I am announcing that I want to start getting back into Youtube videos to an extent. I want to make more thoughtful videos, partially because I've found that the vlog style of Youtube channel isn't working so well for me. I think so much that I feel like it would be a waste not to share much of it with other people.
This is why I love the internet. If you have something to say, you can use the internet as your voice, and millions of people will have access to it. If they like what you have to say, they can come back for more; if they don't, they can go do something else.
I am a person who pretty much always has something to say, and who definitely always has something on his mind. I plan on sharing these things, because it's not fair that, at this point, I'm the only one who gets to hear them. I'm not saying that everyone else will want to hear them, but I'm sure there is some small fraction of the populace who will care enough to listen. Why should I deprive them of what I have to say?
I hope you feel the same way I do. I hope you feel like you have something to bring to the table, and that you feel like there are things you can create that people will appreciate. Because there are. We all have different things we can share with the world that people will appreciate. If there wasn't, what would be the point?
All people have an underlying desire to be appreciated. We want to do something positive and know that we did. That's why the internet is ridden with people who are always trying to share this or that, from long well-crafted films posted on Youtube to mundane thoughts posted on twitter. I have a lot of thoughts to express, and I'm going to use Youtube to express them.
I'll have a channel where I express these thoughts, and a secondary channel that's more of a personal journal, a "vlog channel". I'll let you know how I set this up later.
P.S. I swear to GOD my dad snores louder than the noise made by household vacuum cleaners.
Currently listening to "Your Dogs" by Ben Folds (of course)
That's another thing--I'm in the midst of a massive Ben Folds phase. I usually get into musical artists in phases; I obsess over them one at a time. Previous obsessions include Jamiroquai, Flight of the Conchords, and Imogen. But this Ben Folds phase is by far the most potent. He's my favorite musical artist, hands down. I just went to one of his shows in Chicago a month and a half ago, and I'm contemplating going to his upcoming venue in Champaign on January 25. This indicates a much greater passion than I've had for any other musician, since I had never been to a rock show before that Chicago concert.
MY DAD STOPPED SNORING NOW'S MY CHANCE TO GET TO SLEEP BYE
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Monday, December 20, 2010
Too Much to Bear
Thank God or Nature or whoever the fuck was responsible. It's over.
More than anyone, I should be thanking myself for ending what has ended, but at the same time, I should be blaming myself for getting into this mess in the first place.
I am talking simultaneously about the relationship and the past academic semester. As with every major mistake I make, I treat these two components comprising the past semester as learning experiences. I learned never to date the paranoid. I learned to trust my own judgment, that I should never take anyone seriously who can't manage their own psyche. I learned that I should chill out in the presence of a lot of change in my life, and that I shouldn't create more drastic changes to add to the ensuing confusion. I learned that a relationship in which I am constantly scrambling to please the significant other to compensate for my inadequacies is a commitment for which I am either not prepared or for which no one should ever care. I learned that professors of higher-level classes are no more merciful than the ones I've faced previously. I learned that in order to become a professor in science or engineering, you must either be hell-bent on inflating your ego, or too intelligent in mathematical ways for any intelligence to be left in ways that would allow them to be able to communicate with other people effectively. I learned that I should have listened to myself in the first place. I learned that, when the people I doubted in the first place cause me harm, the people who I always thought I could trust will come back to me in the long run.
She told me I made her happy, and it meant nothing to me, because of the constant dissatisfaction she expressed otherwise. I explained this to one of my brother's friends, and he brought up the fact that about only ten percent of happiness is conveyed verbally. I don't think he realized how perfectly relevant that fact was to my situation. He was exactly right. You can't tell me "I love you," and then proceed to tell me twenty problems you have with our relationship, and bring up problem after problem you have with me. If you think of so many problems, I don't see how you can call anything "love." If I hear repeatedly, "this is wrong," "this is wrong," "this is wrong," then there's no love present.
Love is a feeling that skews people toward focusing on the good shared between two people. This is why first impressions are so important. I feel like love comes from luck in a lot of cases. If two random people are placed in each other's presence, they will have a certain amount in common. The odds that something they share in common is revealed right away is somewhat small. Now, the odds increase when there are more things they have in common to choose from, but in any case, these two people might have so much in common but can go through a whole conversation or party without mentioning a single commonality. On the other hand, they might happen to highlight a lot of the things they have in common, causing a spark that gets emitted when two people are already thinking about all of the wonderful things about each other. Love grows from that.
