“Welcome To The Cruel World”

Welcome to the cruel world.
Hope you find your way.
Welcome to the cruel world.
Hope you find your way.

Oh- Oh- it’s a cruel world.
Try to enjoy your stay.
Yes, it is a cruel world when you’re tryin’ to get by.
Oh- Oh- it’s a cruel world when you’re tryin’
when you’ve seen the look in their eye.
Makes life hard living but I’m so, so scared to die.

Welcome to the cruel world,
welcome,
welcome.

Don’t know how we’ve lasted here so long.
There must be more good than bad or we’d already be gone.
And if you get up to Heaven before I do, I’m gonna tell ya,
it’s gonna be cruel there too,
cruel there too.
You can’t hide from this cruel world cause there is no place to run.
You can’t hide from the cruel world there just is no place to run.
It’s been cruel from the beginning, it will be cruel when we’re done.
So when I’m gone, I will gladly say goodbye.
When I am gone, I will gladly say goodbye,
and if you want to feel me, put your hands up to the sky.

Welcome to the cruel world,
welcome,
welcome.
Hope you find your way.
Try to enjoy your stay

-ben harper

alright…so i just got off the phone w/ this english woman in LA, she started a company called Full Circle which helps people volunteer abroad.  I found it on idealist.org, and of all the other non-profits, it was simply the only one that interested me.  If I am to eventually go into marketing, publicity, or some other business side of a company, it might as well be one that I find interesting.  Also…i probably can afford to GAIN some more int’l travel and volunteer experience.

so…maybe that’ll be my angle, to go abroad w/ the hopes of truly experiening and learning as much as i can about volunteering abroad, so that when i do come back at 25 (or 26), and i do decide to get an apartment w/ furniture, work 9-5, etc., I’ll be able to work for a company that assists people in going/working/volunteering abroad. 

Time for research…

Topic: Waking Life

Well…a tangible effect has been had due to xanga.  Courtney, my xanga friend, recommended I watch this movie Waking Life, which I did, so I thank my internet “pen pal” for that (is there a better expression for internet / blogging friends?).

Anyways…this is quite a heavy movie, but I think I managed to take a few of my own things from it.  The movie is done in a very unique animation, which at times appears as if it’s video w/ special effects added to it to make it look animated.  And everything is always moving and somewhat blurry, which is both distracting and interesting at the same time.

The main character is a college aged guy, who spends the majority of the movie listening to all sorts of characters ponder life.  The specific topics vary greatly, there’s a college professor discussing existentialism and whether it necessarily leads to sadness or if it can lead to perpetual bliss, two 30-something women discussing how when they were younger they thought life plateued at 30 but in reality you continue to ponder about life and change as you did in your 20s (I liked that one), a loner who feels that the world is pure alienation and so he sets himself on fire, a woman who abrubtly stops the character in the street and says, “i don’t want to be an ant, just wandering by other ants, where communication has become the sole purpose of doing business,” it goes on and on.

Overall…i dug the movie.  I dug that it stimulated me, and the fact that if tv and movies were always this stimulating, I might feel a lot more stimulated in life.  I dug that there were so many characters, all so different, all contemplating life, all right in their own ways, but completely unaware of how others were contemplating life as well and in a different way.  That made me feel less alone in this world, reminding me that even if it takes a movie, to know that it’s human to wonder about life.

I am going through such an interesting stretch of life right now, that I really wish to somehow describe it.  There’s another scene in the movie about words, how one person thinks about love, says the word, and after it goes through the various scientific processes before it reaches the mind of another person, there is ultimately no way of knowing if the idea translated correctly.  This was something my friend actually described to me the other day about the writing process. 

But…I’d like to try to think about and describe my life right now, because while it feels almost terminal, while it feels like a crisis, while it feels like I can’t control anything in life, ultimately…THIS IS LIFE.  I sort of feel like the next chapter is ready to suddenly be brought upon me, the job, the wife, the kids…all I see are deadlines, and I know that’s all wrong, so you don’t have to tell me.

