Leavin' Stuff Behind

I've been practicing martial arts for about a decade now. Regarding wushu, specifically - about nine years. Depending on who you ask, that's either a lot of time, or not very much time - such is the state of the sport, where some of the best practictioners are tiny children who are barely in high school, let alone college, and where some of the world's best are mostly younger than me by at least a few years. Of the 'grand old masters' there appear to be few... very few.

I could, in a sense, leave it all behind.

That makes it sound like I'm quitting. That's not the case, exactly - but there are some things about my participation in it that will probably be very different from now on.

When I started, it was as part of a college club. It was a small club - as such is was like a family, albeit a horribly dysfunctional one. Everyone there, myself included, was odd, peculiar, and had a lot of growing up to do, but that by itself doesn't present anything unusual, given that most of the members were somewhere between the ages of 18 and 21. By and large, that's a pretty awkward bracket of time for a lot of people. Most children are immature and seem to revel in it. 'Mature' adults know when they're actually being mature, and when they're being immature just for the hell of it. But 18-21? It's that maturity 'growing pains' period where so many I've known strive to be hip and be more mature at the same time, when they're actually at their hormone-driven, selfishly-motivated worst. It would be hypocritical if not for the fact that they honestly just don't yet know better. Sure, these are sweeping generalizations... women mature faster than men, and the few women in that club at the time were more 'stable' than the boys. I've known 18-year olds clear-headed and responsible enough to pass for 25, and 28-year-olds who have the mentality of 6-year-old brats. (Ok, that was excessive... 12-year-old brats.)

I'll leave aside the details of most of the bad history, but let's just say that, mostly for the worse, the immature types have not changed, and they carry their foolish ambitions and macho posturing into the later years of their involvement to the detriment of the newer crowds. It was all okay (even though it was rather destructive) at the time, but now we're just all too bloody old to keep carrying on like that, and if this is why wushu in this country has stayed in the state it has, the sport is flat-out doomed; not in the sense that it's ever really going to cease to exist, but that it will never be free from all the petty infighting, selfish squabbling, and immoral scheming. Every generation seems to have had a preponderance of such creeps and dorks so busy slitting each other's throats that the sport is in need of constant transfusions of new blood, and despite the perennial interest, it has never really gone big. It's always on life-support.

For those of you have watched the Karate Kid (which is a movie I truly *don't* like very much), let's just say that the state of the art as i've experienced it is closer to the Cobra Kai dojos than to Mr. Miyagi's bonsai farm.

So why would I stay with such a thing? Doesn't it make me exactly the same kind of fool, to have subjected myself to this for the past nine years?

Well, I can honestly say that it's done a lot for me. Firstly, I'm in decent physical shape for someone who has so far spent most of his life wedged into cubicles and desks. Secondly, there was one or two in that group who had a heart. That was enough to keep me there... I'd have been gone entirely from this if not for those few. Thirdly, after I'd left that first group behind (to think that I stayed there for 6 of those 9 years. Extraordinary.) and helped form a new one at a different school, everything changed. It's been a much better group than the first had been, where most, if not all the participants, are very supportive. Even if they're not universally 'mature,' there's less posturing, more training, and a whole lot more in the way of sincerity and genuine contribution. Over the last four years, this group has given me a lot of hope. Part of me worried about whether or not they'd survive and stay true to their spirit, given the environment around them.

I think that they will - they've rekindled a lot of my faith in humanity. People aren't all just egocentric, hedonistic, witless jerks. There are a lot of them out there, but people can also be generous, selfless, and nurturing. I love this group dearly... but it's also a college club, and I couldn't stay forever. College clubs always stay about the same age, but individuals grow older, and every year, it comes time for some of them to leave. I haven't overstayed my welcome - but strictly speaking, I've probably overstayed my time. We miss each other a lot, and I'll visit and help from time to time, but let's just say that, if ever I was, I'm no longer one of the 'main characters' there.

Besides, with the rest of my life beckoning, especially my aimless career, I've had to move on, physically speaking. I'm now spending most of my time in a town too far removed from group #2 to see them often, so the separation has been an enforced one.

