Everything in its Right Place

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Warming Up

My moods jump around a lot these days. I wish I could say that I wake up every morning calm and centered, that I feel in complete possession of myself and am confident in my ability to take anything the world throws at me because, in my heart, in my soul, I know who I am and I’m proud of who I am and that energy guides me in everything I do. But that would be bullshit. When I wake up in the morning, I usually have no idea what kind of day it’s going to be, what kind of person I am, whether I should feel satisfied or miserable or sick or carefree, etc. Maybe this is because in the course of any given day (hell, any given hour), I feel like my disposition runs the gamut, from preening cockiness to shivering fear, as well as lots of little subsets in between (these include, but are not limited to: optimistic trepidation, jaded ambition, desperate happiness, and lack of abject confidence in my abilities that presents itself as self-deprecating modesty and, in turn, makes me feel rather charming).

Lots of things have happened in the last week and a half, good things too, but my feelings often seem to operate on their own crazed frequency, separate from circumstance. Maybe it’s because my life is so loose and free-wheeling right now, with ups and downs arriving in such a rapid, random succession: after weeks of abject rejection and rising depression, on the exact same day I got a tutoring job and a play I wrote was accepted by an off-off-Broadway theater (I don’t actually know what the correct terminology is here- accepted seems too informal, but I can’t say the play was commissioned since I won’t be getting any money). A few days ago, after a week of not really looking for another job and feeling ceaselessly guilty about it, I got an email telling me that I’ve been called in for an interview at a place I applied to about two weeks ago and had completely forgotten about. But that interview isn't for a few more days, and I don't want to worry about or jinx it, so...

Let’s talk more about my play. I got an email from the Artistic Director of this place, and just as soon as my exhiliration began to wane (I would say a couple hours after the news), the stark reality that I have to cobble together a full-scale production of a rather challenging play in about three weeks hit me like a buffalo stampede, a bloodied bash in the head that I’m still reeling from. Since then I’ve made a lot of choices about the play and this production, all of them under a self-imposed hard deadline. And, of course, the time that I haven’t spent making these decisions, I’ve spent up late at night in a cold sweat overanalyzing and regretting them.

What this means, what any of my life here in NYC means, is another thing that’s constantly fluctuating: maybe this production is a break. I hope it is. But it just as easily (actually, far more easily) could be a little thing that comes and goes, a blip on the screen of my life. What if I don’t end up being a playwright? What if I end up as a fiction writer, or my stand up comedy career takes off, or in another year I’m in China teaching English, or I go back to graduate school and decide to be a professor, or something else happens that I can't even begin to envision right now? My life could go in a million different directions, and even though I’m technically in control, I really have no clue what’s going to happen. There are a hundred different futures in which this production doesn’t matter, in which nothing I do during these wandering days in Gotham City matters in any real capacity. In that case, all I’m doing here, really, is just building up valuable life experience, that strange commodity that’s impossible to define, yet that people covet nearly as much as money and power.

I certainly have had already some interesting life experiences in relation to this show. For instance, two nights ago when I went to a public showing of the theater. The twist is, I wasn’t able to attend the showing for the new play festival that I’m in, so instead I attended the showing for the same theater’s Gay and Lesbian Theaterfest in November. It wasn’t an especially strange experience, all things considered, but the Artistic Director (who had a glass of wine in one hand and a tiny dog in the other) was definitely in his element with that crowd.

In any case, whenever I start to feel overwhelmed or stressed, I have a fairly successful tactic: placing things into context. The slow understanding that even though it feels like a huge part of my life is over, the real stuff has actually just begun, and I have no clue whatsoever where I’m going to end up, so in all likelihood everything that I’m stressing about is just complete bullshit and in ten years I’ll be somewhere I never expected. When this happens, I imagine I’ll think back fondly on my lost years in the city, remembering all the good times and wiping away all the loneliness and fear and existential dread that managed to coexist, happily, with all the fun stuff.