Considering how much life there is to experience, it feels shocking that I could sleep till noon, that I could be on the computer job hunting till 5, that i could drive to the library in my sweatpants, that i could watch a couple of movies, and that’s my day.  But…that’s what I experienced.  I also watched Rat Race, a decent slapstick comedy with a solid cast.  I cooked a matza bry. 

I e-mailed alum from my college who worked at Random House and w/in minutes they e-mailed me back, which was interesting.  I called one and assumed he was in his 40′s, but he was 24, and the marketing director of Knopf, a distributor of “fine literature.”  The guy was incredibly friendly and informative, and made me realize how far from that real-world I’ve grown.  I’m like the guy in the movie, passively taking in life.

The harsh reality I’ve been dealing with this past week is really about my past.  I wish I could recall more of my life in depth.  I’ve lived as much as people my age, and in many ways I have really lived, but I find life shows itself in one’s personality and ability to express themselves.  For example…I may have gone to the beach and just sat with the sun hitting me, but then a friend will enthusiastically share a story of a drunkin’ party he went to, and I’ll feel a sense of emptiness.

And I’m trying to change that by sharing more of my experiences.  Conversations, thoughts, and little things.  The past is only as alive as you make it, and I’m realizing how little I know even of myself because I’ve let so much of it pass away.

Another thing I took from the movie “Waking Life,” is how fragile life is.  While nearly all humans are born with the same mental capacities, we are so greatly influenced by our environment.  One scene shows a man in jail fuming about life, the same way a free man was.  Imagine being confined to jail, and knowing that you and your mind were to be held prisoner there.  In some ways we’re all prisoners of our environments, although most people wouldn’t see it that way.  I feel prisoner to my mind sometimes, and worry a bit because life is fragile.  And…I want to make sure I make decisions now that might create a better future for myself. 

I think back to the incredible potential I had as a high school senior, to go to virtually any college and study virtually anything.  And I hope that in several years time I look back to now and realize I’ve turned some kind of corner and truly never looked back.

Topic: an old friend, and job hunting

Yeah…so last night I caught up w/ a couple of old friends, one of whom I haven’t really spoken to since 8th grade, but we caught up in the library.  My theory of no regrets isn’t that I couldn’t have done things better in the past, but realizing that opportunities arise out of whatever happened in your past.

I’ve decided I don’t even want to write about my job searching here, because to be quite honest, I’m doing a piss-job at it.  Consisting of basically looking at the same sites over and over, and not really seeing anything worth contacting, although there is an opening for a criminal investigator in the Bronx, which I should actually be qualified for except for not being fluent in Spanish.  So…let me run through my options:

1) after camp, buy a ticket to israel or maybe australia, and manage another year abroad, not really having too much of a plan, and also accepting the fact that i’m simply an irresponsible 24 year old and still relying on mom and dad to pay for that monthly expense of my being healthy

2) after camp, manage to get some kind of job in nyc, and then manage to get some kind of apartment in nyc, although i hardly think i’m able to manage either of those two by myself.  once again, just piss poor effort

In other news…last night my mom cooked one of the most delicious and simple meals I’ve had recently.  Saute garlic, chopped up mushrooms, zucchini, and string beans.  Smells delicious and has quite a nice color to it.  Place to the side and cook salmon till center is no longer bright red, covering with pepper, lemon, and all your sauteed veggies.  On the side, boiling up some potatoes, mashed up nice, adding milk and butter.  Oh…and for a bit of perfection, my South African rooibus tea had arrived, as well as condensed milk rusks, which are a bit like stone cookies, but perfect for dunking.  Life could be worse… 

Topic: all grown up and nowhere to go

So…the accent has faded.  The attempt to be a “new person,” has faded.  I feel like I was just Tom Hanks in the movie Big for a few days, literally creating trying on new voices in my head.  And when push came to shove, all of those voices were more mature, and they were saying things like, “Mate, it’s time to suck it up and start a life,” and, “Look at what a pig-sty your room is, clean that shit up.”  I woke up this morning afraid to walk downstairs.  Would I just be how I was the last few months, unable to pay attention to anything, trying to view life through my own special lens that I could never really express to anyone? 