I'm actually back in the vicinity of group #1, which has changed in a lot of ways. For one thing, there are about six times as many people there as when I first walked through the door. Some of the same old pustulent parasites still reside there, like a persistent fungal infection, but they're thankfully a minority now. The newer faces - I don't know if I'll ever really get to know them all that well, because I spend a lot of time in classes and I need a lot more sleep than I used to. There's also the age problem - I'm getting older, and they're all between 18 and 21 - relating might be difficult.

But every martial artist gets older. If there's a natural tendency to live a quieter life apart from the throng, away from the kind of exuberance and energy that used to typify the self at a time when everything was new, when the drive to prove oneself was a desperate one, I'm closer to it now. I have plenty of other things to worry about; in a way I couldn't really bear to be too much a part of all the reckless energy anymore.

I've been in the gradual process of withdrawing from the sport, to spend more time with the art. I don't think I have any ambitions or pretensions associated with it now, if I had them in the past - but I'm actually pretty happy with where I am. It's a pursuit unto itself, which I get to share with a handful of real friends. It always comes back to that. I don't need the mob; I don't need *lots* of anything, as long as what I have is real.

Wish Fulfillment

A lonely almost-holiday. It's not New Year's Eve, or New Year's Day quite yet, but I've been alone most of the day in a quiet, empty house. It's a pretty big house.

Lonely time is ok given the circumstances, though - I've been getting over a slight cold since finals, and most of the last week has been spent largely in bed, just recuperating from the semester. Not that I'm being a baby about it, though - law school's a certain amount of work - school's always more or less work, depending on how much of yourself you care to put into it. As someone who's found most of his identity in school, it matters to me, and so I put in more than most people.

Not because I'm good at it, and not because I feel like I have anything left to prove... but because it's me, and that's what I do.

But that also makes me not terribly good at keeping in touch over the semester. I've now caught up with some of my friends, but I've still plenty of catching up left to do. Fortunately, it feels like I've got enough time to do it... another three weeks of vacation yet to be spent :)

Today's not the day for it, though. Most people are home for the holidays... a lot of my friends are either young enough such that they're spending their holiday at home with family, or have set out from the Bay Area for New Year's. I didn't have anyone to hang out with today. Time for another nap.

That led to a pleasant dream, which is a luxury for me. Most of my dreams are nightmares of one sort or another. On a good night, my dreams are just nonsensical or strange. This one lasted for hours - and I spent it in the company of friends. I don't quite remember what we all talked about, where we were, or even everyone who was there, but it was definitely a pleasant dream, full of good cheer, *probably* good food, and camaraderie of the kind that goes into great storybooks.

Happy New Year's to all of you out there who were with me today, whether you knew it or not. A dream like this is no random occurrence... it's years in the making, springing from the experiences of genuine love and strong bonds.

O Christmas Tree...

I passed the Great Hall on the way back to my room and beheld a 15-foot Christmas Tree bedecked with lights and handmade ornaments crafted by an adorable group of children who had been here at the I-House this afternoon. Such a beautiful sight :)

It was one of those moments where some unseen force - some spiritual manifestation of Life - takes you by the hand and leads your consciousness back to another time, bringing a wash of memories and happy associations to the domain of the present, leaving you with a Sense. A wonderful Presence, reminding you that you are breathing, feeling, and alive, very much in the here and now. A moment to enjoy.

At 15 feet tall, the Chistmas Tree made me feel like a small, joyful child again. It was the same feeling of holiday wonder at the age of 8, long-lost to time and revived by the sight of a tree more than fully twice my height in a warm and dimly lit room. The ceiling of the Great Hall is two stories high; no wonder it made me feel as though I were eight years of age again; the scale was just perfect. The room seemed cavernous, ceiling arching high over my head, air filled with the thick scent of crisp pine needles, the tree's height evoking memories of a towering Parent whose arm alone could I reach, hug, and in doing so, feel secure. I spent a good ten minutes just standing next to and gazing at the tree, its festive lights, its precious ornaments, and marvelling at how its appearance in a cozy room can effect such a change in mentality.

