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| yikes. it's funny to go back and read the post below this one. that was written a year ago. OVER a year ago. how much has changed since then? I guess a lot?
to think that post was written before capybara was even a twinkle in anyone's eyes. capybara. my entire year, save for 6 weeks this summer, has involved capybara in some shape or form. hell, i have to get up in six hours so that we can drive to albuquerque to play a show tomorrow night. i'm actually...on tour right now.
on tour. huh. it's funny how there are things in your life that you always want to do and when you finally do them...you're not even sure they're happening? i imagine that when i look back on these three months, i won't even be sure this tour actually happened. wow.
the things you've always wanted to do with your life. can they be made into a list? do lists matter at all when it comes to stuff like this? i doubt it. but why not, right? but how about, instead of things you want to do with your life, you talk about the things you want OUT of life. those sound like two sides of the same coin, and maybe they are, but connotation is important, and i think that the connotation of those two phrases is very different. so, without further ado, without any forethought whatsoever:
what i want out of life (only now that i actually type that do i realize how selfish it sounds. who cares what i want out of life? what does it matter? why am i so special that i deserve to get what i want out of life? i would say that 90% of the people on this planet never get what they really want out of life. is that pessimistic? either way, the point is, this may be what i want out of life, but it doesn't mean that i believe i've done anything to warrant actually getting what i want):
also, this list is in no particular order:
1. to write as much beautiful music as possible and share it with the people i love (and maybe with some people that i don't love...or even know personally)
2. to explore this tiny beautiful world as much as possible...not as a tourist, but as a contributing member of as many societies as i can visit
3. to have the ability to start over fresh and go somewhere new and do something new if my current situation becomes boring or depressing or unfulfilling
4. to find someone to spend my life with...someone who writes music and goes on adventures and is the loudest and funniest person in the room and helps people for a living and is passionate about it and wants to live everywhere and do everything. someone who is so beautiful (physically, intellectually, artistically) that i am intimidated by them. someone who could never hurt another human being. someone who bites their nails and wears big glasses and can cut my hair.
5. to only work jobs that benefit others. to never work for a business. i can't imagine spending my work-life exerting vast amounts of energy to help others make money.
6. to stay young. or, at the very least, to keep acting young.
7. to genuinely improve the lives of others, even outside of whatever i am doing for work. especially young kids - i've been trying to be a mentor for years now but it's difficult when one keeps moving...
8. to learn as much as possible in my fields of interest (anthropology, astronomy, cosmology).
it's funny to list that stuff out and think about how little it really takes to make me happy, to have what i would consider to be the perfect life. as for material possessions, all i need is some recording equipment, a bunch of instruments, clothes, suitcases, a firm pillow, and a few books (a local library can provide the rest). what else? a small apartment is fine for me, one in a small town with ocean on one side and mountains on the other. somewhere close to a big city. a teaching job would be grand, because it's hard for me to think of another line of work that benefits people more than education. and having someone by my side, someone to run away with when we get bored. that's all i need. it doesn't seem so difficult when i put it that way. the other stuff, the adventures, those are of secondary importance, and those will always happen anyway. i can't avoid adventures - too much routine is death for me.
the future is weird. i listed out the ten happiest experiences of my life a few weeks ago (those are a bit too personal to post here; even though no more than ten people will ever see this), and that was weird too. i've never liked how you can't choose what you remember. even more, you can't choose what you remember fondly. but, in the end, how important is it to have fond memories? i guess fond memories are just a way of proving to yourself that you did good things, you had good times. in order to be happy, it seems pretty necessary for a person to have fond memories.
oh the hell with it, here's those ten happiest experiences, in no particular order. i'm censoring names in case, you know...