Now I don't know the opposite feeling so well, because I feel that it's no use thinking about it. This is the feeling when you think about all of the things you don't have in common with someone. It's when you think about the differences between you and someone else and the problems they cause. This can be seen as an opposite to what love is. This is the feeling that causes you to doubt your connection with someone. This is the feeling that tells you to sever the ties because you're just so different and dysfunctional together. This is what she felt for me, no matter how many times she said "I love you," and it's why it meant nothing to me when she said it. If you can't accept other people for their flaws, you'll never love.
If you take one mundane misunderstanding and manipulate it in your head until you feel like it's a sign of a much larger problem, then I'm not making you happy. It might not be my fault that you have these paranoia-driven episodes, but I'm still not making you happy. If I can't do that, I can't be content with a relationship, because you're creating anti-love by emphasizing how different and troubled we are. Your overwhelming dissatisfaction is telling you that the relationship is not a good idea, whether you want to accept it or not. I can see why some people would refuse to accept it, though, because they feel that way about everything in their life to different extents.
Some people aren't satisfied by anything, and she was one of them. I'd never satisfy her, and I knew that. Could I go on in a relationship knowing that I would never make the other person happy, even knowing that it was impossible? No. I can't. Because, like everyone else in the world, I need to be appreciated.
She needed to learn. She needed to change, and become able to accept the world for what it is. She didn't accept me for who I was, always telling me I needed to change everything about myself. I know she deserves to be happy, and I want her to be in the future. I could be more charitable and stand by her in her efforts to change and be better able to deal with the world. But am I that charitable? Do I have the effort, time, AND capacity to do that?
No.
I knew that, in making this decision, I was being selfish. But being in emotional shambles constantly was an indication that I needed an increase in my selfishness. I tried way too hard to please someone who I couldn't please, and that made me feel inadequate, thinking that she was like any special girl. Now that I realize that her standards aren't normal, I find that I am at least a mediocre human being, and not a constant failure.
It'll take me a while to bring myself back up to self-esteem. I'll know I'm back into the swing of things when I no longer feel like I'm lost, and I regain sight of who I am and what I want out of life. It's slowly coming back; I can tell, because I started drawing something in Google Sketchup out of curiosity. I always knew I was a creator of things, and I want to get back to creating things. I am now realizing that I abandoned my passion for creating things, because for all that time, I didn't feel like anything I created would be something worth creating. Now I'm starting to feel like what I can do will be worth it, if I just follow my instincts like I should have in the first place.
More than anyone, I should be thanking myself for ending what has ended, but at the same time, I should be blaming myself for getting into this mess in the first place.
I am talking simultaneously about the relationship and the past academic semester. As with every major mistake I make, I treat these two components comprising the past semester as learning experiences. I learned never to date the paranoid. I learned to trust my own judgment, that I should never take anyone seriously who can't manage their own psyche. I learned that I should chill out in the presence of a lot of change in my life, and that I shouldn't create more drastic changes to add to the ensuing confusion. I learned that a relationship in which I am constantly scrambling to please the significant other to compensate for my inadequacies is a commitment for which I am either not prepared or for which no one should ever care. I learned that professors of higher-level classes are no more merciful than the ones I've faced previously. I learned that in order to become a professor in science or engineering, you must either be hell-bent on inflating your ego, or too intelligent in mathematical ways for any intelligence to be left in ways that would allow them to be able to communicate with other people effectively. I learned that I should have listened to myself in the first place. I learned that, when the people I doubted in the first place cause me harm, the people who I always thought I could trust will come back to me in the long run.
She told me I made her happy, and it meant nothing to me, because of the constant dissatisfaction she expressed otherwise. I explained this to one of my brother's friends, and he brought up the fact that about only ten percent of happiness is conveyed verbally. I don't think he realized how perfectly relevant that fact was to my situation. He was exactly right. You can't tell me "I love you," and then proceed to tell me twenty problems you have with our relationship, and bring up problem after problem you have with me. If you think of so many problems, I don't see how you can call anything "love." If I hear repeatedly, "this is wrong," "this is wrong," "this is wrong," then there's no love present.
