"That crazy banana guy"

As far as I remember, no one has ever asked me this, but for the sake of argument, I'll lie and pretend someone did. So:

"Ryan, why do you act so crazy?"
Well you see, young grasshopper, I act so crazy because.....

Because...

....well, because I'm not. 

I make retarded faces in photos not because I'm some crazy fool or a fun-loving bro. No, I make myself look stupid because I'm an insecure bastard. Pretending I'm at one of the extremes (in my case, by being crazy) is simply a way for me to avoid judgment of my normal self.

So I put on this mask of being extremely crazy.


In some ways, the first week of AID was actually an experiment for me to see how difficult it would be to put on a new mask and still be convincing. I wanted to see how far I could get with putting on a show of being a class clown and a fairly relaxed guy that doesn't worry about things. I wanted to try to redefine myself, now that I was in a new environment.

Well, if the comments I received on the last two days of training are any indication, I guess I did a pretty good job.

Andrew brings up an important point, though; suppose I were alone in a room, with no one to watch or listen to me. If the Bee Gees or whatever started playing, I'm pretty sure I would still sing along with my inane falsetto and contort my face like it went through a smoothie blender. And if the banana song came along, I definitely would start bobbing my head around and doing the motions.

So maybe the mask is already a part of me. Maybe every time I put on a different persona, I'm not actually pretending to be someone I'm not, but merely changing which layer of my personality is on the surface.

A bit dishonest, but it's infinitely more interesting that way.

Stage IV

Hair like snow. Further treatment cancelled.

A close friend is a stranger

Immersed in yet another new environment, I have inevitably begun to think about my definition of a "close friend" yet again.

A year ago, I considered a close friend to be someone that I could open up to. But I've since trashed that definition.

Because in all honesty, philosophizing is one of the easiest ways to stroke your ego. Give me the opportunity, and I'll throw some of the most retarded metaphorical cockroach shit at you and make myself sound good while doing it. Put me on a platform an inch above the ground, and I'll preach to you as if I was a mile in the sky.

"Someone I can open up to" is total bull, because as I've noticed from my own behavior and the people I've met, you can open up to whoever the hell you want, and no one will think twice about it.

At least for me, I have yet to stop and stare quizzically at anyone who's opened up to me as if I were thinking "why the hell are you talking to me about this." Of course I haven't. Those kinds of conversations are a guilty pleasure for all of us. We're so infatuated with philosophical conversations because at any age, it's comforting to know that we're not alone with our existentialist crises, however idiotic they are.

So a person that I can "really talk to" (as an acquaintance of mine puts it) is no longer good enough.

-------------------------------

Around a month ago, I read a post that said "the reason we care about how people view us over the internet is because they have no social obligation to lie to us." It is from this exact post that Leon chose his definition of a stranger.

Interestingly enough, though, I'm starting to see those exact same words as my definition of a close friend: someone that I don't feel a need to lie to. With that degree of comfort and understanding, I no longer feel that apprehension for approval. I can be however goddam honest I want, and he/she will be okay with it.

And as I've seen within the last year, it's these people that I find myself coming back to.

So in that sense, strangers and friends are one and the same. Total anonymity and total intimacy, it turns out, share quite a bit in common.

Iron molds

Summer camps have always felt like continuations of the school year to me. Not so much in the actual activities or work that I do (hell, I just spent the last week being a crazy idiot), but the people that I see.

We all went to the night market the other day, and apart from the ~1000 NT dollars Leon and I threw into this one ping-pong game (the adorable prizes are shown below), the only thing I'll care enough to remember a year from now is the phallic-pineapple cake store.

We are victorious.

Aaaand here's the pineapple pastry gone wrong.

Turns out this store is a franchise.

"A piece of Gayke"

It occurred to me that at some point in time, someone out there had to ask somebody else to make those iron molds. Must have been a funny conversation.

Then again, we're all from a mold of some sort, aren't we?

There's the strange guy in your English class who does all right in school, but makes retarded noises and sings for no reason as if he was 4 years old (I'm one of these). Then there's the girl who can't resist putting her hands on some male at all times. There's the guy who is so down-to-earth that you look up to him. And there's the huge dude whose intimidating appearance belies his soft personality. I've seen these archetypes at school. And now I've seen them at AID.

I can take every person that I met last week, and connect them to people that I know back in California.

