No.130

If he exalts himself, I humble him.
And if he humbles himself, I exalt him.
And I go on contradicting him
Until he understands
That he is a monster that passes all understanding.
- Blaise Pascal, Pensees

The difficult that I have with relating life lessons to other people is that they invariably sound so trite. I hate it when life starts seeming like a cliche, or when it teaches you something that you should've learned watching a very special episode of The Facts of Life. That being said, cliches actually happen, which is in itself another horrible cliche.

Someone let me down. It was as abrupt as a car accident. One minute you're fine, the weather's nice, you're cruising down the street, some good music on the radio - then there's a moment of pain and confusion - and the next thing all you know is a colorful mixture of blood and wreckage. The only good thing about the entire accident is that it's over, and you have to adjust to your new circumstances pretty quickly.

This has been an interesting year for me. I won't say a good year, or a pleasant year - but an interesting one. Maybe not entirely fairly, I was leaning on this person. They recently withdrew their help, and while there's other people I can turn to, I'm just surprised that someone can change their mind about you so quickly, and just decide that you're not worth it. This may be all being done under the auspices of letting me learn to fend for myself, which, god knows, I can never learn enough. But I can't shake the feeling that there's something bloody presumptuous about leaving someone to drown and then trying to take credit for it when they force themselves to swim.

That's why I chose the above quote. Pascal, no stranger to drama, understood that in life there's always going to be some disaster, public or private, large or small, that will tear large chunks of flesh from your body. And there's never going to be a good way to react to it. Whatever you do, however you try to cope with it, you'll wind up looking ridiculous. There's no real way to handle it with dignity - you just stand there, blood all over your shirt, strangers pointing and staring, and hope that the wounds will scab over as quickly as possible.

I can't really say what the lesson here is. Don't trust anyone? People suck? Don't build houses on sand? Always look out for number one? I haven't really decided what I should take away from all this, and I'm not interested in turning this experience into some pat "growing experience" that I can walk away from and be a better person. The only thing I want is that it never happens again.

Bon Iver - The Wolves (Act I and II)

What I'm counting on

Oh man, am I ever getting tired of this whole school thing. What, me academia? I'm a textbook example of what happens when you go by what you think other people want you to do. This cannot end too quickly. In the meantime, this is what I need a little bit of:

Matthew Sweet: Divine Intervention

What might have been lost

From what my window tells me, it looks like it's spring time outside. I'm sure there's some kind of scientific explanation for it - our bodies tied to nature's cyclical rhythm, or something - but I feel excited when I look outside. I seem to get high off the sunlight. It's at times like this that I feel that change is possible, and that there's some kind of hope.

This may be just the caffeine talking, but it makes me want to run around aside in my junkie and homeless infested neighborhood and say Look everybody! The Sun! Remember the sun? I don't! What the hell is it? Unfortunately, no one would really take a second glance of someone running around and screaming in this part of town.

I feel buoyed up, which considering how I've been feeling lately, is a nice change. Let's hope that the good weather continues.

FAIL

Education

University of Toronto – Bachelor with Honours

Major in Philosophy, Double Minor in History and Political Science (Muddled Through)

Employment

Library Assistant – Knox College, Caven Library

Responsibilities include:

ü Staring off into space

ü Checking Facebook

ü Signing out book every three hours

ü Avoiding eye contact with co-worker

Receptionist – Humanity’s Complaint Department

Responsibilities included:

ü Tacitly ignoring co-worker’s not-so-casual racism

ü Checking Facebook

ü “Accidently” hanging up on belligerent complainants

ü Laughing at the plight of the oppressed

ü Being terrified of the lunatics that would occasionally come in

People I’ve Disappointed

ü Parents

ü Self

ü Ex-Fiancee

ü Girlfriends (two through four)

ü Potential girlfriends

Successful Friends I Avoid

ü Friend with Business degree who got married at twenty-four, has a beautiful wife and child, actually owns a house

ü Friend doing PhD in Africa about colonial practices or something (Seems complicated)

ü Friend having well-placed job in diplomatic offices for the federal government

ü Friend who is now a high school teacher, has played in several bands, and is a long time relationship (Engaged? Married?) to hot T.A we both had a crush on, oh well

ü Friend doing PhD in London in Film Studies or Slavoj Zizek (Not really sure)

What I Thought I’d Be Doing At This Age

ü Have PhD (or at least a master’s degree)

ü Be working on my third novel

ü Be in a serious relationship

ü Be contributing something interesting or important to humanity

My Favorite Evasions

ü “No, I’m not just saying that so the conversation will end. I really do agree with you”

ü “Ah, we were just hanging out”

ü “We’re not dating”

ü “I DO love you”

ü “I don’t know what happened. The job just didn’t work out”

ü “It will never happen again. I promise”

Things I Realized Only After It Didn’t Matter Anymore

ü I should’ve ended things six months ago

ü It would have gone better if I had just admitted it

ü They were just trying to help

ü She wanted to be more than friends

ü It didn’t mean anything- we were both just drunk and lonely

ü I never really cared that much

ü I was still in love with her

Time Wasters

My main motivation for this entry is to simply avoid working on an assignment that I've successfully avoided working on for over a week. It'd be easy to finish if not for my chronic procrastination and the assignment's heart-stopping inanity. Like an ersatz Job, I find myself cursing the ink the assignment was written with, the paper it was written on, and the very day the tree that was to become the paper was conceived.

