Throwing stones at the sky

"It's like you're playing the piano for ten years and you still can't play 'Chopsticks,' and the only thing you have to keep you going is the belief that one day you'll wake up and play like Rachmaninoff."

There you were -- a wide-eyed freshman with goals and dreams just like everyone else. Of course, some were genuine while others were externally imposed. But no matter. You were here now, and the world was yours for the taking.

You told yourself that this was your one shot at reinventing yourself to become someone else, and so you did. As the semester continued, you slowly realized that everybody had bought your new personality. But you never really bought it. No, too bad you didn't realize that until you met...well, him. 

You soon met your soon-to-be best friend "Mike" through a service group, and fell into a fever. You wouldn't dare admit to anyone that you had a crush on him since that would make you seem shallow and far too injudicious with your heart. So you allowed yourself to secretly fall for him. Whenever he needed someone to talk to, you enthusiastically obliged. Whenever he wanted to go out to eat, you made sure you were available. And so naturally, you would grow to reciprocate his requests.

But even though you both were asking the same questions on the surface, you knew that behind each invitation to dinner, you were always hoping for something more. And hope you did. You carefully tried to give more signs. He kept spending time with you. You started joking about being a couple someday. He kept doing nearly everything with you.

So one night, you couldn't help but ask -- is there something more between us?

He said no, not right now.

That is your story. And though you're too embarrassed to admit it, that's essentially the singular source of everything you ask me about.

And you keep asking because I'm not giving you the answer you want to hear.

That's why you keep saying that you're screwed and that nobody likes you. Of course, we both know that's a blatant lie. Sure, you make it sound as if you just want somebody to say that they like/love you so that you know you're not a total failure. But in truth, you don't want just somebody. You want him.

So you keep torturing yourself, beating yourself up over your inability to play something as simple as "Chopsticks" on the piano. Yet you still won't give up and pick up a different instrument. No, you've already set your mind on hammering out the same two blasted notes on the piano over and over until the steel strings snap.

All this so that you can continue to believe that somehow, someday, you'll wake up and suddenly be able to play like Rachmaninoff.

Call me a pessimist, but I don't think that day is coming.

All you're doing is throwing stones at the sky and expecting them to come back as diamonds.

Happy endings

I don't think I know how to write a happy story.

For a while now, I've only written depressing and cynical stories because I thought that those were the only stories worth telling. It felt more "meaningful" to write about unrequited love and my worldly insignificance, as opposed to feel-good stories involving people finding happiness. I felt better too: in a way, sad stories are a form of indulgence.

But now I realize that those depressing stories are actually the easiest stories to tell. Everyone has their own problems and everyone has their moments of sadness -- put those moments into writing, and there you have it: instant realism, instant emotion, instant captivating story.

My impression is that we judge stories with happy endings far more harshly than tragedies. Since they always run the risk of becoming sappy and cliche, we set our standards for happy stories incredibly high. But depressing stories? So long as they can trigger some form of emotion within us, the stories seem all too real.

See, we're so much more skeptical of happy stories because we have trouble believing that they ever happen in real life. We shake our heads in disgust at storybook teenage romances, and we deem saccharine any tale of a marriage that forever stays exciting and impassioned. We dismiss stories that travel down a straight, flowery path from point A to B, and we convulse at even the slightest suggestion that there is indeed one true love for each and every one of us. It's no surprise that we do: we haven't experienced these things for ourselves, and so we naturally find these stories to be, well, stupid.

But maybe these things do happen. Maybe they happen all the time. Maybe it's just that when they are about to happen, we're too busy brooding over the depressing stories to realize it.

Variable sense of humor

I've noticed that your sense of humor is not intrinsic to you; it's largely determined by who you're with at the time.

I first played Cards Against Humanity two nights ago with my high school buddies (Tristan, Leon, Kazi, Bang), and given the fact that our collective maturity level is right around the negative digits, the game turned into a massively inappropriate mess of sexual implications and graphic images. It was awesome to say the least.

Then last night I played the game again, but with family friends; I was the youngest of the group, and except for me, all of them were either graduating from college later this year or already did. Since the cards are all the same (and that I had just played the night before), I naturally remembered what kinds of messed up things we (the high school guys) had come up with earlier.

It was odd: things that I found hilarious with my high school friends just didn't seem that funny anymore. Simply mentioning anything remotely sexual did not automatically win you the black card. Putting down a white card that wasn't quite relevant, even if it was ridiculously funny, was a surefire way to lose.

As the game went on, I found myself gradually adopting their sense of humor, and by the end, I was picking the best white cards based on the criteria they had been using. But it wasn't a conscious decision by any means; my sense of humor just melded into theirs on its own volition.

