impressions of oscar wao

so I was working my way through this new age contemporary piece of literature dubbed The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (who is currently an english professor at MIT, I think…ultra oxymoron but also ultra awesome), and so far I’m enjoying it more than the other books I read in lit class this year.  I can probably caulk it to it being contemporary and thus I don’t have to try to decipher the text (I’m looking at you, Will Faulkner).  Anyways I was just reading when a came across a certain quote:

Later when he thought about it he realized that these very cousins could have probably gotten him laid if only he’d bothered to hang out with them.  But you can’t regret the life you didn’t lead.

And that made perfect sense to me.  It made me realize how irrational my regrets about high school (and my own adolescence) were.  There’s no point regretting the life that I didn’t lead.  I gotta make the most of the life that I did lead.

on motivations and commitments

My friend Jimmy recently told me:

to be brutally honest, u dont have motivation to even get started on half the things u say u wanna learn how to do

and it’s true.  I’ve known this in my mind, in my heart, but hearing it said so bluntly and candidly was a real slap in the face.  My endeavors can be summed as a string of unfinished and unsuccessful ventures.  At one point I wanted to learn the guitar.  I practiced rather diligently for about a week and then forgot about it for some reason.  I wanted to get in shape.  I began running at mile square.  Then I stopped for awhile.  Then I started again.  Then I stopped again.  Then I started again.  I wanted to learn how to photoshop stuff.  It got too difficult so I gave up.  I wanted to participate in swim at school.  I couldn’t handle waking up at 4am everyday, so I quit.  I was elected onto the leadership board of many clubs, but ended up shirking my duties or doing a half-assed job.

My point is, in the past four years of my life, I didn’t really accomplished much.  Other people got somewhere, they have a talent, a hobbie, a skill to show for it.  And what have I got?  I’m still where I started, although probably weighing a few pounds more.  I’ve really got nothing to show for the last few years of my life.

The source of my problem is my concept of motivation and commitment.  If I really wanted to follow through with any of the above-listed activities, I only needed the motivation.  But I lacked it.  If I really wanted to do something, and this rings true for everything we do in life, I would get it done.  Giving up half-way, leaving it incomplete only shows that the activity didn’t mean enough for me to follow through and do it.  I also lack commitment.  I can’t explain this short-coming too well though.  Although it can be said that without motivation, there is no commitment.  While writing this post and reflecting on my [lack of] accomplishments, I can’t help but ask myself, “what are you afraid of?  are you afraid of succeeding beyond your wildest dreams?”.  I know I’m not the most awesome person out there, but I know-don’t ask, I just know, somehow- that I can be successful at anything if I dedicate myself to it.  It’s just that hump, that cusp, that line between doing something for a while and committing myself to doing it for the long-run is exponentially huge.  It is a tough obstacle to overcome, but if I ever want to be able to do anything in my life, to get anywhere in my life, I have to overcome that hump*.

As of right now, I have approximately three endeavors that I endeavor to accomplish.  One is to progress into an exercise routine.  My second is to better my writing through doing it (aka this sorry excuse for a blog).  My third, and this is quite strange, is to learn how to dance.  Now I don’t mean like formal dance (well, sorta), but I want to be able to …get lost in the music and have my body move to it.  I watch dancers and they look so relaxed, but at the same time so free and fulfilled.  Every move they do has, behind it, an insurmountable amount of passion and emotion.  Every movement just has a lot of meaning behind.  I want that.  I want to express myself, I want to free myself through dance.  I wanna learn how to dance.

My desire to dance is not unlike finding an outlet or a hobby.  When musicians play their music, they tend to get lost in it too.  Swaying their heads to it, rocking their bodies to it, swinging their hips to it.  They are, at that very moment, free.  They are immersed in life itself.  I want that, but I want to be immersed in life through dance.  As my friend Jimmy says, “It’s like playing music with your body” and I couldn’t have put it better myself.

I want to dance so I can live.

How will I accomplish these things?  I don’t know the answer to that yet.  Well, I actually do.  I will accomplish them by doing them.  I don’t mean to be a cavalier douche, but I think that I have lots of potential for success in…well, anything I put my mind too.  It’s just I’m letting my self go to waste by allowing apathy take over me.  I have to overcome the laziness, the sloth, the apathy that binds me to my unfulfilling state of being if I ever want to enjoy life.

*a better word could probably be used instead of hump, but it escapes me!

hey kevin what do u do for fun???

