I am a Fascinating Machine

Ten Dollars

So earlier today I had an interesting experience. Perhaps you would care to share in it.

I was walking out of the barbers - to an ATM machine, incidentally - and, while passing a nearby Planet Fitness, I noticed a 10 dollar bill on the ground.

You would think that I would just pick it up and move on, blessing my good fortune. I would think that. But no - instead, I contemplated the bill for several moments before even picking it up.

Holding it in my hand, I considered for far longer than strictly necessary (read: any time at all) whether I should ask if someone had dropped the completely unidentifiable piece of money I now held. There was no one around to ask, save a man waiting in his car. Though I doubt he took not of me, he was probably the reason why I didn’t just pocket the bill right there.

Instead, I set the ten dollars back onto the ground, and walked away to the ATM, to get some ten dollar bills of my own.

Coming back to the dollar, the rational part of my brain finally won over the anxious parts: whoever dropped it is long gone, no one could possibly identify it, they probably don’t even care, and if you leave it there someone else will just pick it up.

So I reached down, grabbed it, put it in my pocket, and walked away. Done. Simple. Right?

Nah. I immediately began to feel overpoweringly guilty. It felt like I had stolen something. The rational part of my brain, deciding its work was done, decided to take the rest of the day off and maybe have a beer or something, leaving the rest of me to sweat it out with my anxiety.

Eventually I resolved to buy a pizza and drop the 10 dollars into the tip jar. Redistribute the wealth. This, at least, calmed me for long enough to get the bill out of my pocket.

Now anyone reading this knows about as much as they will ever need to know about me.

A bunch of personal stuff that’s probably boring and shitty to anyone who’s not me!

tl;dr Carleton College class of 2016 here I come

Read More

haha I looked into my drafts section and discovered a bunch of things I had never published. So here you go!

I didn’t look over them very closely before hitting publish.

Like all good things, my stay here in Switzerland can be divided into two, somewhat uneven parts - Pre-Morocco and Post-Morocco.

Pre-Morocco refers to the first six months, consisting of me, at my international school, not talking to anyone. One might term it an emotional recession - a drawing inwards of the self, with little to no growth.

This was largely caused by the fact that I had never actually moved before - I was born and raised in one home, going to the same school district with the same friends for the first 16 years of my life. To add to that, by the time I was going to Switzerland I was very distrustful of my peers - highschoolers are all assholes, I believed (along with a bizarre black-and-white view of people as being either a. Nerds or b. douchebags, and you were either a huge jerk or you wanted to play DnD).

So I came to a new, foreign school with foreign people in a foreign land. And I clammed up. I spoke with almost no one, made no friends, and generally fell into a black hole of depression.

And then came the Morocco trip. You see, while I was intensely introverted before, this is only because I have what I have come to recognize as a different view of social activities from others: I never actively seek out social contact, but when it comes I welcome it. And this Morocco trip, well, it was 20 kids in close quarters for 10 days.

Modern Art

It had seemed to me, until very recently, that much of ‘modern art’ is patently ridiculous - after all, there is nothing there, nothing to even interperet.

The trouble with modern art is that it is let without explanation. The artist does not explain their intent with the work, and since much of what is labelled ‘modern art’ is incredibly minimalistic it then seems meaningless, when presented almost without context. This is because there are so many interperetations possible from such simple art, it becomes meaningless because to choose is impossible (and those who appear to choose seem ridiculous). And with the worth in the meaning, certainly not the artistic expression (how much skill could something like that possibly take), it seems ridiculous.

However, if the artist were to perhaps explain what it means to them - what they feel they have created - it would go a long way in inspiring more appreciation of ‘modern art’.

This is almost certainly one of numerous reactions that Vonnegut intended to inspire with Breakfast of Champions. I am, of course, having this reaction as I try to fall asleep, as usual.

Of course, I use the term ‘modern art’ here very narrowly - I do not refer to other works such as ‘Fountain’ or ‘Piss Jesus’, because frankly, I still feel like those are patently ridiculous Perhaps I could be inspired otherwise…?

Mountains + Mist

A mountain and mist is like a beautiful woman and her dress - it can be obtusely modest, concealing every sight to be seen from you, or it can be titillating and spare, giving you only half-glimpses of the wonders below.

Why is it

that I can’t produce a single piece of decent rhetoric for Mr. Anderson, but my government class - the second bullshittiest mandatory class after health - tells me to make a half-assed response to some things a speaker said, and suddenly I’m speaking from the heart?

Seriously.

Tick tock tick tock

In two months, I will be turning 18 and finishing my APs.

In three months, I will be graduating from high school.

In six months I will be starting my freshman year of college. I don’t know where yet.

In thirty minutes it will be fourth period, and physics will be done for today.

Someone involved in the production of Thor had a good sense of humor

but otherwise it’s a really stupid movie.

Moby Dick

Things Which Cultural Awareness Tells You About Moby Dick

• It’s big
• It’s dense
• It’s dry
• It’s so much literature, you have to be a trained scholar to not be obliterated by it. 

Things which Cultural Awareness Does Not Tell You About Moby Dick

• It’s funny
• It’s a a page-turner
• It’s well written and easy to read, if you don’t mind occasionally looking up archaic words
• You don’t have to be a scholar to enjoy it - and you’ll probably enjoy it more if you don’t approach it as though it were Moby Dick. (Fun Fact: up to the 1920s, Moby Dick was shelved with the boy’s adventure novels). 

Like Breathing

First practice back into crew. It’s been a year and a half - at least - and I’m certainly rusty.

But damn. Damn. Feels great. It feels awful in all the best ways. I missed this shit. The new assistant coach worked us hard, and I’m gonna be sore tomorrow. Totally worth it.

It’s a masochistic pleasure.  It hurts, and damn do you want it to hurt. End of the day, go home, go to sleep. Deepest sleep you’ll ever have.

I’m glad I’m back. I didn’t do it in the fall, and for every moment up to the start of the workout I had reservations about returning. This was the right choice. Damn was it the right choice.

It wasn’t quite like riding a bike, but the same ballpark. As soon as I got into those tanks and took a few practice strokes, shit. If I was religious I’d say it was the touch of God.