This shouldn't have come as a surprise, though. Stick around any group of somewhat immature teenage guys and you'll eventually observe the "circlejerk effect." One guy says something mildly funny, some people laugh, then someone says something else, and more people laugh. Said cycle continues until everyone is yelling inside jokes and rolling on the floor bawling, while onlookers silently judge them with bewildered looks on their faces.

Given that, I don't see why the process couldn't go the other way -- the "anti-circlejerk effect," if you will. In other words, the all-too-familiar "no one else finds it funny so I shouldn't either."

Funny how I never realized until now that our sense of humor is really just another offspring of peer pressure. We laugh at things that others find funny because we want to fit in; we don't laugh at things that no one else is laughing at because we don't want to seem out of place.

And just like most things involving peer pressure, eventually you start to internalize it -- you adopt their sense of humor.

Laughter isn't just contagious because its in our nature: it's contagious because we are insecure.

Newtown

Social media has evidently granted everyone a detective kit and an ego to go with it.

"Yeah, I'm an asshole."

There seems to be a belief that calling yourself out as an asshole gives you permission to be one.

It really doesn't. You're still an asshole. And if anything, it's worse because even though you're aware that you have a problem, you still don't give a shit.

I should listen to my own advice.

Feelings

I fear those who can change their feelings to what they know they should be feeling.

The nice guy loses

"I was late to understand that chaos and intensity are no substitute for lasting love, nor are they necessarily an improvement on real life. Normal people are not always boring. On the contrary. Volatility and passion, although often more romantic and enticing, are not intrinsically preferable to a steadiness of experience and feeling about another person. These are beliefs, of course, that one has intuitively about friendships and family; they become less obvious when caught in a romantic life that mirrors, magnifies, and perpetuates one's own mercurial emotional life and temperament."

Is it odd that I never found instability to be appealing?

Connecting the dots

"When she was young, Kate's mother pressured her away from eating unhealthily. If Kate asked for dessert, she would respond 'Are you sure about that, Kate?' and Kate would drop the issue."

It's implied that Kate's mother was a major factor in Kate's eventual development of anorexia. The authors point out that such a strict eating lifestyle must have damaged Kate's already-low self esteem (her sister and mother were thinner and prettier), and as such, may have led to her eating disorder several years down the road.

They cite a few other small, similar incidences, where Kate's appearance was called into question by people she loved. And these little events, they claim, were what contributed to her anorexia.

But I call bullshit, thanks to a little thing called confirmation bias.

Because when you've already seen the outcome, it's a hell of a lot easier to connect the dots.

This incident at age 6 was her first incidence of eating-related stress.  
Her boyfriend suggested that they go running together in the mornings, and 4 months later she started skipping meals. 
She chose to write her high school psychology paper on anorexia.

My point is, if you give me enough dots, I guarantee you I can pull something out of my ass that will connect the story from start to finish.

Who knows how many mothers have said that exact same line to their daughters; what mother doesn't want their child to eat healthily? I know my mom used to tell me that all the time.

But that sure doesn't make me, or virtually every other child in this country, anorexic.

Neither does writing a paper on anorexia serve as a precursor to the disease. If that's true, then I'm screwed. I've got cancer, Alzheimer's, and hepatitis, along with practically every nameable mental illness, coming my way.

If you know what you're looking for and you've got an entire lifetime of history to search through, it's pretty damn easy to prove whatever you please.

Umbrella

I don't know why I have this tendency to patronize people. It's not as if I know any better; I just happen to have a big mouth.

I'm still doing that here, unfortunately. I don't think I categorize people into archetypes as instinctively anymore, but still -- some people just seem to fit into the molds so well. There's the good old down-to-earth guy, there's the crazy asshole, there's the quiet Asian girl, and there's the arrogant douchebag. Appearances and slight mannerisms aside, we all seem to come from a blueprint.

But on second thought, I lied. I know very well why I can be so patronizing.

I'm arrogant.

I've realized that I gravitate towards the archetype that seems lost and needs help, not necessarily because I'm a nice guy who likes helping, but because it's also a way to boost my ego. It's like how some college freshmen love helping seniors with college essays; I'm sure everyone has their own intentions for wanting to help, but there's definitely a certain kind of satisfaction from being a "superior" authority on something (even if its a false sense of authority).

"Help" may be the ends, but various are the means. I could be walking you back with my umbrella because I don't want you to get wet, or because I thought you looked lonely and wanted someone to talk to. Either way, I'm holding an umbrella above you.

That's the thing, though; regardless of what I'm doing and how you choose to interpret it, I'm still putting myself above you, intentionally or not.

Perhaps this is a better way of phrasing it:
Do you volunteer at a charity to help people? Or do you volunteer to feel good about yourself?

Just something to think about, I guess. Maybe I'm being too hard on myself.