"If you are one in a million, there are 7000 people just like you."

Advice

"I always pass on advice. That is the only thing to do with it. It is never any use to oneself."
-Oscar Wilde

I've talked to plenty of people about their pre-college breakups, and when I do, I make an effort to be honest; most of the time, I feel like holding onto futile hopes is worse than having no hope at all.

It was only after last Saturday that I realized just how right Oscar Wilde was.

See, I used to pride myself on being a decent friend to talk to for advice because I'm realistic and rational.

It never hit me that the only reason I can be so rational is because I'm never talking about myself. I care about his/her feelings, yes. But no matter what, in the end, I'm not the one who actually has to deal with the problem. I'm just that annoying backseat driver that spews out logic and reasoning, comforting or not.

What I'm getting at is, the last two days have been a lot more painful than I'd like to admit. I've tried to comfort myself with my own medicine, but hell, it seems my heart just doesn't feel like listening to my brain right now.

Ryan, who is supposedly the stone-cold logician that listens only to reason, has rejected his self-proclaimed lifeblood in favor of his emotions.

I don't consider myself rational anymore. I've merely been that infuriating voice in the back of the classroom, blurting out all of the answers incessantly, yet suddenly going silent and quivering the moment I get moved to the front and have to deal with the pressure.

No, I'm not rational. I'm just as driven by my emotions as anyone.

No one is truly rational.

You're so weird.

I don't think people in high school school realized this, but I actually take it as a compliment when people call me weird. Yeah, maybe I'd rather be deemed "chill, awesome, super nice" or whatever buzzwords are flying around at the the time. But I know I'm not any of the above.

See, at the very least, being weird (and embracing it) means that you're not too worried about being different. And based on my admittedly short existence, that's the kind of person I tend to find more interesting.

No, I'm not a hipster.

It's eerily similar to why I also consider calling someone a dork to be a compliment. If urbandictionary is to be trusted, a dork is "Someone who has odd interests, and is often silly at times. A dork is also someone who can be themselves and not care what anyone thinks."

Of course, it's not like I've enjoyed the company of every weird person or dork that I've met. But you have to admit: in their own little way, these kinds of people have a certain kind of confidence -- a good confidence.

And I guess that, because I've met so many people with the other kinds of confidence (arrogance for example), I find the weirdos and dorks to be refreshing.

In conclusion, I'm weird.

Romanticizing

"Or love in general, for that matter. It just leads to the idea that either your love is pure, perfect, and eternal, and you are storybook-compatible in every way with no problems, or you're LYING when you say I love you."


Yeah, I found the comic pretty funny, especially since one of my friends seems to fit into that panel quite well. But the mouse over text (the quote underneath the comic) was a lot more interesting to me.


To be clear, he's not saying that we should freely say the phrase "I love you" to just anyone. He's not trying to criticize society for holding something as finicky and abstract as love on a high pedestal.

He is pointing out the problem with romanticizing love. And by romanticize, he doesn't mean being romantic or mushy; he means taking love and running it though seven different hair stylists and makeup artists, then topping it off with a Photoshop session so that the end result is unblemished and, well, perfect.

- too perfect.

It's become very apparent over the last few months that we disagree on a number of things. But I'm totally fine with that; if anything, I enjoy it. It makes our conversations a lot more lively and engaging. As much as we like our opinions to be affirmed, a wall that just echoes every word doesn't make for very interesting conversation.

It didn't come as a surprise to me that we disagree on love and marriage. She believes in perfect, ideal marriages filled with equally perfect, eternal love. She says it's a girl thing, that it's every girl's guilty dream to grow up to find a perfect man. And I can respect that.

I thought about it though, and I realized that I've never really believed in perfect marriages or perfect love. For as long as I can remember, my opinion on it hasn't really changed one way or the other. But I don't think that's just because I've always been pragmatic my entire life, or because my parents raised me to be skeptical of perfect love.

I've never believed in perfect love because I don't want it to be perfect. I don't want love to be eternal, to be wholly unconditional and unbreakable.

Because if that's true, then what's stopping you from taking it for granted? Your infatuation?

Hah. Infatuation.


No, I want love to be fragile. I want it to be challenging -- a struggle, if you will.
I want it to be something worth fighting for - long after I already found it.

Because perfection isn't beautiful.
Pain is.