To say that my time at the library tech program has been well spent would be a gross abuse of the truth. To give it its due, there are certain computer programs that I never would have known about without it, and I did genuinely enjoy my placement at a school library. So much so, that the rest of the program is seeming more and more like a grimly tedious mess. I am not enthralled with this program, I am not in love with what I am being taught. If I was dating this program, this would be around the time that I would start suggesting that we see other people, as we clearly have irreconcilable differences. I enjoy reading and seeing my friends, it enjoys obscure journal databases that perhaps thirty people outside of this program use.

Of course, like any relationship, it's never one persons fault when things start to sour. It always takes two. For my part, I am willing to admit to a fearful level of procrastination, a monstrous incapacity to commit fully to what I am being taught, a satanically short attention span for what I consider dull or unimportant, and overweening vanity. Sometimes, a subject is just too ridiculous for me to take notes on. The program is not completely to blame. It's more that having started down a certain path I lack the imagination to do other than grit my teeth grimly and continue marching on. Cursing under my breath all the while. Stoicism's not my bag.

That's not my bag either

Of course, a very wise friend of mine has rightly pointed out that it would be sheer emptyheadedness of me to drop out at this point. If I'm not doing as well as I think I should be doing, either start paying more attention or just stop caring. At the end of it I will have contacts in the field, and a nice little piece of paper that explains that I now officially know how to do stuff I already knew how to do. She also points out that nobody, Nobody cares what my marks are once I finish the program. All they care about is the little piece of paper. She is of course completely right - as usual - and I should just man up and get this program finished. The problem is only in my head, as are most of my problems.

Ultimately, the only thing that's at stake here is my vanity. Despite all empirical evidence to the contrary, I've always thought of myself as being a good, if somewhat misunderstood student. I realize now that that was really never true at all. I am a so-so to okay student. I'm not sure why this bothers me so much, as I know and respect many people who were never good students and I recognize as being highly intelligent and talented people. It seems that there is never an issue so intangible that it cannot somehow intersect and wound my monstrous ego.

The Balfour Manoeuvre

Whenever I walk into a bookstore these days, I walk in with the firm intention of buying something light. My self-imposed reading list has been pretty heavy of late, and I have a great deal of books on the back-burner that require attention. I'm interested in reading something that's clever, well written, but fairly frothy. Something where after I finish it, I can think "Well, that was entertaining!" and then never have to think about it again. From where I'm sitting, some of the books on my dresser "To-Read" pile include: Crime and Punishment, The Adolescent, Beowulf, The Nicomachean Ethics, The Ascent to Truth, The Wings of the Dove, and Simone Weil: A life. I have a problem.

Probably also could've used some lighter reading

I always feel compelled to buy books like these, even when I know I could use a break, either from serious reading or reading in general. They usually sit on my dresser along with the other serious books that I keep meaning to read. I'll cite one incident as an illustrative example, an example I've come to think of as The Balfour Manoeuvre. Over the long weekend I walked into Balfour Books with the firm resolution that I would buy something fairly frivolous. I walked up to the first display table, and there right in front me was a copy of Graham Greene's Twenty-One Stories. After picking that up - I really didn't have a choice - I then found myself in the religion section picking out a copy of Thomas Merton's The New Man. The important thing to remember here is that I don't remember walking over to the religion section. I was just there. I then walked out of Balfour's, the proud new owner of a collection of short stories by a grim Catholic novelist and a collection of meditations by an existentialist monk. Go figure.

A good question would be why I keep doing this to myself. I don't have the time to read all of these, and at the rate I'm buying them it'll be another twenty-six years before I've finished them all. Some of my motivation can be traced back to my alienated teen snob years, where as a "serious" "intelligent" reader I would only have time for the most "serious" "intelligent" and "thought-provoking" books. I really did think like that, and it would be a lie to say that I've stopped completely. Sometimes when I'm looking at a light read, my teenage self scoffs, rolls his eyes and declares "You're not going to read that, are you?". It's not always blatant, but I know it's still there somewhere, just below the surface of my subconscious.

Of course, we all know that the dark underside of snobbery is a terrible insecurity. As a teenager I didn't play well with others. Back then, given the choice between going to a party and re-reading Thus spoke Zarathustra, I would've chosen the latter. Reading, especially books of philosophy and the like, was a way for me to reassure myself that I wasn't the gawky idiot that I suspected myself of being. It allowed me to construct a rickety self-image of Sam as a precocious, willful adolescent who cared more about the important things, who was deep and wouldn't be caught dead watching something as trivial and superficial as "Friends". Even when these trivial and superficial people got better grades than I did, I would think that they were just obnoxious keeners, and had no idea of the true worth of things, or the heights and depths that a truly aristocratic and spiritual nature was capable of. Yeah, I read that much Nietzsche.