Cookies, Hot Chocolate, and conversation. Soft chairs, cushions, and sofas. A blip in time and space that declared: I am the Holiday Spirit, and while you are here, you are most graciously Mine to comfort.

And for a moment, I did not Worry.

It's not for everyone

It's been a while since last it rained like this. I love it :)

Yesterday, I was running home along the sidewalks of Berkeley, just south of the campus perimeter. I don't quite know when it kicked up the way it did, but it was a classic, if short-lived, rainstorm... the wind gusted almost spastically, causing the torrent to frequently careen one way and then the other, like a huge flock of small birds, all following some undesignated leader. It would have been impossible to actually see it, though, if not for the glow of the street lights reflecting off individual raindrops, making every last one stand out in crisp relief against the darkness.

Did I mention this was about one in the morning?

The only downside was getting wet. I was trudging home with a backpack full of papers, a cellphone in one arm, and a broadsword slung over the other. (Don't ask.) But I've always liked stormy weather, and though I was safe and warm within ten minutes or so, it wasn't all that bad, being rather soaked by the time I walked through the darkened doors of my present home.

Stormy weather suits me. My personality isn't all that sunshiny - I've always had a tendency to be somewhat maudlin. But it's not that the storm's gray and gloom are what fit me. The rain is cool and soothing... so much of life is spent running around and staying artificially busy, it's just nice to look into the sky and let something natural surround you... a reminder that, in a civilized environment where we attempt to exert control over every last detail, where traffic laws and zoning permits and city ordinances dictate where everything should find itself, that mother nature still listens to no one, choosing to offer you comfort, if only you'll recognize it as such. The rain is loud and energetic, the raindrops drowning out the sound of people and wildlife in the dark, a murmuring, rustling patter that creates a kind of white noise that's somehow unusually conducive to contemplation. It keeps me awake and attentive for those moments of introspection I once indulged in so often, and it ushers me off to sleep when my mind, weary from reading and analysis, succumbs to blessed unconsciousness. The wind is furious and majestic, beating against your body, making you aware of an incredible fullness of sensation; in normal, everyday life, it's sometime easy to become relatively unaware of the extent of your own body - rather like the fact that you don't feel the weight of the clothes you wear all day, or of the glasses perched on your nose. The wind reminds you where you are - all of you at once, as the gusting currents awaken sensation across your entire form. The thunder and lightning evoke old images of angry gods from literature and religion, bringing to mind those instances of righteous fury aroused by a slight or insult, or the larger-than-life feeling of triumph at the completion of a quest - depending on your mood, it can make you feel small and timid, or defiant and bold.

Rainstorms make me happy, which some people don't understand... but it's all right with me. It's like my take on being a cynic; being a cynic or misanthrope doesn't mean I've given up on the world, though that's what it might seem by outward appearances. Sometimes, it seems to me that many cynics haven't forsaken their world, or their fellows... some cynics are really idealists who hope for the best and prepare for the worst... and hate, more than anything else, to be proven right.

Visit Home

I just spent a week back at home from law school. A week's not a whole lot of time... so many things on the agenda, not the least of which was relaxation. I'm told that the difficult stretch is these next six weeks... the approach of finals heralds more than just the associated weight of books and stress involved with the finals themselves. There's a whole lot of other things that are supposed to go with it, most of which are ominous if only for the fact that I can't yet make out the sources of the impending threats.

So as in other things, the key is to relax without making so much of an effort in doing so to add to the stress. Wonderful paradox, that... I liken it to stretching in martial arts. You don't want to tense up your muscles, because that impedes a good stretch, and forcing tissues that aren't yet that flexible can lead to pulls and tears. Oddly, just as it starts to get uncomfortable, you need to breathe out, release as much of the tension in the straining muscles as you can, and then lean into it a little further. You can't go farther if you don't relax. Yet, with the shaking strain which accompanies a stretch near your current limit of flexibility, it's only natural to tense up, as somehow trying to stretch farther creates the strain in the first place.

So it goes until you get really flexible, anyway. I can't say I'm there yet. Hopefully I'll get there by finals.

