It's funny, I just read those last 4 sentences back to myself and realized how much they jumped. I still have a ways to go in this life thing; even if there's a lot of Spanish class, cauliflower, ignorant people, crazy family, shot down moments, I just have to keep in mind that someday I could run in college, write a nominated book, find a significant other, or even just be told that I'm appreciated. There's always hope, but the light is dim so you have to look for it.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Holden...again.
So in an earlier post I mentioned how sometimes I really feel like Holden does, calling all others phonies without taking the time to meet them and find out. Just this past afternoon I was looking at my blog and the English blog, saw how only a few (who I appreciate) comment on my posts, out of 12 or 13 which is less than a tenth. It discerns me at times. Then on the English blog I put up a post about my first thoughts on the new book for English class. Even if they were somewhat naive and critical I was still putting in my time and effort to contribute and hope for feedback. But I don't really get any. It's very easy to put yourself out there when staring at a computer screen so you'd think that it would be easy for (even slightly) socially conscious people to do the same and respond/contribute. At first I thought that I'm just difficult to talk to/interact with in general, but recently I've been feeling invisible. The point of this post was to portray how I can relate to Holden's "want to be needed by those that he wants to feel needed by", a catcher of the falling children if you will. Yet most of my bad moods are caused by snowballing problems and burdens. This time it was primed by Asha shooting down a few of my ideas in class and not giving me the airtime I sometimes (when I'm greedy) feel I deserve. In my naive state of mind I think "why do these others kids deserve the airtime if they're not working as hard as me?". At first I really envied Asha's sense of individualism and opinionated ways (and liking cross country). Thus I strove to be the ultimate English dork, but know I'm thinking to myself "Is this the right kind of English dork?". The only true solution to this dilemma is to take as much from the class as possible then compare it to my class next year. Being shot down in one of your strongest areas is never fun. Tomorrow morning I'll be in a car ride to Maryland with this dilemma in the back of my mind. Life really is peculiar isn't it.
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I think that even if you don't get feedback from other people, you can still get feedback from yourself, jsut by rereading your posts. You can figure out what you are trying to ask yourself, and you can figure out an answer. Feedback from other people offers different perspectives because, isn't that all we are? Just perspectives? Just different stories, versions of truth? Feedback can help because through these different perspectives we may find answers we couldn't get through our own.
ReplyDeleteAnd yeah, life throws a lot of "cauliflower" at you, if you know what I mean. But you have to decide how you're going to deal with it. Are you going to be like Holden and just tell everyone off and say they're all phonies and jerks, on the basis of only a couple short experiences with them? Or will you really get to know people by their perspectives, their stories? Or will you just eat the cauliflower? Am I going too far?
I would say that sometimes people really are phonies and that they could just be jerks, but then there are those few people who aren't phonies that are worth the time to get along with and are also worth the intellectual effort to talk to. In my opinion these people are few and far between and when you do find them you end up keeping in touch with them throughout your life.
ReplyDeleteBut if you REALLY took the time to talk to everyone, I think that once you got past the small talk bs you would find a world inside the mind of everyone. Those "few people" you talk about are actually the ones that will truly NEVER ever go past the phony small talk level stuff. Granted, some people are deeper than others because they are the type to expose themselves to different people and experiences. Most everyone, given time, will show another side other than just what you see from day to day.
ReplyDeleteBut then there is also that group of people who really are phonies and just need to get left alone in the world to be with other phonies
ReplyDeleteBut what if thats just their outside and we can break them out of that? Isn't that a lot better than just saying, "oh you're just a phony, I'm better than you, so I don't have to talk to you or anything"? And then at least you can say that you tried.
ReplyDeleteI think the group of people Mike is talking about are those that are so afraid of opening up themselves that they make a mask so thick that even beyond the first impressions they seem like they are ignorant and useless. Just recently I started to believe just what Matt is saying; that all people have a purpose. Some have gotten lost in the world behind their mask, but none are lost forever.
ReplyDeleteGood way to put it
ReplyDeleteI think that this also goes back to the conversation on the English Blog of whether or not you mask can consume you so much so that you are no longer wearing a mask and that person really is you.
ReplyDelete