1. Lying with _____ in Canterbury Greenway, the hot sun warming us on the grass while we skipped school
2. The night when ____ cut my hair and then took me to a party, when I was so charming and all of her friends liked me and she told me she loved me
3. The Dadbot show at the Blue Note when we did the dance routine and everyone loved it
4. Walking around New York City all day and coming upon the Persian Day Parade
5. Finding out I made it onto Exit 16 because they put a flyer under my door
6. Driving on the Million Dollar Highway with ____, seeing the huge rocks and calling _____ once we got to Ouray
7. Going to the Rio Grande Gorge with _____, taking pictures, and deciding that we wanted to stay together
8. Biking to the first eleven temples on the Shikoku Pilgrimage in one day
9. Waking up before sunrise to drive from Milan to the military base in Italy to get American food
10. The first day I hung out with ____, _____, and ____ together: smashing the computer behind the silo, playing shitty basketball in _____'s driveway, and spending the night at _____'s house.
what is this shit, some kind of 24-year-old crybaby crisis? ugh. life has been good. actually, compared with most lives out there, my life has been incredible. and easy! my life has been remarkably easy compared to the amount of suffering a human is capable of going through. i should be thankful. but instead, i still feel like, and may always feel like, i'm squandering this incredible and easy life by not accomplishing enough. what have i really accomplished? i've written a lot of music. i've taught and tutored school-age kids for a while. i've truly loved (both romantically and platonically) people around me. in turn, i've been truly loved back (again, in both ways). those are the only things that really feel like "accomplishments." what else is there to count? the fact that i've lived in a few different countries? (nah, that doesn't count). the fact that i graduated college? (also, doesn't count). i don't know. to me, accomplishments need to involve other people, they need to affect other people. even making art, i feel like that involves other people, because every time you make art you are contributing to art as a whole, which is something universal.
geez, when did i become such a hippie?
okay. it's 3:30 in the morning. i have to sleep. see you in a year, blog.
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| what the fuck.
i'm not predisposed to feeling like this for long periods of time. i guess part of feeling like this, though, is the sensation that time is stretching out into infinity, dragging one's sanity with it. the worse you feel, the longer it seems to last. this is true even for things like accidentally brushing up against the lip of a hot stove. that burn, in reality only a quarter of a second long, feels like an eon.
so i've been back in the united states of america, the only country in the world with no real name (only a description), for thirty four days. i gotta be honest, i haven't felt great for even one of those days. but even though it's only been a month, japan and the excitement of returning home to wonderful things and wonderful people and wonderful feelings seems like it was years ago. so many rugs have been pulled out from under my feet, and i cant stand being off balance for this long.
i've postponed the decision of where i'm going to live for so long now. my time to procrastinate is about to run out. i haven't worked a day since july 18th, and that's unreasonable. i haven't really accomplished anything since i've been back, especially not the things i really, really wanted to accomplish with all my heart. the fact that i haven't been able to do those things yet is what's driving me so crazy. i was so sure that certain things would happen, that my life would go in a certain way, and for it to be going in this complete opposite direction is incredibly painful. the death of my father was a huge deal, one of the defining moments of my life so far. it shaped how i view the world and how i plan my future and what i want to happen. it hurt so much, more than anything ever has for me before. but the feelings i've experienced in the month since i've been back have actually been worse. it feels like my chest has been opened and several key organs have been removed. i don't know what to do. i can't remember the last time i've been this confused.
people all ask me: "what's the best thing for you to do right now?" or "what's the best place for you to be right now?" the thing is, if i had the answer to either of those questions, i'd be doing that thing and going to that place. but of the options, one place leaves me open for a lot of pain in the future, and another place is very far away, and it just doesn't feel right. nothing really "feels right" at this point because i can't have the one thing i want.
i don't know what to do with these feelings, where to put them. i don't know where they belong, i don't know where i belong. i don't have any motivation right now to do, well, anything. i don't feel much like making music, which sort of renders the point of going to portland useless. but i know that to some extent i should go to portland. i should be trying to make it in the music business. because if there's a time to give it a shot in my life, it's now. but i just have this weird gut feeling about portland. it just doesn't feel right. i have a sensation that once i got there i would somehow feel off. not that i don't feel off right now. i would probably feel off anywhere. and the one thing that would make me feel not off is the one thing that i can't help, is the one thing that i can't control.
i had so many plans for what i would do when i got back to the states. i always say "the states" instead of "the usa" or "the U.S." because that's what my father always said. it sort of seemed like that's what everyone of an international bent called them: the states. it always sounded like he called america "the states" because of all of his traveling. and so i say "the states" because i want to be like him, i always have. but lately all those plans i made for when i got back here seem futile. i've always known that i didn't want to live an ordinary life. i didn't want to do ordinary things or end up like most people. but now it seems like my plans are just as ordinary as anyone else's. what am i trying to do right now, what were my plans? to study for the GRE. to get leadership/managerial experience. to get a job with a nonprofit or disadvantaged youth program. to join a branch of the toastmasters club. to apply for the peacecorps. to use that and JET to get into a good foreign service program at a grad school. to go to grad school and then get a job in the foreign service and live overseas and by proxy work for the government.