I rested some and studied some. More than either, however, I caught up with my friends :) Friends from all over... mostly recent friends. I wasn't able to catch up with everyone, either. I had a whole week, and I wasn't able to give everyone enough time... a small guilt trip for keeping the visit so short, but that was drowned out by the flush of happiness that comes with realizing that you've got so many friends, you can spend a whole week home and yet have nearly all those meetings end sooner than anybody really wants. And that includes my family... I didn't quite get to see enough of them, either.

Cheers to all of you with whom I did manage to catch up in the past week. Love you guys :)

The Lovelorn

Some people have never experienced, and will never experience, love, either of the body or of the soul. Some people just aren't fortunate enough to have experienced romance. At least, I think they're the unfortunate ones. I happen to be one of them.

But of course, that requires that you equate love with romance...

Some of us experience different sorts. Most people are fortunate enough to at least experience familial love - that undying, unconditional love given by one's parents. It is at once precious because you know that they'll always love you, no matter what. And at the same time, too easily forgotten for the very fact that it *isn't* conditional. Even this kind of love cannot be taken for granted; some of the worst pain in the world must be felt by the people whose parents actually do not love them. It's not something that most of us like to face every day, but there are people out there who have no love for their parents and vice-versa. I can't imagine what that's like, nor do I want to.

There's true friendship - that's a kind of love also. I've never experienced romantic love, and I believe myself much the poorer for the lack of such experience - it really does leave one feeling quite hollow - but of friends, I have no shortage. This is not mere acquaintance-friendship, either - some of these people love me like a brother, as a role-model (how frightening is that?), as an equal - sometimes all at once. It's kind of odd, but some of the same people who see me as sort of a mentor, like me all the more for the fact that I treat them as absolute equals. That they can ask me for advice or pat me on the head, depending on the context. I guess that's wherein lies the symbiosis... there are some things in this life I'm really good at, and at least as many, if not more, at which I'm hopelessly inept. We help each other.

There's also the most wretched sort of love - the unrequited variety. This kind is no gift at all. It's pure, cosmic spite - it's life laughing at you. And it's nobody's fault - one of the problems about romantic love is that frequently, it's not returned. One has to understand - you won't end up feeling romantically inclined towards everyone who shows interest in you - by the same token, you can't necessarily demand the same from the people to whom you're attracted. Love's just like that.

I'm past believing I'm the most unattractive person in the world - to continue believing that would do a graceless, thankless repudiation of all the gifts with which I've been bestowed in this life. Without arrogance or egotism, I have to admit that I've been blessed with a few things that many people I've met have wished mightily that they themselves had. I also have to admit that they're just that - gifts. Luck of the draw. It would be absurd for me to take credit for something I had no part in acquiring or developing for myself. All this endless experience with unrequited love isn't anything more than simple bad luck. It almost seems like a karmic balance for the good luck I've had in other ways. Can't have it all.

But such absence is felt all too keenly. Most people have hollows in their lives. Some are touched with that blessed ignorance that forbids them any notice of it. Others are graced with the inner strength to live and deal with the things that they don't have. I, it seems, have neither. If either of those gifts were mine, perhaps I'd not be writing about it now.

But I look back on these past few months and realize that the three happiest moments I've recently had all involved hugs. One last week, one a month before that, and one a month before that. In each case, a warm, full-bodied hug of utter acceptance, appreciation, and sympathy - speaking of the thankfulness we each have for the very existence of the other, gratitude for favors done without request, attention and contact needed ever so badly, and a soundless release of tension and anguish - two shoulders to lean on for a moment in a world where we're all run ragged, with no respite offered from any corner save that offered by a few people who really understand.

Hugs can be profound. They're not all the same - but there are a few that say things to which no word can give voice. And although I can't say this for sure, I'd venture to guess that they can also say a few things that kisses never could.

Uneasy Truce

My demons and I have an interesting relationship. Well, perhaps not really... I figure that most people who have demons, have an interesting relationship with them.

They are my enemy; they feed off my soul, they thrive on my pain. When they believe that they have the upper hand, they push the advantage, striving to force me into the downward spiral that seems to be the lifegoal of any demon that plagues any other person.

