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.

A reminder to future me

Hey, quick post today

Dear future me: I know how easy it is to look back on everything and laugh about how stupid you used to be and how you worried over the dumbest things and how you thought the tiniest things were a huge deal, and I can totally see why you would think that. However, I want you to remember that these feelings are real. No matter how juvenile and silly some of the stuff I'm saying is, at one point, it was meaningful to me, and it mattered. Thank you for respecting that.

Future me

So, I know this is a tough week for a lot of people-miss you H!, and I know some of you are beyond freaked out and stressed, and I'm really sorry about that. I'm happy for now though, because I finally figured out a way of getting the work that needs to be done, actually done. I'm sure you've heard me talk about future me or past me, and it's basically my method of self-motivation. Previously, I would do the bare minimum of work, based on what I felt like doing at the moment, and put off as much as possible. Lately though, I've been pushing myself to do more work when I have time, not so that I can have less work later, but so future me won't have as much work later. I know these are the same thing, but in my mind, this distinction somehow promotes work. It's like instead of working now so I don't have to work later, which isn't very motivating and usually ends up pushing work to the last minute, I'm doing future me a favor by doing my work, and since I don't have an insane amount of work do do in the first place, putting an extra hour or so of work today actually pays off in the long run. Again, I know this is nothing groundbreaking, but I'm just pretty pleased that I finally figured out a way to manage my workload in a productive way, and I hope this will lead to improvement in my grades and a decrease in my stress level. Also, I am beyond pumped for a pottery field trip on my birthday. Have a nice day!

this song always sends shivers down my spine

Update: John Green is my hero

THANK YOU JOHN GREEN

Yaaaaay feelings!

H-I find you end up posting on days where I was planning on writing, the only difference being I often get lazy or distracted or accidentally go to sleep. I know it’s late, and that you HATE this kind of stuff, but I wanted to let you know that I really admire how brave you are with that post last week, and I really appreciate your openness and honesty. I also wanted to let you know that I love you, you are intelligent, hard working, and beautiful. Also awesome. I figured I’d just get this out of the way on here to spare the awkwardness of doing it in person. Alright, now that you’re done rolling your eyes, on to business!

Sometimes
Sometimes I am a pretty good writer, or somewhat good at science. Sometimes i’m a good friend, responsible, beautiful, or intelligent, and sometimes I’m not much of anything.

(My biggest fear from the future, I’ve realized, is the fear that I’m not good enough at anything to succeed. I fear that my “approximate knowledge of several things” isn’t even close to good enough. I know it’s not true, but it doesn’t make it less scary.)

Sometimes I wish I could fly away and just float around in the clouds for a while, and never have to worry about anything ever again

Sometimes I long for your kisses, like peppermint chapstick, that leave my lips tingling

Sometimes I wish I was still that awkward girl who had never been kissed. Sometimes I wish I could take my first kiss back and save it for someone who won’t hurt me.

Sometimes I think it’d be great if I knew several languages fluently

Sometimes I wish I could help everyone

Sometimes I wish I wasn’t so scared of what people thought of me

Sometimes I hate marking my days in poisonous pill packs decorated with birth deformed babies, and red x’s over pregnant women for the sake of achieving a higher level of beauty

Sometimes I’m really sad

Sometimes I’m angry

But mostly I’m just happy to be here.

(Please forgive half-assed repetitive poetry, I have spanish to study for)

This Lady