Monthly Archives: October 2002

Tell Me I'm Right, Baby

There’s some­thing about a girl that apol­o­gizes. It’s like it makes her more human. I’ve always been one who likes girls who have their off days, instead of look­ing like a mil­lion bucks all the time. I guess it lets me know that they aren’t just super­fi­cial all the time, that they know that looks aren’t always impor­tant.

But when a girl apol­o­gizes, man. It turns me on. They know that they’re flawed in a way, and they have the “con­scious­ness” to under­stand it.

It shows that they’ve reached the third lev­el of under­stand­ing, as out­lined below, the first lev­el being com­plete igno­rance, and the fourth lev­el being com­plete enlight­en­ment:

  1. I don’t know that I don’t know
  2. I don’t know that I know
  3. I know that I don’t know
  4. I know that I know

Not only does apol­o­giz­ing show that one is at a cer­tain lev­el of self-aware­ness, it shows that one is mature enough to admit this to one­self. And, as we know, matu­ri­ty is fuck­ing hot.

It’s the admit­ting to one­self that I find is much hard­er for peo­ple. So many peo­ple that I run into have such closed minds that they refuse to believe any­thing that goes against what they’ve believed for most of their lives. Sometimes, when one admits one was wrong, it inval­i­dates a huge chunk of ones life and world­view. It’s a hard thing to do, and it takes strength, open-mind­ed­ness, and intel­li­gence.

Of course, apol­o­giz­ing is noth­ing with­out change, with­out learn­ing. Someone who learns great­ly from their mis­takes, and who isn’t afraid of mak­ing them for the sake of learn­ing, is just amaz­ing.

It all adds up; almost every­thing that I look for in a girl is encap­su­lat­ed in one sim­ple act of apol­o­giz­ing. It cer­tain­ly makes things much sim­pler.

Yet more com­pli­cat­ed at the same time.

Mid-Terms And Conditioner

I think I’m com­plete­ly fucked for my mid-terms. It usu­al­ly takes some fail­ing at the begin­ning of the term to tell my brain that I need to get my ass in gear. So usu­al­ly I’ll fail the mid-term, then do fine on the final. It’s like I need to know that I’m fail­ing to pres­sure myself to do bet­ter. I’ve cer­tain­ly got the first part down well; I got a 18.5% algo­rithms assign­ment hand­ed back to me yes­ter­day, and 45% project pro­pos­al. I hope to do bet­ter. It is NOT a good time to get addict­ed to Warcraft 3.

I bought some Infusium 23 for my ter­ri­bly dam­aged hair that Natalie rec­om­mend­ed to me, and it’s amaz­ing. It real­ly is as good as the con­di­tion­er that comes with hair dye kits.

STFU

I found out about a book called Soul Mountain by a man named Gao Xingjian. I read the sum­ma­ry, and found out that it had won a Nobel prize for lit­er­a­ture in 2000. I was very inter­est­ed. Apparently it’s an œuvre in which he explains many facets of his life, which I imag­ine has much to do with per­se­cu­tion in China. I would very much like to read it, but I still have Moby Dick to fin­ish, and the Moonstone to start. I’d also like to get through The Glass Bead Game, which is also a Nobel lau­re­ate, but a book I once found too dense in vocab­u­lary to com­pre­hend. Many of the reviews I’ve found about the Glass Bead Game say that it’s a book which has changed peo­ples lives, and from what I can tell, it’s a book which not many can sort through (i.e. pseu­do-intel­lec­tu­als can’t use it as a phan­tom sym­bol of their supe­ri­or knowl­edge).

Speaking of intel­lec­tu­al poseurs, I was in con­tact with one just the oth­er day, though on friend­ly terms. She did­n’t say any­thing that made me think of intel­lec­tu­al super­fi­cial­i­ty, but as I had­n’t spo­ken to her in a while, and her being one of the few that I know, I was remind­ed of this strange com­plex. I feel com­pelled to write about it.

I’m not quite sure what it is about this aspect of a per­son that makes me go mad with frus­tra­tion. Perhaps it’s the fact that they don’t tru­ly under­stand things which I may find beau­ti­ful. All I can think is, “You’re miss­ing the mes­sage!”, or “Who did you get that opin­ion from?”.

Of course, I under­stand that peo­ple may see beau­ty in dif­fer­ent ways, and inter­pret an artists mes­sage quite dif­fer­ent­ly than oth­er peo­ple. I sup­pose that it’s not in their opin­ion that I see shal­low­ness, it’s how they come to that opin­ion.

Take American Beauty, for exam­ple. The pseu­do-intel­lec­tu­als that I know enjoy that movie because they find the sym­bol of the ros­es to be so deep. The think that the image of the plas­tic bag is so mean­ing­ful. They don’t real­ize that all of the sym­bols, all of the imagery is just hand­ed to them. All they see is a char­ac­ter who thinks intel­lec­tu­al­ly in the film and they think, “Wow. This movie is so deep”.

I guess it’s bet­ter than an igno­rant per­son say­ing, “I did­n’t like Magnolia, it was try­ing to be all weird and stuff”. At least the poseurs are try­ing to be smart. Of course, I even know com­plete idiots who say that they enjoyed American Beauty because it “made them think”.

I sim­ply wish that a pseu­do-intel­lec­tu­al would try to actu­al­ly com­pre­hend some­thing, instead of using pop­u­lar opin­ion, or believ­ing that some­thing is mean­ing­ful sim­ply because there is a mean­ing­ful ele­ment. Or that they would have no opin­ion on a piece of art they don’t under­stand, instead of dis­lik­ing it for the fact.

Of course, I would­n’t appre­ci­ate the tru­ly intel­lec­tu­al peo­ple I know with­out them.

I’m just not sure if it’s worth it any­more.

Control

I nev­er did express any res­o­lu­tion on my jeal­ousy sit­u­a­tion. After think­ing about the sit­u­a­tion for a while, I real­ize that I can still be a jeal­ous per­son. It’s almost as if I now know that I’m human. “Still, it’s nice to know I’m capa­ble of tears!”, Lermontov’s char­ac­ter, Pechorin, tells us.

I’m not quite sure if this is a good thing or not. After all, I spent a good deal of my ear­ly con­scious­ness try­ing to become a com­plete­ly cere­bral per­son. I haven’t been entire­ly suc­cess­ful, after all, I’m human, but I do believe that I have achieved a degree of log­ic that I can be con­tent with. It makes me won­der how Lermontov, as we can see through his char­ac­ter, can be so “evil” a per­son. As he admits, much of his char­ac­ter’s traits are based on his own.

I sup­pose I real­ize now that jeal­ousy can be a good thing as well; it keeps my mind in bal­ance, and allows me to keep in touch with oth­er peo­ples’ emo­tions.

I sim­ply wish that my mind and judg­ment would­n’t be so cloud­ed as it had been on that day. It’s a lit­tle scary, not know­ing in what ter­ri­ble way I can act out in.

I once met some­one who was in total con­trol of his emo­tions. In this way, he could feel when he want­ed. This allowed him to lose him­self in a great­ly touch­ing movie, but also gave him a con­trol of any neg­a­tive emo­tions he may expe­ri­ence. I looked up to this per­son great­ly, some­thing that I wish I could say was more com­mon in the peo­ple that I know. It seemed like such an amaz­ing abil­i­ty, although many peo­ple whom I express this to dis­agree.

And I still haven’t decid­ed whether I dis­agree as well.