But they are my tool; their rage becomes mine. And though it burns me from the inside out, I use the power, not as they see fit, but instead as I see fit; sometimes I work best when I'm angry. It's odd that, even as they try to push me down, I use their torment as fuel for my own fire. So what if it's the Dark Side of the Force? I'm shooting the lightning bolts at the right targets.

As a small but amusing example; I can't shoot pool worth a spit. One day, though, I happened to be shooting pool and I saw a bunch of people who really annoy me walk in. I continued playing - sinking shot after shot with serious authoritah. The people I was playing with noticed the tenfold increase in skill, and remarked that anger really does a lot for my game.

A more mundane, but significant example; it made me do well in school. Especially as an undergrad. I was actually able to concentrate on studies whilst pissed off - a neat trick, really - not everyone can do that. When I'm busy counting my curses, it's hard not to count this one as an odd sort of blessing.

It's negative energy, but if that's all you got, why waste it? I would rather channel the only strength I have instead of merely trying to dissipate it as waste heat.

On different levels, I know that there are other people who understand the same thing, but in different ways. Charles Schultz noted that sadness, not happiness, tends to create humor. Cartoon characters usually go through travails, the observation of which makes us laugh. Only occasionally do comics manage to make us smile through a sense of sympathy and not mockery. Dilbert is an odd example of both with simultaneity; Calvin and Hobbes also manages to do both, only it manages to do so separately.

Enjelani also manages to channel demons towards creative ends. She even manages to do so in a way that produces results that are literally beautiful. I only wish that it were possible for me to do something like that, but I'll settle for useful torment if the only alternative is self-destructive torment.

Let the little fiends nettle away, damn them. I'm sure that the fact that I can use them as well as they use me annoys the living piss out of them.

Geek Speak

Professions have jargon. Abbreviations and lingo seem necessary - we get too tied up in lengthy and technical phrases otherwise. It'd be impossible to get any work done if we spent all of our time enunciating the proper or plainspeak names for the concepts we spend so much of our time discussing.

Of course, that same lingo describes to the outside world what you do by association...

HTML, JSP, ASP, kernel, O/S, MB, priority queue, virtual machine, polymorphism, asynchronous transfer mechanism, Steiner Trees, NP-complete, Runtime analysis... you're clearly talking tech.

Tortfeasor, Res Ipsa Loquitur, Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc, Malum In Se, Replevin, Adjudication, Mens Rea, Prima Facie, Quid Pro Quo, In Forma Pauperis, summary judgment, vicarious liability, then you're talking law.

GDP, MPC, I, X, M, externality, PPF, indifference curve, present discounted value, marginal cost, Ceteris Paribus, oligopolistic competition, competitive advantage, inelasticity, utility function... econ.

It distinguishes the profession. It's one of many traits. It leaves some onlookers in awe - it leaves others in disgust. It sets you apart in a good way - it's a campaign ribbon that speaks to the world and to your peers where you've been in a professional sense. It sets you apart in a bad way - only geeks talk like this. Sometimes, people ride the coattails of jargon, pretending erudition through mimicked command of outwardly mysterious and indecipherable terminology.

And sometimes it confuses you. Let's just say that JSP and ASP appear to mean different things in law school than they do in the CS department. And that 'pi' and 'delta' are functionally overloaded in law school for anyone who has a background in math or science. This confuses me frequently...

The internal division is harder to maintain than I might have once thought.

Edgy Perspective

Looking down the blade of a two-edged sword.

That's what it means to have a blessing, or a curse. Everyone has blessings of a sort, but every blessing, no matter what kind, seems to have some effect on your psyche. It definitely colors the way you look at the world. The way you see things. The joys you take, the needs you have... all these things make up who you are in a very real way, I think. Your wishes - the things you want, but don't or can't have - are as much a part of your constituency as anything you do indeed have. It's not always about the simple idea of greed, either... your dreams, your longings, the things you reach for but can't attain - those strivings, futile or not, move you through many days in your life. I suppose that, depending on who you are, you could disagree with me; that's all good. That's your life, perhaps - but I can only speak for what's been the case for me, and for a lot of people I've known and met, be they content with their lives or not.

