meaning

continuing the conversation

May 6th

Posted by Michael in life

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My aunt Susan left me a won­der­ful com­ment on my last post,

Hmmmm. It’s a big world to fit into. Try some­thing else. You know we’re behind you. Love, Susan

I really am lucky that I have such an amaz­ing fam­ily, but even still, I feel like I’ve either already run out, or any very close to run­ning out of time to do any­thing mean­ing­ful with my life, and by now, I know that I can’t just fall into the prag­matic herd men­tal­ity that our soci­ety seems to require.

So what else should I try now? Where else should I go? Please, some­body, if you know, help me out, because I’m lost.

Its clear to me that I’ll never grow as a per­son stay­ing where I am, but at the same time I’m totally inca­pable of sup­port­ing myself, so where does that leave me?

the other shoe

Apr 30th

Posted by Michael in life

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So today reminded me yet again how utterly worth­less I am.

If any­one doesn’t know already, I’ve been (rather fool­ishly) get­ting my hopes up to go back to school this fall, though really I’m not sure why since my per­sonal his­tory with higher edu­ca­tion (like every­thing in life) is rather poor, but still, I was hop­ing it might be dif­fer­ent this time.

So I applied to the UC sys­tem, yet again, last novem­ber, for fall 2010, and was accepted by UCSD and UCR, which is great, because UCSD was pretty much my first choice.

Then of course, I filed my fafsa to apply for finan­cial aid, and for the first time, my EFC (expected fam­ily con­tri­bu­tion) wasn’t 0, but 675. I’ve no idea what 675 means, because the web­site says EFC is a scale that schools use to deter­mine aid, and not a direct dol­lar value.

Well, today I finally received my pre­lim­i­nary award, and UCSD only awarded me $4900 in grants/gift aid, so I’d need to find $23,125 on my own for the first year, and prob­a­bly more still for the sec­ond since CA tuition seems to increase every year.

There’s the punch to the stom­ach I was wait­ing for.

I know that I’m awful with money (and any kind of respon­si­bil­ity in gen­eral) and I’ll never repay that kind of finan­cial oblig­a­tion on my own with­out a ridicu­lously high-paying job, so money isn’t a worry any­more, and I’d cer­tainly never bet on a phi­los­o­phy degree to land me the type of job to enable me to do so.

So now I’m lost again.

UCR was bet­ter, I’d only need $8-10k in loans for the first year, but I never really wanted to go to UCR in the first place, and still, I’d never be able to pay back $20k in loans, and I have to accept or decline by tomor­row, May 1st.

Really just makes me want to cry, but I guess I should have seen it com­ing, I’ve known for a while that I don’t really fit in in this world.

just another day

Apr 16th

Posted by Michael in life

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I’m find­ing it a lot harder to express myself of late. I know this is at least partly because I’ve not been writ­ing as often, but by the same regard, I’ve already come to terms with the fact that I can’t write as often as I’d like any­more, at least not here at this blog.

As most peo­ple know by now, I’ve just been wast­ing away my last few months try­ing to ignore how use­less I am, by play­ing lord of the rings online, and yes, I’m still slightly mor­ti­fied with myself for play­ing an MMO.

Iron­i­cally though, this has turned out to be an amaz­ing dis­trac­tion, and my brother, sis­ter and sev­eral friends think my moods are gen­er­ally more nor­mal (read, I’m not as depress­ing a per­son to be around) because of it.

I’m sure the dis­trac­tion is a part of my mood change, but as with all aspects of life, there’s more going on than just my play­ing lotro, and  I just don’t feel that I’m really ready to talk about every­thing else yet, and cer­tainly not here.

I’m actu­ally think­ing of try­ing to find a ther­a­pist now, but I’m not really sure how to find one that will see me for free, and odds are it prob­a­bly wouldn’t be a good one.

I don’t know, maybe I’m still too afraid of how other peo­ple see me?

Iron­i­cally, ‘teenage exis­ten­tial dilemma’ was a great way for shorty to describe what I’m going through still, but not in the way he ever thought.

the strongest memory association…

Nov 21st

Posted by Michael in life

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These lyrics, this “poem” has spo­ken to me for a VERY long time, still speaks to me today, and will likely speak to/for me for the rest of my life. I absolutely LONG for the abil­ity to express myself like this, not for cap­i­tal gain, but in a way that other peo­ple resemble/relate to beyond my years, to immor­tal­ize myself, to “tran­scend the char­ac­tero­log­i­cal lie about real­ity” through art… maybe that’s what I resent, that I’m not artis­tic? Or maybe that I don’t seem to fit any­where at all?

“Sum­mer time and the wind is blow­ing,
Out­side in lower Chelsea,
And I don’t know
What I’m doing in this city,
The sun is always in my eyes,
It crashes through the win­dows,
And I’m sleep­ing on the couch,
When I came to visit you,
That’s when I knew,
That I could never have you,
I knew that before you did,
Still I’m the one whose stu­pid,
And there’s this burn­ing,
Like there’s always been,
I’ve never been so alone,
And I’ve never been so alive,
Visions of you on a motor­cy­cle drive by,
The Cig­a­rette ash flies in your eyes,
And you don’t mind,
And you smile,
And say the world doesn’t fit with you.
I don’t believe you,
You’re so serene,
Careen­ing through the uni­verse,
Your axis on a tilt,
Guilt­less and free,
I hope you take a piece of me with you,
And there’s things I’d like to do that, You don’t believe in,
I would like to build some­thing,
but you never see it hap­pen,
And there’s this burn­ing,
Like there’s always been,
I’ve never been so alone,
And I, I’ve never been so alive,
And there’s this burn­ing,
There is this burn­ing,
Where’s the soul, I want to know,
New York City is evil,
The sur­face is every­thing,
But I could never do that,
Some­one would see through that,
And this is the last time,
We’ll be friends again,
and I’ll get over you and you’ll won­der,
Who I am,
And there’s this burn­ing,
just like there’s always been,
I’ve never been so alone,
And I’ve never been so alive,
I go home to the coast,
It starts to rain,
I pad­dle out,
On the water,
Alone,
Taste the salt and taste the pain,
I’m not think­ing of you again,
Sum­mer dies and swells rise,
The sun goes down in my eyes,
See this rolling wave,
Darkly com­ing to take me,
Home,
And I never been so alone,
And I’ve never been so alive”

– Third Eye Blind “Motor­cy­cle Drive BY”

exploration and beginning…

Nov 21st

Posted by Michael in general

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And I’ve real­ized tonight that I have more un-resolved issues to rec­on­cile than I pre­vi­ously thought.

Think­ing of the past, and fan­ta­siz­ing about what lives my pre­vi­ous acquain­tances might now have, it makes me feel lazy, and unim­por­tant.

(both might be true)

Maybe its a last-ditch attempt to try and impress old friends and make old flames jeal­ous (even though they ought not be?)

I’m not sure of any­thing any­more, except that, regard­less of how socially awk­ward I was and still am, I miss my old friends.

Frankl said it best, life can have mean­ing in one of 3 ways, and one of those was by expe­ri­enc­ing some­thing OR encoun­ter­ing some­one.

Maybe mean­ing can be found by sim­ple encoun­ter­ing friends, even if they have no super-meaning for soci­ety as a whole?

Or is this another futile, fruit­less attempt at self-affirmation? Another attempt to direct what lit­tle ambi­tion I have left at defin­ing myself in spite of what I have failed at, what I may have suc­ceeded at, and what I have still yet to dis­cover about myself?

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