Love is a feeling that skews people toward focusing on the good shared between two people. This is why first impressions are so important. I feel like love comes from luck in a lot of cases. If two random people are placed in each other's presence, they will have a certain amount in common. The odds that something they share in common is revealed right away is somewhat small. Now, the odds increase when there are more things they have in common to choose from, but in any case, these two people might have so much in common but can go through a whole conversation or party without mentioning a single commonality. On the other hand, they might happen to highlight a lot of the things they have in common, causing a spark that gets emitted when two people are already thinking about all of the wonderful things about each other. Love grows from that.
Now I don't know the opposite feeling so well, because I feel that it's no use thinking about it. This is the feeling when you think about all of the things you don't have in common with someone. It's when you think about the differences between you and someone else and the problems they cause. This can be seen as an opposite to what love is. This is the feeling that causes you to doubt your connection with someone. This is the feeling that tells you to sever the ties because you're just so different and dysfunctional together. This is what she felt for me, no matter how many times she said "I love you," and it's why it meant nothing to me when she said it. If you can't accept other people for their flaws, you'll never love.
If you take one mundane misunderstanding and manipulate it in your head until you feel like it's a sign of a much larger problem, then I'm not making you happy. It might not be my fault that you have these paranoia-driven episodes, but I'm still not making you happy. If I can't do that, I can't be content with a relationship, because you're creating anti-love by emphasizing how different and troubled we are. Your overwhelming dissatisfaction is telling you that the relationship is not a good idea, whether you want to accept it or not. I can see why some people would refuse to accept it, though, because they feel that way about everything in their life to different extents.
Some people aren't satisfied by anything, and she was one of them. I'd never satisfy her, and I knew that. Could I go on in a relationship knowing that I would never make the other person happy, even knowing that it was impossible? No. I can't. Because, like everyone else in the world, I need to be appreciated.
She needed to learn. She needed to change, and become able to accept the world for what it is. She didn't accept me for who I was, always telling me I needed to change everything about myself. I know she deserves to be happy, and I want her to be in the future. I could be more charitable and stand by her in her efforts to change and be better able to deal with the world. But am I that charitable? Do I have the effort, time, AND capacity to do that?
No.
I knew that, in making this decision, I was being selfish. But being in emotional shambles constantly was an indication that I needed an increase in my selfishness. I tried way too hard to please someone who I couldn't please, and that made me feel inadequate, thinking that she was like any special girl. Now that I realize that her standards aren't normal, I find that I am at least a mediocre human being, and not a constant failure.
It'll take me a while to bring myself back up to self-esteem. I'll know I'm back into the swing of things when I no longer feel like I'm lost, and I regain sight of who I am and what I want out of life. It's slowly coming back; I can tell, because I started drawing something in Google Sketchup out of curiosity. I always knew I was a creator of things, and I want to get back to creating things. I am now realizing that I abandoned my passion for creating things, because for all that time, I didn't feel like anything I created would be something worth creating. Now I'm starting to feel like what I can do will be worth it, if I just follow my instincts like I should have in the first place.
Monday, November 29, 2010
We meet again
So now it's 2010. LATE in 2010. It's almost December, and it might as well be, as the school year is winding down. Reading through this, I find that I left off last New Year's, commenting on how demented and twisted 2009 was. I can't say that 2010 was much better.
I'm finding that the perceived quality of a given year in the life of Paul is largely based on the fun I had during its summer. Well this year, I had no summer. I spent the summer driving around in Rednecktopia, and while it's a 'topia for the Rednecks, it's the doldrums for me. Having just arrived back at school from Thanksgiving Break, I am realizing that my head is the clearest it's been in eight months, because I had no chance over the summer to clear my head. The Monday after the weekend in May when I moved out of school was the day I started my job working for the state department of transportation (DOT), and the weekend after the day I quit was the weekend I moved back down to college in August. My job title may as well have been "idiot," though my brain makes me capable of so much more.
With 2010 having largely passed, I find it safe to make concluding statements reflecting back on this year, and with that, I conclude that it was the most anxious year of my life. This year was nothing but a ride on a bullet train barreling through nature, arriving at the station wondering what the fuck the scenery looked like.
The anxiety came from five major sources, the first of which was the measly fact that I never fucking got a break to collect my thoughts until just this past week. I had literally no summer. I didn't even get a family vacation.