One of the most well-known platitudes is this: "Ignorance is bliss." Even ignorant people have heard that one before... and the very saying seems to carry with it a certain absurdity. It shouldn't be true, but it is. By comparison, the search for knowledge is supposed to leave you fulfilled, but the learned are often accosted by another cliche: "The more I learn, the more I realize I don't know."

But put aside those generalizations for the moment. I'm willing to bet that if you took a more immediate, concrete, well-defined thread running through your life, you'll see it for the mixed blessing that it is... that for better or worse, it colors who you are and moves your thoughts every day. Sometimes it's only there for a few moments at a time, the light of consideration glinting off that particular tile in your mosaic depending on how the sun's shining that particular day. And sometimes, the spotlight of your consciousness comes to rest on that one tile at an annoying angle, reflecting a searing, piercing lance of brilliance straight into your dominant thoughts, making you wish you could just turn your head and look away.

Too abstract? Too ambiguously philosophical? Too inarticulately incoherent? If you think so, I don't blame you... I've just finished a long day of reading and I'm posting at past 1am. So I'll illustrate with but one example from my life... perhaps it'll make more sense with a specific example.

"Mean people suck." Not exactly profound... it's plastered on bumper stickers all over the place. But as a child, I was the runt in my classroom. Always the smallest, always the strangest. The least loved, and in so many ways. You know the little kid who always got picked on? Called names? Chosen last when the captains picked their teams in P.E.? That was me. A common enough story... it's amazing how many of us there are, considering that there's only supposed to be one in any classroom full of kids, but there you go. I was kind of an unlikeable person, though - thinking back on it, I know I wouldn't have liked myself much either, so it's not like I could have blamed them. Between them being kids, and me being me, it seemed the only outcome possible.

That was nothing compared to college, though. You'd think that this sort of thing got better with age, but as it turns out, all the stuff that I really resented as a kid - that was just part and parcel of the hell that is American Childhood. Particularly, it seems, if you happen to be Asian American, male, and shorter than a pygmy hedgehog. But in college, I learned about real malice, and genuine spite. I learned about people who weren't physical bullies so much as emotional ones - the wounded, inadequate-feeling souls who can only staunch the ichor dripping from their own wounds by opening up more gaping ones in the people around them. I had always been something of a cynic, but people like these finally gave that cynicism a target of merit.

So it left me a rather bitter person. I've met a few people who just can't fathom the meanness that I'm talking about. Some people have *never* had people be mean to them on quite the same level - they may read today's post, figure that I must be exaggerating everything, and dismiss this as the ramblings of just another bitter person. That's ok - I don't blame them. If they've never known what I'm talking about, so much the better - life can be lived without understanding it.

But it's not just about being bitter - just being bitter means being broken, like a pack mule. Like any good little defiant, raging misfit, I decided for myself that meanness of this kind was simply an evil thing, and that I'd move against it by living my life in a different way. I could tell that some people were just mean, because they were cursed with certain problems and that this is how they dealt with it. What was scary, though, was the fact that many of their problems weren't so far removed from mine, or the people I called my friends. So the way I ended up seeing it, is that it's all about how you deal with them.

I did put my foot down, at least where I was concerned. I did act on a determination not to be just another self-interested bastard. I learned to teach classes, I helped found a martial arts club, and I put in a conscious effort to be a helpful and thoughtful person in general. Especially in the beginning, it was just a charade. I didn't feel any of it in any genuine way - it was just me giving voice to my distaste for wantonly mean people. Not wanting to become one of them, I made an effort to act in the opposite way - not out of heart, but out of principle. It was just the way I saw things. Gradually, I let that become a greater part of being who I am - or at least, who I think I am. And now I can honestly say that it *feels* like a part of my heart now, and not just a set of motions I go through on ideological grounds.

But what's the difference, then? The difference remains in the perspective. Put me in a roomful of 'nice' people (especially when I'm in a good mood - and believe it or not, that happens. You probably wouldn't know it from my posts, though) and on the surface, we'll all seem the same. Put one mean person in there, though, and you can see the difference in perspective. Some people would just be annoyed by this person. Others would be hurt. I would be royally pissed off, gnashing and cursing and just begging that the cosmos would see fit to hand that person a painful and violent death. The difference is all in the history that mean people and I have had with each other. A history that, quite possibly, I have yet to fully come to terms with.

