Isn’t life about survival and finding ways to survive? I don’t have to do anything to survive, everything is just handed to me in my glorious privilege. There are plenty of people who would love to be in my position and they would probably be making better use of the privilege. Not me, no. All it has done is stifle me and has been instrumental in keeping me from not starting my life. I haven’t done anything, I have no ambition, everything is just handed to me.
I haven’t starved enough to get anywhere with music. I can literally afford to be self-conscious and inhibited. My inspiration is totally self-destructive instead of creative. Music isn’t about survival, and that’s why it’s so hard, that’s why I hate what I come up with. It feels good to write something, but inevitably I realize that what I wrote was crap.
Wednesday, July 25, 1990
Monday, July 23, 1990
Providence, RI
Sakuko is my girlfriend, but she doesn’t feel like she’s a focus in my life. There’s a problem in that. I think I missed again.
A year ago, I think I would have killed myself for an answer. Six months ago I think I would have entered a monastery to search for an answer. I probably would have entered one to not search for an answer. Now I don’t even have the drive to find an answer. I’m alive and here because of Sakuko, but I’m only here.
I don’t know if Sakuko and I are moving apart, it feels like we are, but it also feels like we aren’t. I’m numb again, putting it down and not taking it too seriously. And I can tell that she doesn’t like how things are changing. There’s a growing tension between us.
Rob and Lizzie left for a vacation today. They are driving down South, something I totally don’t comprehend.
Sunday, July 22, 1990
Providence, RI
I’m in Providence now. I came up on June 7, and have been here since. I went down to New Jersey once for a dentist appointment and to take Sesame to a vet. Sesame died on July 5th. The sweetest gerbil in the world, I’ll never forget her. Even though I thought she was a he (hint: boy gerbils can't have baby gerbils).
I’m taking a Women’s Studies course at Brown which has been harrowing with constant readings and weekly essays. A good course; very enlightening. An introductory Women’s Studies course should be requisite for any liberal arts degree. It has me thinking about other forms of injustice - oppression, sexism, racism, exploitation, objectification, imperialism, misogyny - basically, the history of the world.
Why don’t I have ambitious goals and admirable ideas? Instead, I question the material trappings of causes and I don’t have any goals.
I’m an introvert. I have been all my life. I’ve always been self-conscious of how I appear and have always seen my situations from a slight distance, slightly removed from myself. I don’t react spontaneously, everything is at least slightly premeditated, no bubbling emotions pouring over. No animal instinct, no blind passion.
At the same time, I don’t have much of a view of myself. I have no conception of how I look in my surroundings and around other people. It’s like I don’t exist to myself. I can’t place what I see in the mirror within the physical scenery I see around me.
Always right behind my eyes is the question of the meaning of life. Yes, really. Just sitting around, looking at my legs and feeling them, I feel the control, I feel that they are part of me. I see the muscles moving to move my toes and I have complete control and that’s . . . fascinating. I’m doing that, those muscles are mine.
What is the process manifested in that movement? What happens between thought and movement and how? I’m not talking about the medical or mechanical explanation. How is the will transmitted and then manifested in movement and is there any meaning in it? I see the movement, but I have no idea what is the nature of the cause of the will of that movement, the truth behind it.
I’m looking for the significance of living in this form with this history and reality. I think it’s fairly clear that this is not reality as far as understanding absolutes go. Then why am I caught so much in this material world? But how can I have goals, ambitions, and plans in a world whose meaning I question, whose reality I question?
I know this isn’t real, but I don’t have anything with which to replace this concept of reality. How can I want to do something in this life without having solved, resolved, or come to grips with the problem of why am I here? How can I do anything for other people if I can’t even liberate myself? Is my status as a human deserved? Is my need to ponder the problem of meaning earned?
I’m taking a Women’s Studies course at Brown which has been harrowing with constant readings and weekly essays. A good course; very enlightening. An introductory Women’s Studies course should be requisite for any liberal arts degree. It has me thinking about other forms of injustice - oppression, sexism, racism, exploitation, objectification, imperialism, misogyny - basically, the history of the world.
Why don’t I have ambitious goals and admirable ideas? Instead, I question the material trappings of causes and I don’t have any goals.
I’m an introvert. I have been all my life. I’ve always been self-conscious of how I appear and have always seen my situations from a slight distance, slightly removed from myself. I don’t react spontaneously, everything is at least slightly premeditated, no bubbling emotions pouring over. No animal instinct, no blind passion.
At the same time, I don’t have much of a view of myself. I have no conception of how I look in my surroundings and around other people. It’s like I don’t exist to myself. I can’t place what I see in the mirror within the physical scenery I see around me.
Always right behind my eyes is the question of the meaning of life. Yes, really. Just sitting around, looking at my legs and feeling them, I feel the control, I feel that they are part of me. I see the muscles moving to move my toes and I have complete control and that’s . . . fascinating. I’m doing that, those muscles are mine.
What is the process manifested in that movement? What happens between thought and movement and how? I’m not talking about the medical or mechanical explanation. How is the will transmitted and then manifested in movement and is there any meaning in it? I see the movement, but I have no idea what is the nature of the cause of the will of that movement, the truth behind it.
I’m looking for the significance of living in this form with this history and reality. I think it’s fairly clear that this is not reality as far as understanding absolutes go. Then why am I caught so much in this material world? But how can I have goals, ambitions, and plans in a world whose meaning I question, whose reality I question?
I know this isn’t real, but I don’t have anything with which to replace this concept of reality. How can I want to do something in this life without having solved, resolved, or come to grips with the problem of why am I here? How can I do anything for other people if I can’t even liberate myself? Is my status as a human deserved? Is my need to ponder the problem of meaning earned?
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