But…somehow, this morning I felt both myself, and both a changed person as a result of all these conversations I’ve been having with these strange older and foreign characters.  I think my problem, to put it bluntly, is I’ve been very existential.  I guess my understanding of existentialism is that nothing in this world is for real, except as I see it.  And, so I came to create my own reality, much of which overlapped the realities of others.  For example, many of my criticisms of education I found to be validated by many leading educational types, however, I have come to see how in many other ways my thinking about “what it means to exist,” and other questions have led me down a lonely path, which have in fact isolated me from that real world which i have sometimes drifted from.

So…that lack of “connection” I was experiencing, I think this is what it was.  Literally, I disconnected myself from how the rest of the world thinks.  And, I don’t mean what they think about, or the various opinions people think about, but I mean the actual way in which people think. 

For example, in the past I might see two people having a political conversation.  And I might think to myself, “This conversation is irrelevant since neither of these people know all the factors involved, and therefor aren’t experts enough to be discussing this.  Also, they will never be in a situation to influence the topic in which they’re discussing, and so ultimately, this is conversation has 0 value.”  Yes…this is what I’d be thinking, and so I’d actually be disconnecting myself from the conversation and the opportunity to actually come to understand and follow what it is these people were discussing. 

And…ultimately, while my views aren’t so out there, life is not all about effecting things.  I think that’s what thenarrator posted to me once, “Don’t worry about affecting other so much.”  And now that actually has a lot more weight for me now, not just thinking about how my work my affect others, but thinking about how my every second has purpose.  And clearly, not every moment of my life does have purpose, and while I have thought such grand ideas about helping others, it is mostly while sitting behind a computer typing, and so it’s been over a year since I’ve really done any kind of “service” to humanity.  But…service comes in many forms, and service itself is not the end-all and be-all of humanity.

I haven’t necessarily lost my idealism.  I still thinks it’s great for people to go to Africa and help starving children, or to work in rural or urban America teaching those who are economically disadvantaged.  But…I’ve come to realize that while society has come to define certain problems as the biggest problems, and certain forms of work as the most heroic, all problems are severe and all work can be viewed as heroic.  And that’s not an existential statement.  While AIDS may be a bigger problem than general melancholy, perhaps in size, severity, and (well…you tell me why AIDS is a bigger problem than melancholy…), an individual dying of AIDS is perhaps in as tragic a situation as an individual passing through life in a depressed state.  In addition, spending one’s time helping to feed African’s can and perhaps should be viewed as as noble (one of those rare occassions there it’s ok to use the same word twice, “as as” just though i’d note)…as putting a smile on a child’s face in a school, summer camp, or just spending time with your family.

So, to bring this back to the idea of affecting (another grammar thing, “a”ffect is for verbs, “e”ffect is for nouns, just learned that difference), there’s really nothing to dwell on.  Period. 

And all this has literally lifted a shield off my mind.  I can focus and pay attention more, without my mind wandering and thinking nonsensical things that serve only to distract me from what is actually going on. 

The flip side of all this, is that I feel I have to somehow make up for lost time, for so many things heard, seen, and read, and rather than processed in a way that both makes sense for me and others, processed in my own cryptic way that now makes even little sense to me.  In addition, I have lost a bit of my wanderlust.  Travelling no longer appeals to me as it once did, and this might only be because I’m thinking like an adult and realize that I want to start a profession, build stable relationships, and most importantly, receive health insurance and 100% financial independence.  These are things I never fully internalized as important, because in my world, “9 to 5 just doesn’t fit into my worldview, and experiences alone are all that matter.”  As it turns out, that philosophy has led to me coming back home because I was cutting myself off from reality into that world of, “this is how the world looks to me.” 

It’s like I was always considering option D, when only A, B, and C were available.  And it’s not to say that there aren’t still ways of living and making a living that will suit my interests, but, I need to think in more of an adult way.  Or, as Johnny Depp put it in Finding Neverland (it was in the bonus features), the aim is to become adults, without growing up.  Taking on responsibility, but keeping some of the kid in us.

People talk a lot about living a life w/ no regrets, so when they’re old and dying they’ll be in peace.  Odds are, the types of regrets you’re likely to have are having unresolved arguments, or maybe being a better parent.  I’m not sure.  Since college, the idea of living an unordinary life was what drove me.  I didn’t want to grow up to feel ordinary.  Perhaps that was an unwritten goal of mine.  The idea of getting the most out of everyday of life…although how does one do that really?