Still, I want the show to be good. That’s just a matter of pride. I feel that pressure, because no matter (and no matter the lack of money), this is the first professional-type thing that I’m doing as a writer. The insane, fast, throw-it-all-together mentality makes it seem like something superfluous, but it’s not. It’s me trying to do some version of what I want to do for a living, and I need to treat it super seriously (I guess you could say that the Sandman workshop/reading in Chicago was my actual first professional engagement, but the process-orientated causality of the whole thing, as well as the fact that nearly the entire audience was composed of current and former Northwestern students, makes me think otherwise).

In any case, we start actual rehearsals on Monday. So there’s no use talking or thinking about it too much.

I will say one thing: New York City is a hell of a nice place to feel lost in (it's also a nice place to get lost in, which is a slightly different thing, though they're related). I’ve been here for one month (just had the anniversary yesterday, marked unceremoniously by an expired MetroCard). And it’s true, over this month, there have been more than a few times where I’ve quite suddenly felt overwhelmed and dead inside and like I was getting swallowed in an a sinking vortex. During these times, I’ve looked around and wondered to myself, often in angered tones, why the fuck I ever wanted to live in a place so jam-packed-saturated with people. There is so much space in the world, and here I am in this one dinky island that has built upwards, stacking people on top of people on top of people until it becomes a sweaty, clogged mess. There’s the obvious crowdedness, but there’s also a real sense of isolation that comes with such an overabundance of strangers. Every day that I walk around New York I see hundreds and hundreds of people, very few of whom I make eye contact with, none of whom I will ever see again. And even if two weeks later by some chance I see that same short Asian businessman from Central Park knocking one back at a West Village Bar, I will never, ever recognize him. Because there are so many people in this city, the value of human life becomes far less important. Everyone is clearly, truly out for themselves. It can be a pretty damaging place, and this is coming from a guy who likes to be alone. When I saw a pretty girl walking around at school and didn’t talk to her, I could always imagine that she would turn up in a class or at a party or I would just see her walking around again, I could always tell myself that I’ll have another chance. I was always surrounded by people that were part of my same community, that I had some implicit bond with. And even if I only ever became friends with a handful of them, it was a reassuring thing. Now, I see a pretty girl on the subway, I don’t talk to her, and when she walks away into the swarms and I know that I will never see her again. So many people, and so few connections.

Luckily, whenever I get too deep into my head wondering about this, I rediscover why New York is such an incredible place to live. New York, more than anywhere I have ever been, has the ability to make someone feel, at any given moment , like they can completely reinvent themselves, change their lives for the better. New York as a place is so inspiring and exciting, and every part of it is so radically different: you get on the subway, and then ten or twenty minutes later you get out and suddenly you’re in what seems like a brand new city, a whole different world. This, from what I’ve seen, is unique to NYC. No matter where you are in Los Angeles, it still always, undeniably, feels like Los Angeles. Same thing with Chicago. There’s something about those places, that’s hard to pin down: an energy, a feeling, a vibe that translates across all their area codes and neighborhood barriers. Not so in New York, which really is like ten great cities (and about forty decent ones) all crammed together into one jumbled, crazy, invigorating mess. It’s a tiring, tirelessly expensive place to live, yes, but there’s also something really inspiring about it.

Of course, I’ve only lived here a month. I may have a working knowledge of most of the trains and a vague understanding of where Gramercy Park ends and Chelsea begins (very vague), but I am still very green in this place. These observations, I’m sure, are all very naive. But then, come to think of it, I’m also pretty green to this whole adulthood thing, to not having my schedule planned out and having very clear goals at any given moment of the day. I’m new to not being allowed to throw around that wonderful, always respectable moniker of “student" whenever it's convenient. I actually have no idea what to say to people now when they ask me what I do, but that’s something I’ve thought a great deal about and is, likely, the subject of a separate entry.