Random curious lad:  hey kevin what do you do for fun???

Kevin:  I honestly don’t know…

RCL:  do you play  a sport or video games, do you hvae any hobbies?  how about an instrument?  surely, because you are so talented at everything you do, you must know how to play an instrument?

Kevin:  I started playing guitar during on summer, then stopped due to laziness/lack of instruction.  I restarted a bit after and got in a few day of good practice but soon stopped…

RCL:  so what do you do now when you’re at home without homework and bored?

Kevin:  i literally sit in front of my computer and wait until it is time to go to sleep.

RCL:  wow you kinda suck.  hard.

Kevin:  that I know.  I am so goddamn bored nowadays.

RCL:  well what are you good at?

Kevin:  not much.  I used to play games but got bored at that stuff.  I can somewhat write, but not superly well (which, ironically, is the point of the blog:  to help me improve my writing prowress)

RCL:  you should really do something.

Kevin:  my friend suggested that I get my guitar strings fixed and repick-up guitar.  I think I might do that.  I also might try to learn illustrater or how to draw or something (because I am a god-awful artist and drawing kinda looks like fun [if anything I can end up drawing better dicks]).

RCL:  you should do those things, but what is more, is that you should commit.

Kevin:  yeah.

RCL:  ok, I have to go now.  p.s., you’re a pretty lame writer.  This attempt at being creative with your blog post by creating a mock-dialogue to express your thoughts is completely devoid of witty repartee.

romanticism and regret

As I am approaching the end of my high school career, I am starting to feel many things (that’s what she said?).  Excitement, apprehension, joy, relief.  However, I feel another kind of feeling, and this feeling scares me most of all:  regret.  Now for the zero amount of people reading this, I just wanna say that no, my life is not all emo and lame and sad as I make it out to be, but I do tend to blog about things that bother me.  I think that if I can say it or type it out, it will help me put my trials and tribulations into perspective and subsequently help me find solutions to them.  That and it just makes me feel a whole lot better.

Anyways.  I regret a lot of things.  A lot of missed opportunities.  It’s really unfortunate, but it’s the truth.  I regret not joining a sport and committing to it.  Maybe if I did, I would be more fit now and most likely less insecure about myself/self-image.  I should have gotten involved in school earlier.

Just this year I found about a great little club called Kiwins and had a blast with their projects and activities.  Kiwins District Convention was also very fantastic.  If I had known about Kiwins and DCON sooner, I probably wouldn’t have wasted the first two years of my high school life.  Waste is somewhat of a harsh word, but nevertheless it’s how I feel.  Presently, I look back at the clubs that I am in (and enjoy very much) and I see a lot of freshmen in them.  Now, I don’t feel jealous that they figured out about these great clubs and activities before I did -not at all- but I respect them greatly.  These are the kids who will truly enjoy and appreciate their high school career and I envy them.

During last year and this year I have joined a bunchton of clubs.  Some of them I have left behind, while others I continue to participate in.  In retrospect, I probably should’ve chosen a few clubs and dedicate myself to them fully.  Instead, I spread myself far too thin.

I regret not participating in many of my classes and not getting to know my teachers better.

I regret procrastinating so much and not prioritizing schoolwork.

Most of all, however, -and this might seem really stupid and trivial- I regret not being social or outgoing enough during my time in high school.  My lack of social involvement has since have had an adverse effect on my personality.  I am pretty socially awkward when you come right down to it.  Sure I can negotiate stages and crowds, but when it comes down to meeting new people (especially girls), I find that I am severely lacking in that department.  Which brings me to another point, I regret not getting to know girls enough to have a girlfriend.  I have pretty much gone through the first 17 years of my life without a romantic experience.  And I regret that, greatly.  I mean, in this day and age, even 7th/8th graders have had girlfriends or at least a romantic experience!  I regret that I will never have that high school romantic experience that is dramatized so much in the movies (and is so damn cute…and hawt).  I mean sure I will have plenty of opportunities in college to woo and court women, but damn.  If only I had done so earlier, maybe I’d be a bit more experienced and confident in myself.

Although this post was just a bucket that totally leaked with emo, I am optimistic.  College is the next phase of my life, and the lessons that I take away from high school will motivate me to persue a college experience that will leave no regrets.

EDIT:

“I’ve wasted the last 3 years of my life sitting around talking bullshit with you, man.  Instead of chasing girls and making friends, I’ve just sat around wasting all my time with you”.