Anyways…my dilemma now is thinking about the future.  I feel a bit more normal now, and am eager to find a way to make a living.  I feel as though my past has not been a complete nothing, which is a strange thing for me to think, but doing things and having the personality to fully recall and make those things a part of you are two COMPLETELY different things.  For example, the difference between graduating college and feeling like a college graduate. 

I think a large part of my problem, has been minimizing my experiences.  Letting all the seemingly unimportant things in life slide through me.  The problem is that while my personality was frustrating me, I couldn’t and didn’t know what to do about it. 

And…perhaps that’s one of the lessons I hope to take away from all this, and it’s a lesson I’ve thought before.  You can’t always blame people for who they are.  Troublemakers.  Bad students.  Wanderers.  For most, there’s some reason behind it, although they may not even know.  For me…I’d love the opportunity to be 19 again, and to have the clarity of thought I’m feeling right now.  I might have been a brighter person than I am now, but ultimately, we play w/ the hand we’re dealt. 

So…now I can truly focus on the one major task in my life of figuring out my year.  It’s like choosing a college all over again, minus all the direction and support you have as a high school senior.

Topic: Holy f’in s#$@, if you ever read a post, read this one:

Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls, something has happened.  Something has happened to the way I think, and before you get all weirded out by this post, I want you to know that some real differences have begun to happen in my life the past 3 days.

Suddenly…I remember things whereas before I didn’t.  You know when you read a page in a book, and completely forget what you were reading, or don’t forget, but realize you weren’t paying attention.  Well…I think that’s been the case for me for most of my life.  But…suddenly, that’s not happening.  I’ve never told stories about things I’ve read, and suddenly, I’m telling my mom about these stories I’ve been reading in America’s Best Travel Writing 2004, one story called “14 ways to describe a void,” or something to that extent, about various people’s perspectives of like in the Sahara desert ranging from Niger up to Algeria.  And then I just read a story about state fair’s in Philadelphia, Mississippi.

OK…let me try to explain a bit more.  I’ve always been completely daunted by professors.  How can anyone get up and speak at length about something?  And I remember once I was at a Phish concert in high school, and was overlistening someone reciting set-lists from concerts that happened years ago.  And yet…I would go home that night, and couldn’t really tell you more than one song they played. 

Part of my beef w/ college is that I learned nothing.  And while there is room for improvement, I am left to wonder what role I played in my own college failure.  How is it that I could attend lectures, and absorb nothing?  And then this winter, where I went on a streak of having political posts…I showed that I was able to use my mind analytically, but not once did I tell my roommate was I was blogging.  All I could say was…”check out the intensity of these debates,” but my mind was never really able to hold onto all that was going on and present it in a cogent way.

And then there’s my fear of public speaking.  When they would go around and take attendence, and come to me, “Dan Lilienthal,” and they’d say my name wrong, for no reason at all my heart would be pounding.  I’d actually spend the minute or two leading up to me practicing my name, afraid that I wouldn’t be able to say it when the time came.  And that’s not just because it’s a tricky name, it’s because when I’m put on the spot, my brain kind of freezes. 

And for the last 3+ months, I’ve been in a depression, and just the other day I put a finger exactly on the problem.  “I can’t have conversations.”  I couldn’t talk about anything, except sort of brooding about life, and I’ve become comfortable w/ that, but even that I was finding myself lacking the words.

But…it all started to change the other day when I started doing the accent thing.  Because I was finding a way to connect my speech with my thinking.  And I want to explore this more further, but I’m having trouble going back to how I was before, and to be honest, I don’t want to.

In the last 12 hours, I have gotten myself to bike about 20miles and run a few miles.  I’ve folded my laundry the neatest it’s ever been folded in my life.  I’ve come to the full realization that I need to find a job and I need to get myself health insurance.  I’ve come to the realization that while I am interested in travelling, I can’t even take myself seriously about it right now.  Most people plan travelling a bit more than me…i literally just check out flights and think, “yeah…maybe i’ll just somehow fly to Israel in like September.”  Now…somehow, I’ve managed to live and do a half-decent job up until now.  I’ve had friends, got into a difficult school, I did graduate, I did do all this Outward Bound stuff and such.  But all the while…I’ve been gaining little.  I’ve been more like a kid when you give them a baby to handle, but they don’t want to handle it, they’re kind of scared, uncertain.  I think that’s how i’d describe myself most of my life.