So, I’m doing good, right? I feel like I’m doing good. I’ve been here a month and I’ve got a job (part-time, and not making nearly enough money to live off of, and I haven’t even started training yet and have no idea when the deuce I will, but still). In another month I’ll be a produced playwright. I live in a good apartment with great roommates (all of whom are struggling with their own versions of this real world, sink-or-swim hysteria, but all struggling pretty admirably). There are times when I feel a sharp pain in my stomach or my heart rate rises without warning or I wake up at in the middle of the night shivering uncontrollably (all of these are my body’s struggling attempts, I’m convinced, to cope with the mental pressures breathing down on me). But then there are also days where I stroll through one of those gorgeous, idyllic blocks of the city (and there are plenty of ‘em) with Jay-Z pumping in my headphones, and I feel like maybe, just maybe, I’m king of this whole fucking world.

Fact is, I’m going to make mistakes, and I’m going to wish I could go back and make things better. But then, things could always be better. If this show in a month is, by some chance, a smash hit and, by some even crazier chance, seen by some people who matter, then what happens? My theatrical career will be off and running, but I’ll still want more. I’ll want to have plays on Broadway, I’ll want to be making enough money as a writer that I don’t have to do anything else. And if that happens, then I’ll want to find a way to transfer to TV and Film. And if that happens, then I’ll want to be on a better show, and have more power, and get more acclaim, and if by some chance I become the Creator/Producer of a huge hit series and win a dozen Emmys, I’ll probably look back on a life consumed by work and wonder what the hell it all meant, and why I never just dropped everything and went backpacking through the Himalayas.

And that’s just professional stuff. There’s also that whole friendship/love/sex/family component of life, and there’s also just how I feel about myself, deep down, separate from all these extraneous factors. There is a lot of stuff. Which is why it might be best to just take things one day at a time.

You know, I like this blog because it gives me a chance to put into words all of my personal philosophies. Now if only I knew what the fuck I was talking about.

Corporations are Persons

A few nights ago, after an arduous day of preparing my application materials for The Next Food Network Star (I'm serious), I decided to watch the Video Music Awards for the first time in about three years. The first time I've watched it live in I don't know how long. It seemed like a good lineup of performers this year (Beyonce and Jay-Z at the least), and I figured if it was too boring or too mind-numbingly stupid I could easily switch stations or turn off the TV. But Good Lord, what a show to see live. I was able to see Kanye West’s insane freakout in all of its unedited, unadulterated glory, complete with jerky camera work and the sudden slam to a ten-minute long commercial break. I wonder sometimes why so many of the huge cultural moments of generations past still reverberate today, while our generation’s are mostly composed of celebrities making idiots out of themselves. But that’s neither here nor there. It’s also funny that I saw this, though, because two days before I actually got into a debate about Mel Gibson, a filmmaker whose artistic merit often gets ignored due to the mounting evidence that he is a spy for the Neo-Nazi's.

In addition, just over the weekend I was linked to an article about Megan Fox’s on-set antics during the Transformers movies (written by three anonymous crew members). Whatever you might think of Megan Fox, this is pretty scathing stuff: http://www.deadline.com/hollywood/transformers-crew-talk-back-to-megan-fox/

I’m not really going to address that article any further, as it’s pretty self explanatory, and I don’t consider Megan Fox nearly enough of an artist to relate her to my query. Which is: should the way celebrities/artists act in real life be of any consequence when it comes to how we appreciate their work?

I’ve been thinking about this for a few days, and it’s a surprisingly complex question. Let’s start with our two knights in armor, Kanye West and Mel Gibson. Despite their myriad of differences, these two men have a great deal in common. They are both widely respected, extremely influential statesmen in their respective fields. They have each garnered both prestigious awards and enormous mainstream popularity, the holy grail of the entertainment industry. There has also been fairly conclusive evidence that both of these men are, in a matter of speaking, raging assholes. Now, if you’re one to indgule in all that trendy Hollywood gossip, you would have reason to believe that everyone in that city who stands in front of a camera (and a good many who stand behind) are similarly dickish. But with these two, I think we’re dealing with the genuine article.