-Evan, Superbad

That sorta sums up how I feel right now, except you know, I’m not mad at Jimmy, just at my own ineptitude.

the kind of funny that I’m into

I like my toilet humor.  My dirty humor.  My perverse humor.  What’s wrong with that?

Well the fact of the matter is, many just don’t get my word play or my puns or my sarcasm.  I think my biggest problem is my radical sarcasm.  The Stephen Colbert kinda sarcasm -the one where you totally support right-wing-ultra-conservative-ignorant-thought.  It offends people.  But it’s totally funny.  I do it cause I find it absolutely hilarious, not because I believe what I am saying.

Although there is also another problem:  girls.  It is probably a nonverbal agreement  that a guy shouldn’t be talking about penises or pubic hair or dongs or an impossibly large vas deferens in front of th eopposite sex.  And therein lies my huge problem (and I am not talking about my large -WOOOOOOOO).  Over the years, I guess I developed an affinity for dirty jokes/low (very, very low) comedy (lit vocab ++).  So great is this affinity that I would often delve into my coffer of debauchery for ways in which to elicit laughs from others, whether or not they happen to possess breasts.  I think this offends many girls that I meet and push them to not regard me as well.. a viable intimate other (to put lightly coughcoughcough).

I suppose both my dirty mouth and dirty mind turn girls away from me.  Not only that, but they help reinforce the notion that I am a Dirty McPerv.  Not only does this create a huge chasm between me and women (and, coincidentally, me and hawt sweaty coitus), but it gives off the vibe that I am very immature.  I think that I am a very mature person, it’s just that my only problem -if it even is a problem- is that I like dirty humor.  All the time.  All day. Everyday.  Is that so wrong?  Well, judging by the amount of hawt lovin’ I’m getting*, I think that the answer to my question is yes.  Although it might also be that I’m a bit of a douchebag sometimes and I am not the hottest, most outgoing guy around.  Those insecurities, however, shall be saved for a later time.

*READ:  ZERO

On feeling inferior.

Recently I got into UCSD.  Muir college.

Any normal person would be absolutely stoked.  Now, I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but everytime I look at people’s facebook accounts and see that they’re going to UCLA or UCB, or every time I look at my friend’s buddy icon (a bruin picture), my stomach lurches a little.  My face kinda grimaces.  My heart kinda twists a bit.  Bearing all these lame metaphors and to summarize, I feel like absolute shit.

Why?  Why do I feel this way?  I am going to a perfectly fine college, yet -and I can only describe this as an inferiority complex- I grimace whenever I see that someone is going to UCLA or UCB (which, I might add, I got rejected from).  What the fuck is wrong with me when I cannot be proud of my own accomplishments?

I want to be proud of the college that I’m going to -and in many ways I am- but I still just feel inferior to those going to UCLA.  or Berkeley.  Maybe it’s this way of thinking I have ingrained into me.  This avariance towards “mediocrity” (although I am, by no means, calling all UCSD students mediocre).  I have continually told many many of my friends and acquitaintances that, “A great person doesn’t a good college make” and I repeat that until they feel better.  But in a crazy twist of ironic hypocrisy, I myself do not embody those words.  I think somewhere, imbedded in my mind, I have the idea that if I don’t go to a prestigious college, then I am not a “smart”, “great”, or “accomplished” person.  Of course, I realize the stupidity of my way of thought, but it’s one thing to admit that you have a problem, and a completely ‘nother thing to solve it.

My inferiority complex is by no means limited to colleges, but it runs rampant in my social life too.  I am completely sick of it.  I want to escape this mindset of inferiority, but it is much easier said than done.  I can’t help but feel that my inferiority complex is the culmination of my self put-downs.

Ask anyone and they’ll tell you that I’m a super optimist, always believing in the best of others, always hoping for the positive future.  Although I am an outwardly optimistic person, projecting unbridled (and annoying) positive intentions/thoughts/outlooks onto others, I believe that I do that to make up for my inherent negativity.  I truly am a negative person and, consequently, a hypocrite.

I put up a tough, mocking, sarcastic, facetious, and douchebag exterior to cover up my own insecurities.

I don’t know how I’ll escape this reproachful state of mind, but it is one of my greatest obstacles in life.

I am Angry McFurious

I believe in the value of a human life.