But…this isn’t just a post about my thoughts.  I can literally feel a different part of my brain being used, being strained.  You know when you’re really at thought w/ something, and it kind of hurts a bit in your head, just above your eyebrows, the front part of your brain.  That’s where I’m feeling it.  Sometimes I take note of what part of my brain I feel thoughts coming from…for example, I just relaxed from this “new mode of thought” I’ve been in, and I immediately noticed my thinking coming more from the back of my head, and I immediately noticed my intensity relaxing, and my mind floating more into creative/dreamy mode.  It’s the part of my brain I use when I write.

For the past few months, I’ve sort of been in this dream mode, the back/creative part of my brain going to work.  I could be in a room of people, and say nothing, almost feeling myself drift out of the picture, to the point that my thoughts would be, “Here I am, in a room of people,” instead of, “OK…so we’re going to begin on Appalachain Trail map 4, and make our way down to map 3, and then we’re going to have a pick-up on the 4th day at Paw Paw Benz alongside the C&O Canal.”  All those detail type things have eluded me, COMPLETELY. 

So…I started to realize that when I spoke w/ my “foreign” accent, I was actually using a different part of my brain.  I wasn’t creating a character, I actually got up in my room and practiced giving a speech, and it came out so elegant, as if I was writing.  And just tonight, the accent disappeared and gave way to my normal voice, but I realized that I was tapping into the front part of my brain.  If you burrow (might be the wrong word) your eyebrows, that’s the part of the brain that I’m referring to.

Shit…they talk about only using 10% of your brain, I feel like I’ve been using only .00001% of it.  I don’t know how many conversations I’ve been a part of that I haven’t really been a part of, I guess I may have developed a knack for the smile and nod. 

Yeah…and so I started having this conversation w/ my mom, and god bless her heart for all the anxiety I must be putting her through.  But…the idea came up to work for a unviersity in any way, so that I might be able to take grad classes for free.  And since now I’m thinking a bit more practically and focussed, instead of having this vague feeling of what life should be like that come from my creative/back side of the brain, I began thinking how wonderful it would be to work on a college campus.  I could be the person who works w/ RA’s, I could work in student services for mental health issues, I could be an advisor.  All I know is I don’t want to, nor do I really have the means to disappear this coming year.  And, more importantly, I know that it’s going to take me a bit of time to see if this change is real and significant.

But I really feel like I’m remembering events, or at least paying attention to them more, and not drifting off into my imagination.  I don’t think I can really tell you what the movie Sideways is about, I posted about it when I saw it, but I spent most of the movie thinking, “hey, he’s a writer, i want to be a write,” and “he likes wine, I like wine.” 

Just yesturday, I caught Democracy Now! on television here on Long Island!!!  I was quite excited, being that I watched it daily over the winter (don’t remember what I watched, only the general idea that it’s corporate-free news and it basically presents the news at you would expect it).  Anyways…they showed an extended excerpt of a speech by Bill Moyers given at the conclusion of a media reform conference held in St. Louis.  And it’s remarkable that I’m remembering that…It’s kind of strange that the whole left bar of my xanga is full of these political things, and now I don’t even go to those sites anymore.  I feel like I’m attracted to interesting/exotic/intellectual things, and in some way I try to collect them, but maybe I’ve never fully grasped them, or, I only grasp them in a temporary way..again, the brain thing.

Well…I’m actually really digging this new-found voice inside my head.  It’s like having a new friend.  I went running, and instead of just being, “oh…I’m tired,” I was saying, “hey, you, come on, pick it up already.”  It was this voice of maturity, saying, “hey, get your at together.”  It was my reason coming to take over for my imagination.