Kanye is a dipshit. That's always been known. South Park even did an episode about it (if you look at a list of their episode topics, it's a fairly comprehensive catalogue of eveything that has pervaded popular culture in the last ten years). His actions at the VMA's hit a new low, to my mind. That being said, I’ll still listen to whatever new music Kanye comes out with. I’m a big fan of the new Jay-Z album, and Kanye produced more than half the tracks on it and guests on two of my favorites. In some ways Kanye's insane antics actually make me want to listen to his music more. That night, after watching him storm the stage and stomp the shit out of a traumatized little girl, I immediately wanted to listen to some of his music, wanted to hear his voice in my ears and think more in depth about this truly bizarre man. Which, of course, is exactly what he wants. I'm playing right into his hand, who am I to judge him? Still, we’re dealing here with hip hop, a form in which the particular artist’s public persona is inextricably linked with their artistic content. I will say, with this particular stunt, Kanye has cemented himself in the wild, unpredictible “Kramer” role of hip hop’s royalty, with Jay-Z and Beyonce as Jerry and Elaine, and P.Diddy rounding things off as George (when I stated this thesis, Chris replied that there are lots of fat rappers that would make a better George. I concur, but I was trying my best to stick with Jerry/Jay-Z’s actual social circle).

Kanye’s bizarre personality has always been such an integral part of his success (his incredible producing talent and decently above-average rap skills composing the rest), and he has, in turn, reached such insane platitudes of success, that I feel like at this point he can do anything. Short of actually killing someone, the crazier Kanye acts, the more people will want to watch him. In fact, his celebrity often mirrors all of those faux-celebs, like Paris Hilton or one of the strangely named Kardashian sisters; they all act worse and worse, and in turn watch their popularity rise. The only difference is, Kanye is also an extremely talented artist, and thus is far more impenetrable to public opinion than any of those flash-in-the-pan heiresses. Kanye became a celebrity because of his music. Those girls filmed themselves having sex, and they're desperately milking the attention until the next younger, hotter, richer woman films herself having sex in even more compromising, submissive positions.

Oddly enough, Kanye’s music itself is pretty damn unthreatening. He rhymes about blood diamonds in Africa and how much he loves his mother. Any attempts at real gangster "hardness" are always treated with a degree of irony. Makes you wonder, if he didn’t have such a crazy “real life” persona, would he even be as popular?

Movie stars, however, have rather different social obligations than bizarre, egomaniacal hip hop stars. I can think of several examples of massive celebrities who have had their careers legitimately hampered by the overriding belief that they are assholes/weirdos/nutcases/etc.

Mel Gibson is, I think it’s safe to say, a huge dick. Lots of really talented people are, lots of extremely powerful people are, and he happens to be both. But as with Kanye, if Mel makes a movie that I really like, then, frankly, I don’t give a shit. I remember when Apocalypto came out, Gibson’s big, gaping bomb after the twin phenomenons The Passion of The Christ and his drunken rant to a police officer on the PCH. Very few people saw Apocalypto, but I did, and I thought it was awesome. There was so much buzz about how the movie was unneccessarily violent, and that is insane. There is nothing thematically controversial about the movie; it was a pretty straightforward chase movie, except all the chases were on feet through the jungle. The whole thing was just one long, unbelievable action sequence, and I couldn’t believe how much negative press it was getting. It’s an action movie! That's it!

You see, the movie was released at a time when the public opinion of Mel Gibson was at such a resounding low, that people (mass media included) were just looking for a way to attack him. And, when confronted with this movie, the best they could come up with was that it’s “too violent.” Also that the dialogue is in Ancient Mayan, and that's, y'know, sort of weird. Are you kidding me? There was nothing, I mean nothing, in the movie that was remotely worse than what you’d see in oh, say, Braveheart? Or Gladiator? Both exceptionally violent action movies, both critical darlings and huge hits and eventual oscar winners.

