My ode to hope against hope (appropriately drenched with adolescent-style pathos).
Although I shy away from these types of posts, I think that it's fairly safe to be more open because I think my audience is much more limited than I give credit for.
A while ago, I predicted that this semester would probably end with a lot of personal drama, and I'm fairly confident that my prophecy will indeed fulfill itself. I can definitely feel this tension in the air both academically and emotionally.
To explain more about the emotional side of things, I'm going to refer to Middlemarch by George Eliot. Of course this is unbelievably pretentious, but this is my blog, and the three people that read this probably won't be too upset by it. Anyway. Among many other things, Middlemarch explores the silent drama of people who aspire to greatness and dream and big ways and will never be able to realize those great dreams because of circumstances beyond their control. Now, Eliot places a lot of emphasis on what society does to cut people off from their dreams in order to make the novel a subtle criticism of 19th century Victorian culture. So in that sense, it's hard to relate the novel to my life.
But the point is that right now, I'm in an incredibly emotionally claustrophobic situation because of the people and things that I am pursuing. There are many things like this that people are always pursuing, but for me right now, there are two lofty aims that I am stumbling after:
1.) I want to be a writer.
2.) There’s a girl I like.
The second one is no surprise to anyone who has been unfortunate enough to have close daily contact with me, so I won’t go too in depth about that. (Plus, you never know who actually reads this thing.) The first one I don’t really talk about a lot. It’s like I tell people, just the fact that I would seriously think about applying for an MFA program in Creative Writing means that I’m assuming quite a bit about my writing. Is my writing really that good? I mean, I’m reading at the Amlit release party on Sunday and I’ve hyped it up to everyone. I’ve been putting off work in order to try and brainstorm ideas for poems. Why? I mean, would anyone really look twice at my poetry as something worthwhile? And of course it’s the same thing with the person I have a crush on. Why am I apparently willing to create such a mess trying to pursue someone who I am 99% sure will not return my affections?
Well, I’ll tell you why. It’s because of that 1%. The remote chance that I may actually write something substantial that generates interest, attention or praise, or the slim possibility that I could possibly mean something to someone that I admire from afar, is ultimately what fuels the insanity. I look all around me and I just see unhappiness, everywhere. Most people swim around in disappointment, mediocrity, fear, and regret. I will probably be one of them. It’s like Calvino says when he writes “You’re the sort of person who, on principle, no longer expects anything of anything. You know that the best you can expect is to avoid the worst.” We’re all surrounded by it, and I’m sure that after these dreams pass and graduation comes I will be dragged down into the warm, comfortable dirt where most people’s lives are lived out.
I think I would be fine with that, on one condition: that at least I know that I’ve tried. So many people never even make an attempt. Talk to anyone, and you’d find so many people whose heads are incubators for the starriest dreams that you’d ever heard and that they kept walled off from the thorns of the world. That’s what scares me, not failure. Failure will be painful, but in the end, I know I will have tried, and I can move on and dig out a reasonably satisfying existence.
That’s not to say it won’t be painful when I fail. It will, and all for one small reason. Among many evolutions I’ve had personally, I think the most significant is this: for the first time in my life, I feel like I have something of value inside of me. Meaning, I genuinely believe that I am an ok writer and that I have something significant to say. Or, I’m not just some lonely and desperate person pining after some girl, but I feel like I actually have something to offer her. I genuinely don’t think that this is delusional on my part, and this is what will make failure so painful.
It’s ok. I’m still going to try, and I’m still going to fail. Am I sure that I’m going to fail? Well, 99% sure. We all know how many people probably dreamed of being writers that never pulled it off, and we know how many people yearned after someone that doesn’t care. So realistically, the odds are against me.
But…there’s always that 1%.
A while ago, I predicted that this semester would probably end with a lot of personal drama, and I'm fairly confident that my prophecy will indeed fulfill itself. I can definitely feel this tension in the air both academically and emotionally.
To explain more about the emotional side of things, I'm going to refer to Middlemarch by George Eliot. Of course this is unbelievably pretentious, but this is my blog, and the three people that read this probably won't be too upset by it. Anyway. Among many other things, Middlemarch explores the silent drama of people who aspire to greatness and dream and big ways and will never be able to realize those great dreams because of circumstances beyond their control. Now, Eliot places a lot of emphasis on what society does to cut people off from their dreams in order to make the novel a subtle criticism of 19th century Victorian culture. So in that sense, it's hard to relate the novel to my life.
But the point is that right now, I'm in an incredibly emotionally claustrophobic situation because of the people and things that I am pursuing. There are many things like this that people are always pursuing, but for me right now, there are two lofty aims that I am stumbling after:
1.) I want to be a writer.
2.) There’s a girl I like.
The second one is no surprise to anyone who has been unfortunate enough to have close daily contact with me, so I won’t go too in depth about that. (Plus, you never know who actually reads this thing.) The first one I don’t really talk about a lot. It’s like I tell people, just the fact that I would seriously think about applying for an MFA program in Creative Writing means that I’m assuming quite a bit about my writing. Is my writing really that good? I mean, I’m reading at the Amlit release party on Sunday and I’ve hyped it up to everyone. I’ve been putting off work in order to try and brainstorm ideas for poems. Why? I mean, would anyone really look twice at my poetry as something worthwhile? And of course it’s the same thing with the person I have a crush on. Why am I apparently willing to create such a mess trying to pursue someone who I am 99% sure will not return my affections?
Well, I’ll tell you why. It’s because of that 1%. The remote chance that I may actually write something substantial that generates interest, attention or praise, or the slim possibility that I could possibly mean something to someone that I admire from afar, is ultimately what fuels the insanity. I look all around me and I just see unhappiness, everywhere. Most people swim around in disappointment, mediocrity, fear, and regret. I will probably be one of them. It’s like Calvino says when he writes “You’re the sort of person who, on principle, no longer expects anything of anything. You know that the best you can expect is to avoid the worst.” We’re all surrounded by it, and I’m sure that after these dreams pass and graduation comes I will be dragged down into the warm, comfortable dirt where most people’s lives are lived out.
I think I would be fine with that, on one condition: that at least I know that I’ve tried. So many people never even make an attempt. Talk to anyone, and you’d find so many people whose heads are incubators for the starriest dreams that you’d ever heard and that they kept walled off from the thorns of the world. That’s what scares me, not failure. Failure will be painful, but in the end, I know I will have tried, and I can move on and dig out a reasonably satisfying existence.
That’s not to say it won’t be painful when I fail. It will, and all for one small reason. Among many evolutions I’ve had personally, I think the most significant is this: for the first time in my life, I feel like I have something of value inside of me. Meaning, I genuinely believe that I am an ok writer and that I have something significant to say. Or, I’m not just some lonely and desperate person pining after some girl, but I feel like I actually have something to offer her. I genuinely don’t think that this is delusional on my part, and this is what will make failure so painful.
It’s ok. I’m still going to try, and I’m still going to fail. Am I sure that I’m going to fail? Well, 99% sure. We all know how many people probably dreamed of being writers that never pulled it off, and we know how many people yearned after someone that doesn’t care. So realistically, the odds are against me.
But…there’s always that 1%.
posted by Justin @ 9:29 PM
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