all those plans have lately seemed completely pointless and just as ordinary as working for a bank and living in the suburbs and getting hitched and having kids and retiring. so the question arose in my mind, a question that was always there but just below the surface like a dark rock in a shallow stream. this was the question: how does a person of ordinary intelligence, ordinary ability, ordinary social skills, and ordinary motivation live an extraordinary life? because folks, i'm not fishing for compliments here. i'm not trying to get you to tell me that "oh no darin you're not ordinary at all!" let's face facts: i AM very, very ordinary. i am not smarter than the average person on this planet. i am not more able than the average person on this planet. i am certainly not more skilled sociably. and yet somehow i expect myself to be able to get more out of this short life than the average person. i expect that somehow i should be able to have more adventures, explore more of this tiny blue dot, know and love more amazing people, and help more people than the average person on this planet. but if i am not extraordinary, then how can my life ever be? maybe i shouldn't try anymore. maybe the reason why there are a lot of people that live the same kind of life is because they figured out that it's futile to try and live an extraordinary life. maybe what's more important, maybe what i really should be doing, is settling down and having some kids and getting a decent job. doesn't sound so bad.
someone dear to me once flatly stated "darin, you're so selfish." they didn't realize it at the time, but the words hit me hard, and have stayed with me. they stayed with me because, well, they are correct. the reason why i want an extraordinary life so badly is because i want it for me. i know someone who wants nothing more out of life than to leave it a better place, than to help as many people as possible. i wish i were more like that. i wish my motivations for living an amazing life were more like that and less like just wanting to experience as much as possible. because when you get down to it, if you live a life of living in exotic places and experiencing crazy things and having amazing adventures, what have you really done? dean moriarty lived an amazing life as full as any life can possibly be, but he fucked over pretty much everyone he ever met. he caused a lot of pain. sure, when he died he could say to himself "this was a full life, well-lived. i did and saw and experienced as much as possible." but when you get down to it, he left the world a worse place than before. you could make the argument that he actually left it a better place by inspiring people to live full, crazy lives - but to me that's just another instance of the selfishness i'm talking about. if he inspired anything, it was just more selfishness. of the people who cared about him, he didn't help them a damn bit, he just caused them pain and suffering for years. i don't want to be like that. what good is living a full life if it was just for you?
there are so many things i've wanted to improve about my life and myself. there always are - it's one of my defining characteristics, this constant desire to improve. but this recent heartbreak and hurt and loss has just erased all of those motivations. part of me doesn't want to move to portland just because the process of moving itself is difficult. so what do i do? i sit on the internet. i watch tv or movies. i have frustrating conversations. i reflect on how shitty i feel and how i don't feel like doing anything. i stay up until four in the morning and wake up at one in the afternoon. i eat very little, and when i do, it's usually food that's bad for me. i think about how to fix my situation, how to end this hurt, how to get the one thing i want back, and then realize i don't know how to do any of those things and end up feeling worse than before.
i know very little about this world. i know very little about anything. my majors in college, english and anthropology, are as much a mystery to me as any other topic. being around people that constantly assert their intelligence doesn't help. i don't know why certain people feel the need to let me know how smart they are. it's not like i didn't know it already, it's not like they need to impress me. i'm already their friend, they can stop trying to reinforce in me the idea that they are intelligent. in addition to straight up not knowing very much about anything, i have very few skills. i can play a few musical instruments badly, i can write uninteresting, meandering songs with awful lyrics, i can rely on other improvisers to seem funny on stage, i can slur a few japanese nouns together to sound like sentences, and i can type pretty fast. when it comes to actual real-life skills, i have virtually none. i am a very slow reader. i am awful at motivating or leading people. i am a terrible procrastinator and time-waster. i can do nothing with my hands, can't build or fix a damn thing. i can be painfully shy and introverted. meeting new people is a complete roll of the dice for me. sometimes i go to great lengths to avoid having to deal with people in certain situations. i am immature for my age. i am very scared of many things, the least of which isn't growing up and being responsible.