No, I don’t like Mel Gibson as a person, I don’t like the things he says, but it’s not like he’s a massive corporation that’s actively exploiting or harming the Jewish people. He’s just one guy with a loud mouth and a big wallet. If we start to judge the entertainers of our time by their personal conduct, then who knows how much great art we could miss out on? T.S. Eliot, one of the greatest poets of all time (many would say the greatest, period, end of story), was an open Nazi sympathizer. John Cheever lived a double life, lying to and humiliating anyone who tried to get close to him. There are countless accounts of Hemingway being a drunken assbag. But who cares?? You read their writing, and you just don’t care, because it makes no difference now, and because quite probably these men needed all that darkness inside of them in order to create the beautiful work that they did. I'm not saying that Mel Gibson is on the same level as Hemingway, but he's made a lot of movies, some of them really good. And if he was a perfectly nice, normal guy with no anger festering inside of him, then who knows if we would have gotten the chance to see any of them?

But then there’s the issue of when a person’s toxic beliefs begins to show up in their art. And when this art becomes enormously, insanely popular, then the ol' pot really starts to boil. This was the case with The Passion of the Christ, which might be either be a brilliant, visceral, uncompromising recreation of Jesus’ final days or a thinly veiled creed against Jews masquerading as a pious drama. I personally never saw the movie, because no matter what it always sounded to me like a piece of high-class torture porn, so I won’t comment too in-depth. It just seems to me: he created something that spoke to a huge number of people in a really profound way. Nobody mentions that when they talk about that movie. Shouldn't that count for something?

Rather, let’s go back to the world of hip hop and look at another one of the most controversial rappers of all time, Eminem. Now, let me say off the bat, I love Eminem. He is without a doubt one of my favorite recording artists. I loved The Marhsall Mathers LP, his insanely successful, insanely controversial breakthrough album that won a bunch of grammys and provoked massive, organized protests. I love his most recent album, Relapse, which is deeply dark and demented and clearly the product of several years in a drug-addled seclusion (which did happen, and which is chronicled in wry, painful detail in several of that album's tracks). I love them all, because no matter what he’s rapping about, Eminem’s skills are mind-blowing. When it comes to intricate, complex rhymes and visual storytelling, he’s among the very top tier of the hip hop world. Yet, he is also one of the most technically impressive rappers, his flow is simultaneously precise and unpredictible, melodic and razor sharp.

That being said, Eminem does not rap about nice things. Remember when I said Kanye has a rap about how much he loves his mom? Eminem has several about his mother as well, yet they are more likely to be violent, murderous fantasies, often laced with bits of Freudian incest and a healthy dose of rape (another one of Em’s favorite topics). There are lots of ways to explain Eminem’s brutal subject matter: his own life, as he’s apt to let us know, has not been a picnic, those pesky mother issues compounded with gang violence, paranoia, and an extremely tumultuous relationship with his ex-wife Kim. Not only that, but if you look at Eminem’s discography from a critical perspective, you can see what he’s doing. Eminem’s personality, what he’s really like, is shrouded in mystery. Even after all these years in the spotlight, nobody really has any idea who Marshall Mathers is. And that's no accident: throughout all of his albums, the singular theme of Eminem's storytelling has always been a shifting, endlessly mutable conception of self. It’s no accident that he has three different names that he goes by in near-equal amounts: Slim Shady (the hyperviolent, sadistic Id), Marhsall Mathers (his birth name, and often the gentle Superego), with the two converging in his central alias, Eminem. In nearly every song he writes, Eminem is playing with this fragile concept of identity, freely intercutting his own life experience with crazed fantasy. What’s real? What’s imaginary? It’s always so hard to tell, and that’s half the fun.