But it's not just an attitude. It's not just a holding, a feeling, or even a conviction. It's something upon which I act; not in the sense that I go around plotting the downfall of mean people, no. But rather, in the fact that I'm very, very conscious of the way that I act towards people and the things I've chosen to do with my life. It's never more than a few layers down in my thoughts. It's that coloration that's a part of what really makes the things that I do, unique to me. In a sense, it really does define in part who I am.

It's not quite a curse or a blessing. It's a curse in that it has made me a pretty fundamentally unhappy person, since these unpleasant musings are always running in the background, often keeping me from fully appreciating all the other good things I've got in my life. It's a blessing in that it makes me consciously avoid become a generally selfish person wholly heedless to the needs of others, as I've seen happen to more than a few other people, either through malicious intention or just a simple and very forgivable lack of awareness. I had a tendency to be very selfish when I was much younger; I might well have turned out much more badly if not for a mixed blessing like this.

Hopefully you'll have a more happy example than that for yourself. But take, for a moment, a sense or a feeling you've had all your life, about who you've been, and see how that's guided who you are and what you do. Why you understand certain viewpoints and perspectives unique to you which you believe no one else can really understand.

The truth is, it's more than likely that, for any given thread you pick, there *is* someone out there who'll see it the same way you do, who'll understand what you mean. The part that makes it feel lonely, is that sometimes it seems like the people who you most want to understand it are the ones who'll never quite get it. And it's only because they haven't been through what you have, whether it happens to be a blessing, a curse, or both. It's why they are who they are - and why, for better or worse, they will never be you.

Flicker of Simplicity

Most of my waking hours these days are filled with books. Lots of books, tomes packed with legal cases and bits of odd hair-splitting analysis. I've always spent a lot of time around books... back as an undergrad, I found that I was one of the few people who ever actually did the reading for all of my classes. Granted, I didn't know any better at the time.

It seems I've spent enough of my time engaged in the cerebral such that there are all sorts of little things I've forgotten along the way. They're small, maybe even akin to a child's simple joys... but it both delights and disturbs me sometimes at how new all of it can seem to me at times... I musn't forget to be human while I'm at my studies.

I ran across a field of grass back to my room tonight, just after the sun went down. I cut through the lawn because I was running downhill, in a hurry, the books on my shelf beckoning menacingly. The sweet smell of grass washed over me, as though it were for the first time, and for a good ten seconds or so, it was all I could think about. Light and sweet, thin and pure, a smell almost as good as the bouquet of flowers I keep in my room, but not as pungent. It didn't smell like fresh-mown grass, either... not sickly sweet or overpowering... this smelled healthy, cool, and alive. I could almost drink it, and no, it didn't 'taste' like wheatgrass...

Maybe it's because I've been eating lousy food for about a month and a half now, but if I could somehow distill the scent of that field into something one could drink, I swear it could be like Olympian nectar.

Gratitude
Since most blogs work in reverse chronological order, the order of my posts is going to look a little strange. Nonetheless, if you're a friend of mine and you happen to read this, know that this one's for you in particular. My posts are unfortunately and probably going to be characterized by the tendency to be pensive at best, and by the display of varying degree's of P.O.'d-ness much of the rest of the time.

That'll be a shock to some of you who, for one reason or another, haven't yet had the occasion to see me either angry or upset. I know there are at least a few of you out there who've only seen me happy. It's really quite simple; you are the reason for it. If I've always seemed happy around you, it's because you've made me happy, and that's not something I ever take for granted. It's not what's usual for me, not what's normal for me. I could be about a third of the way through my life already, and to my great regret, most of those times seem to not have been good ones, either tainted with longing or roiling with outrage, and probably mostly for the fact that my mind tends always to be unsatisfied with my personal state of affairs. Certainly I've tried to place the blame for it, as futile as it might be - invariably I'm led to believe that it's both my fault and not my fault. A simple, almost worthlessly ambiguous response for a question that's sometimes difficult even to phrase or understand, much less answer.

