Desire and The National

1.
I've mentioned this to you already, Z, but I kinda just want to write for a while about life and stuff. See, in English class we've been talking about The Great Gatsby in which the super rich live their lives. The character Gatsby isn't born into riches, and he doesn't really fit into the upper class society despite his best efforts. What he does have, and what other characters in this story lack is desire. He has immense desire for Daisy. Not desire in a petty way, but true desire, the longing for something just out of your reach, the type of desire our english teacher describes as "the thing that makes you get up in the morning, the thing you live for". We talked about things you can desire, in Gatsby's case, a girl, but you could also desire a certain career, a college, a lifestyle, and with these things, you are willing to work really hard and sometimes use any means to acuire this.

Every time we talk about this in class, it hits me how I don't really have desire in this sense. There's not one thing I'm really after, not even an idea of something. I don't feel like my life lacks purpose, but I don't feel like it has any goal either. This is something I've always felt, like some people just know what they love doing, they want to do it for the rest of their lives, and they're either really gifted at it or they just work really hard to be good at it. These people have a passion, and I don't feel like I do. I mean, there's stuff I enjoy doing, I find happiness in many things, but I feel directionless sometimes. I get up in the morning, but it's not for one thing. I go to school, and I work well enough, but I don't have any real goals for schools I want to get into by working hard. I'm going to go to college, but I don't really have any one thing I want to get from it in terms of education or degree.

I guess one thing you could take from this is that because of this, I may as well not get out of bed, or try hard in school, or even plan about going to college. But I do anyway. Because I love the people in my life, and look forward to seeing them every day. I look forward to the people I'm going to meet in the future, I look forward to having fun, and falling in love. I guess in the end, I just want to be happy, and I want to be surrounded, like I am now, by people I love. I don't know if that counts as a desire, or a passion, but to me it makes sense. I guess that's what keeps me getting up in the mornings, and keeps me moving forward. I hope that's ok, and I hope the rest will come to me eventually. I guess to a certain extent, no one really knows what they're doing, and I hope there are lots of other people out there who feel like I do. I also hope that I will do ok in the future just going along like I am.

2.
On another note, I'd just like to take a moment to appreciate some of the more insane lyrics of The National. Here's a list of some of the more crazy ones.
1. I'm a birthday candle in a circle of black girls, God is on my side
2. I defend my family with my orange umbrella
3. I was afraid I'd eat your brains, cuz I'm evil
4. I was carried to Ohio in a swarm of bees
5.Why did you listen to that man? that man's a balloon
6.It's a common fetish for a doting man to ballerina on the coffee table cock in hand
7. Burn yourself alive and join the monster squad

I think I'll do another list of these soon of all the awesome lyrics they have, not all of their songs are this crazy, lots of them are really beautiful and meaningful.