I was refreshing Digg’s home page as usual and came across a story about an Afghan man who reasoned that suicide bombings were “un-afghan” and “un-islamic”.  On his way home, he was killed.

So I have to ask:  what is wrong with this story?

I mean, surely it is a work of fiction!  A man says that suicide bombing (that is: blowing yourself up and taking others with you) is un-nationalistic and un-Islamic.  Nothing wrong with that.  To many of us, he is stating the very obvious.  Why, why, then did this man have to:

• Even have to give a speech condemning these acts and..
• be killed for stating something that is universally true?

I mean, is it not common sense that taking innocent lives is wrong?  Is it not common sense that if you just blow yourself up you’re really not giving yourself the opportunity to continually try to change whatever it is you’re trying to change?  Is it not common sense to be a tad more selfless?

I read this article and I thought, “shit, these suicide bombers are fucking, fucking retarded”.

I became genuinely angry.  I was angry for those families who unexpectedly lost loved ones.  I was angry for students who come to school, fearing that they might not live through the day.  I was angry for those innocent people.  Those people who thought that today was just going to be a simple day for a jot down to the crowded supermarket, or those who thought that they would give their feet a rest and take the bus to school.  Those people did not know that they were going to have their lives unexpectedly stolen from them when some maniac decides that he is going to help bring about change by blowing his ass up.

These fucking suicide bombers piss the living shit out of me.  I can just imagine them saying, “Oh, we are very discontent with your policy/ways/ideas/institution!  Let’s blow ourselves (and the innocent people around us) up to express our displeasure and promote a viable alternate solution!”

Fuck them.  Fuck them and their right to do whatever they want without considering the lives of those around them.  Or, maybe they did consider the lives of those around them.  Maybe they did consider and concluded that the innocents surrounding them did not matter.  Maybe they feel that the death of innocents will force a government to change its ways.  Maybe they feel that by continually causing chaos and disorder they are paving way for something better.  Something worth all the pain, suffering and death.  Well time for a fucking reality check.  The methods aren’t working.  What kind of image do those suicide bombers create for themselves when they blow themselves (along with others) the fuck up?  It’s an image of irrational, crazy, narrow-minded, and stupid people.

I voiced my displeasure to my friend Jimmy.  Although he sympathsizes with me, he, being the progressive and tolerant person that he is, provided many reasons as to why the suicide bombers would view their course of action rational.

• Anti-westerner hate speech
• The Islamic religion promotes it
• Glory of sacrificing yourself for your cause
• They have different standards, different backgrounds, and different status quos than us
• Kill yourself to kill the non-believers (again referencing the Qur’an and Islamic religion)

He even has a youtube video showing quotes from the Qur’an that promotes killing non-believers, kill those for Allah.  I truly appreciate Jimmy for being such a rational individual and for looking at this from both sides.  It is true, the Qur’an does contain many lines that advocate the death of “non-believers”.

I ask this.  What kind of religion advocates killing those that have different points of views?

That being asked, I can sort of understand were these extremists are coming from a bit better, but…I suppose my western mind just cannot fathom why anyone would throw their lives away for a cause and take the many innocents around them with them, whether or not those innocents agreed with their ideals.

I guess no matter how hard I try to understand the extremists, to make some sort of exception to the rule to make their actions rational, I just can’t understand.  I can’t stop being angry everytime I reread that headline “Teacher Killed After Calling Suicide Bombers Un-Islamic”.  Doesn’t that headline just reject everything that intution tells us?

Furthermore, just becomes you’re in another part of the world, another culture, another set of values and morals, one thing should never, ever change.  And that is the value of a human life.  What clause of humanity says that it is ok to take another life.  What snippet, small print, exception to the rule, says that it is fine to disregard the value of human life and act selfishly to the point where one kills innocents.

The only life that I own is my own.  Jimmy’s life is his own.  It is not up to me to decide whether he gets to live tomorrow or the next day.  If I have a grievance with something and decide to kill myself in defense of my opinion, then fine, go fucking nuts.  But to walk over to Jimmy’s home strapped to the brim with explosive devices and then set it off with his family and friends in his living room?  That is stupid and inconsiderate.  If I’m not alive to continually have the chance to promote my agenda, then what the fuck was the point of all of this?

[Note:  I am well, well aware of the many flaws and narrow-minded views and points that I have made.  I guess you get like that sometime when you're really, really genuinely passionate about something, huh?]