The Heart of an Arctic Crystal

I'm approximately one-hundred pages into Moby-Dick, and I am having serious issues in putting it down for the evening. Everything about Melville is gripping, and sublimely eloquent.

This great novel is just my first step in a greater task. My professor has given me personal assignment, so to speak; I am to read the Western Canon, to wake my Orphic voice from its blatant sleep-talking. The list is comprehensive, and it will involve delving into other languages to fully complete. Though the prospect of diversifying and enlightening my mind to the entirety of European literature is thrilling, I might be compelled to limit myself to English and the Latinate.

If anyone is interested in a collection of good works to read (I know that reading can't be quite dead yet), then go here.

My social world, on the other hand, is a gripping tale of another level entirely. My institutionalized academic world is waning into dormancy, perhaps even death, my love life is in proverbial shambles, and I'm in a struggle with what my counselor says are traits and symptoms commonly associated with bipolar disorder. My life's throes are synonymous with the rolling snowball.

And now, for non sequitur; my psychology professor, distraught over the poor turnout to the last day of class, entrusted the students who did show up with the answer to a bonus question on our final. The question, the only one not a multiple choice, is to correctly identify and write down her youngest nephew's full name. Respect can be earned in sometimes the most peculiar of manners.

I do enjoy these bitter nights. To quote Melville,

Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so for a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable anymore. [...] For the height of this sort of deliciousness is to have nothing but the blanket between you and your snugness and the cold of the outer air. There you lie like the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal.

Moby-Dick, Chapter 11

And with that, I bid you adieu.

Building Block Towers

A month is the only time element that is both intrinsically eternal and microcosmic. I was going to say that a lot has happened, and it most likely has, but of what consequence is it? I have a guaranteed F in two classes, a guaranteed A in one, and maybe a B+ to show for my half-assed work in yet another. And I'm dropping out of my school. These days, I feel like Holden Caulfield, I really do.

Then, after writing it, I realize I've given you the Caulfield joke before. This is the monotony of my life, if complete incoherence can be described as monotonous.

My professor of writing suggests that I continue with school, and to read the great literary canon to help dig my niche in the writing world. I enjoy writing, though you could have gathered that. Perhaps, if you're in my first group of followers, I'll give you all signed copies of my first work.

And of course, into the greater scheme of things, I will now extract a quote:

Mankind, ignorant of the truths that lie within every human being, looked outward-pushed ever outward. [...] Eventually it flung them out into space, into the colorless, tasteless, weightless sea of outwardness without end. It flung them like stones.

Kurt Vonnegut

The greater things in our life are the things that tend to take place in our minds, in the great microcosm of neurons. My great things are all quesetions, as it were. And tonight, or today, or whenever it is that you so happen to read this, I would like to develop a more informed understanding of nostalgia.

It's been well established that nostalgia is a depression of varying intensity, over the longing for the past to return. It's the feeling that gives us an excuse to remember ex's, old jobs, places we lived, and all of the etceteras. Our beautiful past, as it were.

At my present age of 20 (going on five-thousand it seems), I have finally hit the surface of reality. To explicate, I have now completed my second decade on Earth, out of a projected 7.8. Sometimes, in my disorientation, I'll earnestly consider what middle school like will be like, or where I put my blocks, before realizing that those days are a part of a different life.

Which leads me to wonder if we were ever what we remember. We can have our memories, and we can the meaning and nostalgia for these memories, but did the past ever actually happen? There are times, occurring sadly more often, that I believe the more grim answer.

But what can you do, you know? I guess complaining is the most that can be done. But hey, if you have an answer, inform me!

À bientôt!

A Critique on Writing Workshops

In a word, I find creative writing workshops to be utterly terrible; my pomposity tends to get the better of me in there. Either I'm forced to endure poor criticism, or I get to listen to poor Nickelback-based lyrics.
If you're serious about writing, go to maybe one workshop, just to see how ridiculous it is. Welcome to the subtler world of mediocrity. You'll find that a workshop can only provide so much for you, if anything at all.

Maybe I've had a bad experience with workshops. My Intro to Creative Writing class is filled with students who are barely even there for the grades. I don't know if most of them understand the art of the pen.

The bed calls, my rant is through. À bientôt!