and if all that isn't enough, the paragraph above is ample evidence that i am one of those self-pitying, self-hating douche bags that does nothing aside from complain about how terrible they themselves are. so how do i wish i was? boy, that question is incredibly easy. i wish i were even half as smart as some people think i am. i wish i were the kind of person who could talk to anyone with an easy charm, who could walk into any room and light up the place with a smile and a few sincerely kind words. i wish i were charismatic and outgoing at all times, the kind of listener who makes you feel like what you are saying is the most interesting thing this person has ever heard in their life. i wish i were an unselfish person whose only care in this world was the emotional and physical wellbeing of the people around him. i wish my only goal in life was to help out the people in this world who need it most. i wish i never got angry. i wish i was friends with everyone around me. i wish i were more easygoing and relaxed and always ready to party at a moment's notice - i wish i were more of a dude. i wish i were more spontaneous, i wish i never said anything dull or uninteresting. i wish i went on more adventures. i wish i didn't think about all this so much.
the most eloquent way i've ever expressed the kind of life i want is in my personal philosophy. after my father died, i went back to japan and proceeded to fill up half a moleskine with a system, a plan, a mission, to live my life in a certain way. the idea to write this down and figure this out once and for all came to me through my father's last pieces of advice to me: one was "carpe diem," and the other was "chill out, darin. just chill out." i'll never forget either of those things. so i sat down with the intention to write out how i wanted my life to go. what i realized was that everyone lives their life trying their best to fulfill what they consider the meaning of life to be. but people on this planet live their lives very differently, so i realized that there are several potential meanings of life. i came up with seven potential meanings of life, and have been unable to think of any more. i think anyone's reason for living their life a certain way falls into one of these seven meanings of life. to put them as simply as possible:
1. Help others
2. Spend as much time as possible with those you love
3. Experience (new things) as much as possible
4. Create beauty
5. Appreciate beauty
6. Learn as much as possible
7. Reproduce/pass yourself onto the future
some people live their lives with the goal of being famous; that's meaning number seven. some people want to live in a cabin in the woods; that's meaning number five (the beauty they are appreciating is the beauty of nature). some people want to work seventy hours a week at a job they hate to give their family what they want; that's one and two. and so forth. what kind of life do i want? i want to pursue all seven meanings, every day of my life. my dad told me to seize the day, to live every day like it's your last. in my opinion, the best way to know you've seized the day is to accomplish something that brings you closer to every one of those seven meanings. people always ask, what would you do if you knew you would die in twenty four hours. my answer? i would do those seven things above.
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i've strayed far and wide from the initial topic of this entry: my current state of feeling shitty. i don't know what to do. but i need to figure it out soon. i need to get started again on those seven meanings of life. i need to start exercising, i need to start eating right again. i need to stop feeling sorry for myself and start making decisions. i need to figure out a way to not feel so horrible. i need to figure out a way to stop, or at least minimize, this heartbreak and hurt. i need to do it soon.
i love you. i always will.
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| Every single tiny flower growing on a lakeside
They would never wonder whether they were living
Honey, you were like that, you never thought of your eyes
Winking in my dreams and making me feel shallow
Living underwater, a heavy pool of milk white
Perfect memories and taming endless instincts
We had settled too long sleeping on a mattress
That was barely too small and home to forty thousand
Words about the future, a state with river borders
Frightened me to no end but we needed visas
A royal will and money just to make the deadline
Seem like truth and not just lies without a reason
Everything about life swallowing the skyline
You said living one year was missing coded beauty
That was all I wanted, a pretty girl to witness
The sun that was my father and the rain that slowly misted.
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Things like this aren't supposed to happen. But fortunately for me, sometimes they do. This is the happiest I've been in years. Maybe ever. August 7th can't get here fast enough. I'm incredibly lucky. My life, my future, unfolds before my very eyes. And I love what I see.
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| August 7th, 4:19 PM.
Northwest Flight NW3402
See you at the Royals game on August 8th. I'll be the one screaming in your face about how great America is.
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| Glaring, embarrassing omissions from the 50 Greatest Albums List:
Nico - Chelsea Girl
Sparks - Angst in my Pants, In Outer Space, and Whomp That Sucker
Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago
El Perro Del Mar - El Perro Del Mar
Iron & Wine - The Creek Drank the Cradle
Fleetwood Mac - Tusk
The Exploding Hearts - Guitar Romantic
Dammit.
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