In case you can’t tell, I think that Eminem can write about any damn thing he wants, in no small part because I think he’s a genius and it would be criminal to curtail his artistic output in any way. But, unfortunately, the issue isn’t that simple. The big problem that people had with The Marshall Mathers LP (and the impetus behind so much of the organized protest against him) is because the album was super popular amongst middle and high school kids. Suburban kids. White kids. I was in middle school when the album came out, and while I wasn’t into hip hop at all back then, I remember that a lot of people I knew loved Eminem. He reached audiences that most rappers don’t touch (in no small part due to the color of his skin), and as a result, his words can have repercussions that most don’t. A lot of Eminem’s audience (at least back then when he was at the height of his popularity) is very young, and not nearly sophisticated enough to see the layers of reality that he’s playing with in each song. They just hear Eminem, this really cool, really famous music star, talking about how he wants to rape women and kill faggots and, hey now, maybe that’s a good way to think!

Like I said, it’s a complex issue. And there are countless other examples like this. Someone who, in my mind, is a greater talent than Mel Gibson, and has had his career even more compromised by his personal hinjinks, is Mr. Tom Cruise (a.k.a. the biggest movie star in the world turned the biggest crazy hyperactive weirdo scientologist in the world, who also happens to act in and produce movies). This one really saddens me. I think Tom Cruise is a terrific actor. Anyone who doesn’t think so, I would instruct immediately to watch Magnolia (which is a fantastic movie in every respect, but also features an incredible performance by Cruise in a supporting role). But even beyond that, he’s at least good in every movie he does, and often he’s great (Jerry Maguire is my Dad’s favorite movie, and I agree it’s no slouch). Still, it’s at the point now that whenever you mention Tom Cruise in any conversation, someone immediately starts ranting about how crazy he is. About how they can’t respect him as an actor, they can't really see anything else about him, because gosh, he’s just so darned CRAZY.

This always gives me a headache. Here’s a twist: most actors are crazy. The good ones are really crazy. And Tom Cruise, from what I’ve seen, isn’t even a bad guy. He doesn’t seem like a jerk. He’s just a kook. Who gives a shit? Why must his religious beliefs and the way he acts on talk shows be the first thing people talk about when they talk about Tom Cruise? Why is that his relegated place in the parthenon of pop culture? I don’t know. But I like Tom Cruise, and I hope he comes out with a big, successful, quality movie so people on all the Entertainment shows can rant and rave about his incredible comeback, when the only thing he’s really come back from is their misplaced scorn.

Jesus Christ this was a long entry. And rather dry too. Those of you who reads blogs to get juicy gossip into other people's lives are probably slitting your wrists right about now. I would actually love to know if anyone read this whole thing. Congratulations if you did. Maybe you should try reading a book now.

Old Man, Take a Look at My Life

And here we are. One week down in New York City. The last week has been a complete whirlwind, and I feel like I’m coming up for a breath, now, for the first time. It’s all very overwhelming, as I expected, as I’ve been told five hundred million times by everyone else who has been in my position, but there have been lots of good things I can hold onto as well. Trying to do any kind of summation of the last week chronologically would be exhausting, stupid, and almost as boring for me as for you, so I’ll just pick things up with this morning, leaving the near-endless amounts of lifting and rushing and building and drinking and worrying and dreaming and laughing and walking and taking deep, deep breathes that have made up my first week in New York to your (surely sufficient) imaginations.

I had a job interview this morning, my first one in the city. It was to be a shopper for a theatrical costume shop, basically running around the city all day buying fabrics and shit for them. It seems like it would be a good day job for a few reasons- it’s normal hours, Monday-Friday from 9 to 5, which is ideal for me as anything I want to do (stand up comedy, improv, perhaps some regular ol' acting) happens at night, and I also generally do my best writing in the evenings. It also would involve a fair amount of freedom, I wouldn’t be stuck behind a desk all day, and even if I’m working in costumes (a field I have no talent or interest in), I would still be meeting lots of people involved in theatre. I say all this now, when I don’t have the job and desperately want it, but it could also very well be a monster pain in the ass. More on that later.