Probably also could've used some lighter reading... and a shave

It made me feel special, and was my only real defense against the ravages of adolescence. As much as I wanted to believe all of the above was true, it was desperately necessary that other people believed it too. As much as I told myself that my peers were beneath my notice, I still needed their recognition. I wouldn't admit it, but I still judged myself through what I thought their expectations of me must be. Because of course, they must be secretly thinking of me as much as I was secretly thinking of them.

Of course, another element to all this is the obvious one - that these are just the books I prefer to read. Sure, it would be nice to be able to pick up Anne Tyler a little more often - I loved The Accidental Tourist - but if these are the books I want to read, of course there's no shame in it. That would be the perfect counterpoint except for the fact that when I'm between books and going on public transport I bring along a more "intellectual" book. After all, nothing attracts the ladies like Nathanael West.

Don't worry ladies, plenty to go around

As a twenty-something, I should probably know a little better. While caring about what other people think is normal and healthy in small doses, my concern is often exaggerated beyond rational levels. You could even call it neurotic. Just not to my face. That would make me self-conscious. You never grow up as fast as you want, and I suppose that one of the things I have to learn to tone down is my sometimes morbid self-consciousness. After all, it's not like everyone's watching my every move, judging everything I say and do, right?

You aren't, are you?

On starting over (and over, and over, and over)

One of the keys to survival is pattern recognition. Without it, our ancestors never would have noticed that striking two rocks together usually starts a fire, summer follows spring or that the red berries taste like burning. While we can debate the validity of inductive reasoning until the cows come home - if they come home - I think we'd all agree that it's a pretty useful guide to our every day lives. Lately, I've noticed some patterns in my own behavior that may hold the key to my future survival. Or may be good for some cheap laughs. We'll see.

Disclaimer: Discussing this man may make Heather cry

I like to start over. It's something I do frequently, about every two years or so. It usually starts with me taking a fairly critical look at what I've managed to do - usually not much - and becoming righteously disappointed with myself. What's the matter with you my inner nag begins, Weren't you have supposed to have written a novel by now, or travelled to Europe, or discovered gunpowder or gotten a real job? This simply won't do at all . And then in an orgy of flagellation I take stock of my mediocre sins.

Over the years, the usual offenders wind up being smoking too much or still smoking at all, in a job/ jobs I don't really enjoy, not writing enough or everything I write is superficial, uncertain of the status of the relationship I'm currently in, not working out or not working out enough, not eating well, and trying to live beyond my means through the modern miracle of credit cards. The next step in this process is trying to ward off the gods of failure by making them impossible promises that they know I won't be able to keep. Wait! I think to myself I know what the solution is! If all of these things are wrong with me, then all I have to do is simply change absolutely everything right away. After all, that shouldn't be too hard, should it? And then the gods laugh.

By setting up an impossible challenge for myself, I guarantee failure. By demanding perfection from myself all at once, failure in even one of these areas completely invalidates any gains I make in the others. Feeling like a total failure, I then indulge my minor vices even more so. This results in my feeling to be even more of a failure as I've now become a failure and a recidivist - the logic being that it's worse to try and fail then to not try at all.

I've been wondering why I do this, and what I think the problem may be that I'm actually scared of succeeding. If I just focused on succeeding at one thing, why, that would mean that it would be possible for me to succeed at my other problems providing I don't demand instant perfection and realise that -gasp- self improvement is a gradual process that takes many years of hard struggle and can't be achieved instantaneously or by quick fixes. It would mean that the game is harder than I thought, but if I play it sanely I have a better chance of winning, or at least getting a little closer to the goal.

As I see it, the problem lies in the fact that I want to be perfect at something right away. If it requires too much effort - and the way I do it, it usually does - then I get frustrated and give up. But the beauty of it is by giving up after over-extending myself everything stays exactly the same.I don't get challenged, and everything remains as it is. There's a certain comfort in total inertia. It's familiar. Dull but familiar. Which is very attractive to me.

One character trait that I have is my maybe excessive enjoyment of the familiar. I don't really like change. Once I've acclimated myself to whatever the emotional/social landscape is, my innate preference is for everything to remain static. Oh, things can happen of course. Just as long as they don't interrupt the overall sense of continuity and tradition that I crave. In fact, one of the pleasures that I take from reading books of history - or watching Rome - is the sense of continuity it gives me. The dark side to this trait is that if I think something has to change, then everything has to change. Like Chesterton's free-thinker and "revolutionise", change becomes an intransitive verb.

The obvious answer to all of this is that I should just stop being so hard on myself and admit that I'm not perfect. Not even close, and that I should stop lacerating myself with guilt because I'm not the exact mirror image of who I want to be. I think any one who knows me well enough has given me some variation on this advice over the years. It's very hard advice to act on, as over the years I've sharpened my capacity for self-criticism to a killing edge. It's also one of those things that's as natural as breathing to me. The most significant problem with that advice is that it requires me to change.

If life is largely about missing out and missing the point, why does it bother me so much that I do? Maybe it's just vanity, ultimately. A childish wish to be good at everything, regardless of whether or not I actually consider "everything" to be worthwhile. Maybe from now I'll just focus on what I want to get better at, and stop worrying so much over whether it'll eventually constitute perfection.