I'm almost resigned to the thought that life's never going to be very happy. Certainly, the average number of joyful hours in the average day amounts to something significantly less than one. Most days go by with nary a minute of real joy, despite any and all efforts. Some people make it a goal in life to be happy. Finding that to have been hopeless, I settle for attempting to fight the good fight instead.

So any time that you remember spending a hour or two in my company, sharing in good conversation and humor, or basking in camaraderie, remember that on that occasion, you truly made my day. Literally hundreds of times better than any old average day. Those are the moments I live for. They don't ever happen without you.

Drunken hall talk

Two guys were just talking about a weekend barbeque in the hallway. They seemed more than a little out of it, with their talk laden with Spoonerisms. One of the better zingers:

"What kind of brarbeque do you have?"

"We've got a grass gill."

"Are you going to put skrewers on the grass gill?"

This might be fun... I'll try it for at least a while. I've avoided keeping one of these mostly in the belief that, not only do I not have much to say, I don't have much time to be saying it, either.

But as acts of bravery go, I guess that being out here, along with everyone else who has knowingly or unknowingly introduced this blogging thing to me, doesn't constitute anything that should give rise to apprehension. The fact that I wonder about it at all probably has more to do with being shy than anything else.

There'll probably be a lot of misinformed ramblings here, on things like justice, martial ethics, flower arranging, and tea. Things I have an appreciation for, but haven't gone to much trouble learning anything about :)

Oh, perfect example. I ended that last sentence with a preposition, which gives me something to ramble about! ("Oops, I did it again.")

So, of course, we're all told by our grade school/elementary school teachers that the act of ending a sentence with a preposition is tantamount to the commission of a Grammatical Sin. To which most of us, if given liberty to speak our mind at that age (depending on how repressed your childhood experience happened to be) would answer with something along the lines of, "As if!" Well, perhaps we're not all so wrong in the wish to defy the draconian traditions of Standard Written English. At least in this case ;)

Shakespeare wrote in english. But it's not the sort of english we use anymore, not just in the sense of vernacular speech, but also in the rules of of S.W.E.. That's an obvious thing to note - I think we've all probably noticed that, whether or not you personally happen to like Shakespeare. If you spoke or wrote Shakespeare-style today, you'd get one of several possible reactions, but I'm guessing they'd probably fall between the range of "how romantic!" to "how insufferably geeky." Language evolves, and sometimes regresses. Duh, right?

Which brings me to this article in the Cal Alumni Magazine... I really enjoyed reading it when I came across it last year. It's an interview with John McWhorter, who's an associate professor of linguistics at Berkeley. (last I checked.) One of the specific things he talks about in this article is the conflict between the common practice of ending sentences with prepositions and the (in my view) gratingly sophistic rule against it. It's nice to know that not only are there many people who'd agree with this opinion, there are people who have a good, plausible, rational explanation as to why this rule is as arbitrary as many of us may have thought all along. There's a certain utilitarian advocacy in his writing, as you'd expect, but hey, it's an interview, not a treatise.

I guess that I just personally have it in for some rules of grammar... but perhaps this is because they're closely associated with what I consider to be a traumatic childhood event. (Okay, so it was too trivial to be truly traumatic, but it's my blog and I can use melodramatic hyperbole anytime I want, right?) It was my first day in first grade, it's the first time I'd ever opened my grammar workbook... and on a whim I decide to start doing my fill-in-the-blank exercises in black crayon. At the end of the day, I got a reproving note from the teacher (who admittedly, was just doing her job in a way any normal person might expect) telling me that I should not fill out my workbooks in crayon.

I was stung. I was crushed. (Yes, I had a very fragile ego back then. It persists in being brittle to this day.) It was just black crayon! It wasn't intended to be an act of subversive rebellion or anything! Hmph. A little whimsy, a little creativity, with no intent to harm anyone, and *SMACK*. "No, little boy. You can't do that."

And with that, I journeyed into eight of the most miserable years of my life. (Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm maudlin. Sue me, and I'll sue you right back =P)

Ironic, then, that I now find myself in law school of all places.