In any case, it was one of the strangest job interviews I’ve ever had. Perhaps the strangest, and that’s saying a lot, considering I was once interviewed to be a delivery boy for Dominos Pizza by a man who, I found out later, spent the majority of his shifts hopped up on cocaine. The entire thing lasted approximately five minutes, and the woman asked me no questions. Okay, that’s a lie, she asked one: what are my long-term career goals. I could have lied through my teeth and said that I’d love to be a Broadway costume designer, but against my better judgement I told her the truth. She didn’t seem that thrown, and said that a former shopper now works for a Broadway producer, and that the job is a great way to meet people and make connections, no matter your specific interest. So far, so good. But then, she just described the job for a couple of minutes, asked me if I had any questions, and that was it. Nothing else! The interview was set for 10:30, I showed up at 10:20, and I was out the door before my scheduled time. I was all set to talk to her about all of my production experience, and student theater, and about ten other things that I had run through in my mind, and I didn’t get to say a goddamn word of it. What's worse, without giving any chance to talk I never got to really unwind, so I spent the entirety of the interview in the initial, nervous, tightly-wound stage. I can't figure it out. Who would call someone in for a job interview, and then ask them zero questions about the actual job?? Maybe the work is so easy she just figures anyone can do it and only wanted to make sure that I wasn’t a nutcase. Still, I can’t help but think that this all doesn’t bode well, and that there’s bound to be at least one applicant with a genuine interest in theatrical costume design who, rightfully, will get the job over me.

EXCEPT, at the end of the “interview”, when she told me I’d hear back tonight or tomorrow morning, she glanced at my resume again, smiled, and said “but it looks good.” Now, what the hell is that supposed to mean? Is she just being a tease? Why would she say that if she wasn’t interested? But how on earth could she be interested when I said a total of seven words during the entire interview? Maybe she just likes the shy, silent, submissive type. In case it isn’t already obvious, searching for a job is already striking me as a whole lot like dating.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it means to be satisfied. And I don’t mean satisfied after you’ve eaten a big baked potato and unfastened your belt buckle. I mean the other kind, that near-mythic, deep-seeded, soulful satisfaction with your life that seems to exist for nobody in the real world except Zen Buddhists and Jay-Z. For as long as I can remember, I’ve always lived my life wanting something I don’t have, and I’ve always had a belief that if I could get that thing, that one thing, then suddenly the heavenly floodgates would open and everything would be wonderful. If I only got a lead part in the play, if I only got more friends, if I only survived Euro AP, if I only convinced a girl to kiss me, if I only got into a good college, if I only had sex, then, THEN the puzzle of my life would be solved, all the jagged, disparate pieces of my psyche would magically congeal into a perfect, smooth, healthy orb. Of course, all of those things happened, and each time I woke up one morning, took a breath and thought, well, this doesn't feel all that different now, does it?

Now, in this new stage of my life, there is a sharp influx of new worries, of new things that I want (a job, financial security, some sort of concrete plan for my future), but I know now more than ever that none of these things will change me. I want to say that it only matters what’s inside, but that sounds so idiotic and clichéd. But you know what, it’s true. It’s easy to see that some of these things would never be a miracle fix (when I get the hypothetical job that I so desperately want, I’m sure that it will be awful and I’ll start complaining about it right away, unleashing a brand new avalanche of unfulfillment and desires). In any case, I feel like I’m living my life with a slightly different perspective these days. It’s a personal philosophy that basically goes, well, there will always be things that suck. Nothing to do about it. It might sound a bit nihilistic, but it’s actually a huge relief.

I’ve also been thinking about college a lot lately, remembering lots of small moments: a funny line at a rehearsal, hands touching under a table, tiny winks and grins and revelations that seemed insignificant at the time but now hold an enormous symbolic weight for me, the entirety of my last four years condensed within their thin parameters. I wonder if I appreciated it all enough while I was there. Probably not. But then, I can sit back here, look around my remarkably comfortable new apartment, and feel pretty damn content. At least for right now. See, when you know that your worries are never, ever going to go away, it makes it a whole lot easier to temporarily ignore them.