Literally…the inner voice within me has changed, and it’s something real, and strange, and I can sense my creative side thinking, “wait…this is kind of scary actually,” but to be honest, my logic side is saying, “A lot of good you’ve done us so far!”  It’s kind of interesting to think of it as a battle between the two, since they’re both important, but at this junction in my life, I’m desperately needing this adult thinking side of my brain to kick in.

Relaxed dan: “I’m looking around my room, there’s a towel lying around, hmmm…not really sure what to say, laddy dah, laddy day

New dan: “See, what the F was that.  I can look at that same towel, but stay on task.  It’s just a friggin’ towel. Just because you can see it, doesn’t mean it needs to consume your mind.  And relaxed Dan is completely directionless.  I’m more like a drill seargeant, I know what needs to get done…although I’ll admit, things are kind of in a jam thanks to you know who.”

Relaxed dan: “Just sitting in the room.  No thoughts really…just letting the evening slide by.”

New dan: I need to make a goal for tomorrow.  It’s Sunday, so it’ll be a chunky NYT arriving.  I’m going to try to read a good amount of it, and then come back here and digest it.  See how much I can recall from memory.  No more copying links to show I’ve found something interesting, I need to retain it.  My creative side has asked a million good questions, and at least half of them might have been answered if I was around, or at least, I may have remembered the questions, instead of filling up a forrest of notebooks.

Alright…let’s call it a night, and hope that this phenomena continues on tomorrow.

OK…so I quickly did a further investigation on my theory, and did a google search on “parts of the brain.”  So, there are 2 main parts of the brain, the cerebral cortex and the brainstem, each containing more parts within.  Within the cerebral cortex, we find four lobes.  The front lobe is called the frontal lobe.  The frontal lobe is the part of the brain that I was describing earlier, and it’s the part of the brain that is used in speaking, planning, and making judgements.  Behind the frontal lobe we have the parietal lobe, and the parietal lobe is the part of the brain involved in feeling.

So…this totally makes sense.  The two parts of the brain that I was describing before, the front and the back, are actually the frontal and the parietal.  These 2 dan’s are literally two different lobes within my cerebral cortex!!!!  There’s still the two other lobes to deal with, the occipital (site) and temporal (sound), but those aren’t really my concerns right now. 

And now i’m reading that ADD might actually be related to larger than normal parietal lobes.  oh…this is getting too much.

 

Arsenal 5 – 4 Man U in FA Cup final penalty shoot-out

 

WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS…MY FRIEND!!!!!

Topic: FA Cup Final

So, there’s not a single newspaper that has even mentioned that today is the FA Cup Final, between 2 of the most dominanat football (soccer) clubs in England, Manchester United and my club, Arsenal.  I’m stuck watching 2 min. written updates on BBC.  It’s 0-0 in added time, and Man U. seems to be dominating this one.   I’m not sure how long added time might be, or if there would be a shoot-out.  Just need to keep refreshing the page…argh!!! 

In other news, the Times reported that Zimbabwe’s economy has gone into nearly complete collapse.  $1 can buy 20,000Zim dollars, whereas only 3 years ago it was about $1 to 120Zim.  People are likely to begin starving there soon, this problem isn’t new, but it’s clearly accelerating.  Not much was mentioned in the article about the role of the gov’t in causing this economic collapse.  Zimbabwe was once a strong tobacco exporter, but since the gov’t essentially stole the land from mostly white landowners, and has given it to the natives, production has dwindled significantly.  Meanwhile, the president Mugabe lives like a king, while his people starve.  Apparently one business person needed new computer software to handle all the zero’s that come up from the hyper-inflated currency, I thought that was worth a laugh.

Ahhh…but it’s just one of many uplifting news articles, and at the same time, I can appreciate that the world is not reflected in what you read in the news.  Just think, if you were a foreigner reading about the US, all your impressions would be of our gov’t and our entertainment.  But…life in America is a million different things, so it is, I think, that while problems and images of doom and gloom line our headlines, I would imagine there is still some amount of vibrant life even in a place like Zimbabwe.

Mets looked sloppy yesturday, in the first baseball game I’ve watched, probably since college. 

 

Sites i’ve been glossing over, about interesting travel, jobs, lifestyles

http://www.backdoorjobs.com/

http://www.escapeartist.com/