The extent of my travels was to New York City, the city of chaos itself, and the second reason for my labeling 2010 the year of anxiety. Fuck the nickname, "The City that Never Sleeps." All that means is that no one ever gets a break, and if no one gets a break, no one is ever happy, except maybe the people who make shitloads of money from always having to work so hard.
Third was finding my summer job so shitty that I actually doubted my major. During the process of getting my thoughts together this past week, I have come around and concluded that I was wrong to doubt it, but how was I supposed to react if I hated just about every living thing around me during the whole summer? I just learned that one thing's for sure. I don't care what my dad says; I am NOT getting a job in rural America. I am working in the city or the suburbs, and that's final. All my coworkers talked about were the terrible songs on the radio, their daughters' softball games, and pooping. One of the guys could have started a twitter account just to post updates on his bowel movements.
Fourth was getting the new apartment when I came back to college. I wasn't ready for that commitment yet, but you have to start sometime. It really wasn't that big of a deal compared to my fifth reason, but these last two reasons combined simultaneously to create a formidable duo.
The fifth, last and largest reason why my life has been so chaotic lately is my decision to launch myself into a relationship with someone I wasn't familiar with yet. Please note how I wrote the words "MY DECISION." It WAS my decision, though you're right, she was way more into me in the beginning. It was much too great of an opportunity to pass up, so I jumped on it. Unfortunately, the drastic change was so great that it took me over a month to get used to the idea of being in a relationship with her.
I told my mom about this inability to handle drastic changes, and she compared it to when she first moved in with who would become my father. She had a new place to live, a new partner, and a new job, all within the same month, and this made life hard to handle. It makes me wonder how hyperactive people like my girlfriend live their lives. Maybe they aren't hyperactive; they just didn't ever learn what it was like to chill out and become comfortable for a while. Either they didn't learn to, or they are less capable of chilling out and fully grasping where they are in their lives. I can't live WITHOUT that comfort; the lack of such comfort is what makes me anxious. And it's why I've BEEN anxious for the length of this semester.
My girlfriend and I are both dysfunctional in our own little individual ways, which I guess makes us compatible. I've noticed a fundamental difference between the ways in which we deal with ourselves, though. When I don't know how to deal with a social situation, I shut the fuck up, be respectful, and spend time thinking about what I can do to pitch into the conversation. She just blurts out whatever comes to mind, and half the time, it's discomforting or offensive. It makes me feel like she's inconsiderate.
That's the problem. I can't tell if she's even trying to be nice. She tells my brother he smells like tiger piss, declares she hates Dairy Queen while standing at the front counter of a Dairy Queen, and tells me I'm all sorts of things I'm not going to bring up. I'm going to talk to her about it right now.
There's been way too much going on that I don't like. I feel like my life is out of control. I'm starting to get it back though, and I'm going to make sure that nothing stops me from doing so. 2010, shut the fuck up. At least no one I know died this year.
I'm finding that the perceived quality of a given year in the life of Paul is largely based on the fun I had during its summer. Well this year, I had no summer. I spent the summer driving around in Rednecktopia, and while it's a 'topia for the Rednecks, it's the doldrums for me. Having just arrived back at school from Thanksgiving Break, I am realizing that my head is the clearest it's been in eight months, because I had no chance over the summer to clear my head. The Monday after the weekend in May when I moved out of school was the day I started my job working for the state department of transportation (DOT), and the weekend after the day I quit was the weekend I moved back down to college in August. My job title may as well have been "idiot," though my brain makes me capable of so much more.
With 2010 having largely passed, I find it safe to make concluding statements reflecting back on this year, and with that, I conclude that it was the most anxious year of my life. This year was nothing but a ride on a bullet train barreling through nature, arriving at the station wondering what the fuck the scenery looked like.
The anxiety came from five major sources, the first of which was the measly fact that I never fucking got a break to collect my thoughts until just this past week. I had literally no summer. I didn't even get a family vacation.
The extent of my travels was to New York City, the city of chaos itself, and the second reason for my labeling 2010 the year of anxiety. Fuck the nickname, "The City that Never Sleeps." All that means is that no one ever gets a break, and if no one gets a break, no one is ever happy, except maybe the people who make shitloads of money from always having to work so hard.
