define, but when you put the truth first, you get closer to finding it. At this point, scientific progress has made it clear that not only is there really no inherent meaning within anything, but we probably don't have free will either, depending on how you define it. Somehow this doesn't bother me. It did, but it doesn't. It hasn't for awhile. Camus said that we have a few paths to take if we come to the realization that the universe is bereft of meaning. He mentioned the creation of art and labelled it a coping mechanism. I think that's pure semantics. French people are fucking crazy anyway. Distraction was another coping mechanism as well. He proposed that the real solution is to willingly and happily be Sisyphus, pushing up that rock for eternity, and going on despite the lack of meaning. As he said famously, I'm paraphrasing because I'm too lazy to look it up right now: should I kill myself or have a cup of coffee? Well, just drink your coffee. Fuck it. That's the idea there. I think the idea of meaning is irrelevant. Meaning is created. Symbols denote meaning. Human beings just happen to be more capable of assigning meaning to symbols than other animals. Just because we're here, doesn't mean there's a reason for it. Just because we use lines in the sand to mark our houses, doesn't mean the lines in the sand are intrinsically indicative of a house. And yet, those lines are all I really need. I think my view of life is just human-centric. That's all I really care about. I don't give a fuck about the universe as a whole. Why should I care? We're the only things that do anything, that feel anything, that mean anything. Once again, it's all peripheral. Art is meaningful to me. So why should I give a shit if Camus would call it a coping mechanism? Why should I care if writing is just scratches on tree bark, or bytes in a computer? I really don't. I think Camus was on the right track but came to the wrong conclusion. The solution isn't: be like Sisyphus. It's: abandon the pretense that meaning is an essential feature of life.
So this morning, through steam rolling and resourcefulness on both my part and the cinematographer's part, we were able to get a day of filming done. We should be able to finish up filming tomorrow. So here's the basic story. Our cast of characters (name's are changed, obviously) are Mitchell the audio guy, Miguel the director, James the co-writer, Jimmy the cinematographer, Eric actor 1, Jane, actor 2, Richard actor 3, and Daniel actor 4, and of course me, the main writer. James caused two of our problems. Firstly, he told us that he had permission for us to film at the set we chose. He didn't mention that we needed to actually schedule and assured us that we were good on the set. So, in my naivety, I assumed he wasn't incompetent and unreliable. He didn't schedule so at the last minute (Friday), we found out that we weren't going to be able to shoot at the place we wanted at the time (Saturday morning) we needed to. Second problem he caused was scouting an actor who was a complete flake even though I had an actor for the same role that I know is reliable. But because he technically found the person first, I proposed we take both actors to the director and have them read some lines and let him settle who should get the part. When I told my actor about this development, he decided that he didn't want to cause trouble and gave up his role to James's guy. I'm sure I don't have to reiterate, but James's guy, Daniel, flaked. Naturally, the flaking saga continues. Richard also flaked at the last minute sending me a text at 4 A.M. telling me: "I stayed up too late. I'm going to have to cancel. Sorry." to which I, my body rejuvenated only to the extent that 2 hours of sleep allows, immediately begged god to come down with a second flood and destroy everything. Having gotten this far and Jimmy (as well as the other two actors) having shown determination and interest in actually getting this film done, I just was not willing to give up. At this point as well, I was in bed, it was 7 A.M., and I still expected James, Mitchell, and Miguel to all show up (spoiler alert: they didn't). I thought okay, me and Miguel can just sub in for the two actors who bailed and it'll still come out alright because we'll have Mitchell doing audio and maybe James can help out with directing or something like that. So me and Eric arrived at the set we chose (a nice outdoorsy, post-apocalyptic looking field thing) instead of the room we originally wanted. We lugged a big ass table, two fold-able chairs and props up two flights of stairs and a hill. We got there and met the camera guy and Jane then set everything up and asked the other three members where they were at. Two of them had the "courtesy" to make some b.s. excuse. The audio guy didn't even respond. So, again, we were determined especially because the camera guy has to leave for a trip next week and it's not like he did anything wrong. In fact, what's most messed up about this whole thing is that the reason we waited until the weekend to shoot was because the audio guy was only available on weekends. Everyone else could have done a couple hours a day throughout the week and we could've really taken our time with this to make it good. The least he could have done for the inconvenience was show up as he promised. We decided to throw out the script for the time being because we were just ill-equipped to do it any justice whatsoever and I worked hard on that. Instead we decided to do a bit of an improv coming up with pretty decent plot points and scenes. We're making somewhat of a prequel to the actual movie I wanted to make with this group. I ended up directing (which is good tbh since I wanted to direct and write from the beginning) and I've also Macgyvered a boom make using an extendable paint roller, tape, and a mic which I will plug into a laptop that I will carry with my backpack so I can move around and get the audio without being in the shot. Alright. I've explained enough. I'm ready to go to sleep now considering it's 12 am and I have to wake up early again to get this shoot done and I still have to study for my physics test which will be on the following night.
My blog is my best friend, it is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. Without me, this blog is useless. Without my blog, I am useless. I must blog my blog true, I must blog bloggier than my enemy who is trying to blog me. I must blog him before he blogs me. I will. Now re-read that but insert "dick" anywhere it says "blog". And then go brush up on some Stanley Kubrick if you didn't get it immediately. You're sincerely missing out if that's the case. Anyway, I am currently struggling to balance writing time with obligation. My school obligation and work obligations are actually rather strenuous, considering my major is in the computer science field. A lot of math and physics. It takes my brain in a whole other direction. I'm not knocking technical subjects. But, I'm over here on one end trying to feel and capture some kind of soul-like, intangible whatever, and then I have to go all the way to the other end and calculate integrals. But somehow I'm making it work. It helps to be involved with some great clubs on campus that let me be creative. Film club has been cool so far. The stress of making a film seems to be the kind of stress that actually makes me feel good overall. I enjoy that. I'm working on a batch of short stories of which I hope to pick up my best three and submit them to upcoming contests. If I win, not only would I get some money, I would have my story published. So I'm very much trying to put my all into the stories I'm writing between now and May, the deadline. So those are pretty much the two major aspects of my life right now. School and work, the plan B. And chasing my dream.