Third was finding my summer job so shitty that I actually doubted my major. During the process of getting my thoughts together this past week, I have come around and concluded that I was wrong to doubt it, but how was I supposed to react if I hated just about every living thing around me during the whole summer? I just learned that one thing's for sure. I don't care what my dad says; I am NOT getting a job in rural America. I am working in the city or the suburbs, and that's final. All my coworkers talked about were the terrible songs on the radio, their daughters' softball games, and pooping. One of the guys could have started a twitter account just to post updates on his bowel movements.
Fourth was getting the new apartment when I came back to college. I wasn't ready for that commitment yet, but you have to start sometime. It really wasn't that big of a deal compared to my fifth reason, but these last two reasons combined simultaneously to create a formidable duo.
The fifth, last and largest reason why my life has been so chaotic lately is my decision to launch myself into a relationship with someone I wasn't familiar with yet. Please note how I wrote the words "MY DECISION." It WAS my decision, though you're right, she was way more into me in the beginning. It was much too great of an opportunity to pass up, so I jumped on it. Unfortunately, the drastic change was so great that it took me over a month to get used to the idea of being in a relationship with her.
I told my mom about this inability to handle drastic changes, and she compared it to when she first moved in with who would become my father. She had a new place to live, a new partner, and a new job, all within the same month, and this made life hard to handle. It makes me wonder how hyperactive people like my girlfriend live their lives. Maybe they aren't hyperactive; they just didn't ever learn what it was like to chill out and become comfortable for a while. Either they didn't learn to, or they are less capable of chilling out and fully grasping where they are in their lives. I can't live WITHOUT that comfort; the lack of such comfort is what makes me anxious. And it's why I've BEEN anxious for the length of this semester.
My girlfriend and I are both dysfunctional in our own little individual ways, which I guess makes us compatible. I've noticed a fundamental difference between the ways in which we deal with ourselves, though. When I don't know how to deal with a social situation, I shut the fuck up, be respectful, and spend time thinking about what I can do to pitch into the conversation. She just blurts out whatever comes to mind, and half the time, it's discomforting or offensive. It makes me feel like she's inconsiderate.
That's the problem. I can't tell if she's even trying to be nice. She tells my brother he smells like tiger piss, declares she hates Dairy Queen while standing at the front counter of a Dairy Queen, and tells me I'm all sorts of things I'm not going to bring up. I'm going to talk to her about it right now.
There's been way too much going on that I don't like. I feel like my life is out of control. I'm starting to get it back though, and I'm going to make sure that nothing stops me from doing so. 2010, shut the fuck up. At least no one I know died this year.
Friday, January 1, 2010
NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS
TO MAKE 2010 HAVE LESS SUCK:
1. Be more blunt and honest to people.
2. Stop posting tweets to people in which the subject is ambiguous.
3. Make my breath not stink.
4. Do some basic calisthenics when I get up in the morning.
5. Stop being so selfish, only focusing on building up my future, and serve some life purpose in helping other people.
1. Be more blunt and honest to people.
2. Stop posting tweets to people in which the subject is ambiguous.
3. Make my breath not stink.
4. Do some basic calisthenics when I get up in the morning.
5. Stop being so selfish, only focusing on building up my future, and serve some life purpose in helping other people.
2009. What a Load of Bullshit
Whether it comes to the news or personal experience, 2009 was a year of demented retarded bullshit: sick, twisted occurrences happening in place of what I felt should have been dreams coming true.
The media once again chooses to worry about stupid shit when important things are happening at the time.
A friend with conservative quiet roots manages to get knocked up.
Someone I considered my best friend makes a rash life decision without even telling me.
Some family decides to create a scene as if their kid is in a giant opaque (so you can't see inside) balloon when he really isn't, and has the media lie to thousands.
I learned that getting together with someone from the internet is probably not a good idea, when you learn that the person relies on the internet for social interaction almost entirely--because that signifies a PROBLEM.
And much, much more.
2009, suck my dick. 2010, you better not fuck up that bad.
The media once again chooses to worry about stupid shit when important things are happening at the time.
A friend with conservative quiet roots manages to get knocked up.
Someone I considered my best friend makes a rash life decision without even telling me.
Some family decides to create a scene as if their kid is in a giant opaque (so you can't see inside) balloon when he really isn't, and has the media lie to thousands.
I learned that getting together with someone from the internet is probably not a good idea, when you learn that the person relies on the internet for social interaction almost entirely--because that signifies a PROBLEM.
And much, much more.
2009, suck my dick. 2010, you better not fuck up that bad.
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