I think that the only realistic way of achieving a semblance of independence - especially in a society at least visibly dominated by credit card culture - is by avoiding debt. Funnily enough I've come to this axiomatic realization at the relative beginning of what I can only expect to be a life-long hemorrhaging of money: higher learning. Better yet, I'm clueless when it comes to the proper handling of money and my best bet of avoiding further damage is either not spending it or amassing such a great deal of it that my only worry will be whether to purchase a fleet of yachts captained by Qaddafi's former bodyguard squad or fund an intensive search for answers regarding the questionable murders of Tupac and Biggie (more notably Tupac but also Biggie for solidarity). Seeing as though I have a genetic tendency to squander any type of currency unlucky enough to burn a hole in my pockets, any option other than complete and utter debt is unlikely.
That's not even a criticism of my dad, his dad, or all our proto-dads who clubbed animals in the Phoenician wilderness only to bend the knee to the stiff-lipped, agricultural constabulary; I literally have an aversion to money so potent that it manifests in a necessity to purchase both things I hardly need and things I'd do better not to collect. This insane, unfounded, and wholly unattractive quality can best be typified by the events of the past week or so.
Starting just shortly before Christmas, I began a personal vendetta against my wallet's contents and the shelves of various bookstores. This fugue of dwindling dollars and mounting reading lists was aided by several circumstances: HPB had a sale from December 26 to January 2 (an attractive selling point for my Mom), a recent influx of money caused by selling a pile of unused books to HPB/thieving bills here and there from unaware druggies, my ability to read slightly more quickly than normal, and the vacuum of time associated with Winter break. Neglected throughout this entire psycho-sexual fiasco was my Kindle, but he'll assuredly make a comeback soon.
That I've groomed, preened, and streamlined a heightened ability to improvise white lies has inadvertently made me what legions of PTOs, PTAs, and small-town minded people would call a "bad person." Sometime in the ~10 day long bill-burning I struck up a whimsy to return to HPB a third time, presumably to spoon together a cobble of classics and New Historicism-inspired tomes. I fulfilled the latter category by nabbing David McCullough's John Adams (you know, the one with Paul Giamatti on the cover) and fulfilled some aberrant, hitherto unmentioned category of young adult fiction penned in Spanish by simultaneously purchasing Harry Potter y el Misterio del Principe (which actually translates to Harry Potter and the Mystery of the Prince).
On reversing in the perilous parking lot, I accidentally knicked a car and fueled with an admixture of adrenaline, genuine fear, and strange lucidity, proceeded to hastily exit. While in the lane attempting to leave, the car in front of me was (of course) attempting a left turn during an excruciatingly slow red light. This was occasion to take several panicked looks at the bystanders in the parking lot, who, witnessing the 'collision,' were either debating the philosophical dilemma of informing the authorities or playing Tetris on their phones. In hindsight the ding was too minor to cause appreciable damage to the back of my car, and as such probably didn't damage the other car; however, drinking pints of pungent fear roundly plugged me back into a reality I've been merely flitting through in recent weeks. That's not to say I've gotten a taste for the proverbial monkey's blood and will start mowing down pedestrians, but rather that for a few guilt-ridden, anxiety-swollen hours I relished in the vigor of a situation entirely out of my hands. Except for the hit-and-run part - that was totally in my hands.
Now that I've successfully deviated from the original topic of this post, I feel comfortable talking about whatever I please. Like: I somehow compartmentalized all my 'first college semester' memories and am having a difficult time placing myself back in the position of a self-destructive, snobbish student. As January 17 steadily and forcefully imposes itself on my mind with greater power, my failure to visualize the second semester matters little. I'll inevitably wander listlessly again in a matter of days, and when I delve into the cardboard box of experiences that was the past few months, I'm glad for this shift. Although the concept of "home" is ideal, actually living here and facing the truth that I'm unnecessary in this context has helped attune my mind for the mythical jaunt back down to the paradoxical university setting. It's only through lacking something that I appreciate it: not just on a mortally flawed, cliche-ridden basis - I legitimately require that something be taken away from me or some opportunity lost on me before I understand how much I actually wanted said thing or opportunity. Oddly enough this self-knowledge has led to several attempts to preemptively acquire objects I assume will be my desire at some point in the not-so-distant future. Hence the book hoarding, game plundering, and nights spent plotting means of getting my way (not by any means necessary, just the least troublesome means).
Clarity - for me - is a rarity. I tend to pounce on the opportunity to express myself when it is presented in a gilded bow and neatly marked in candy red paint. Not to dabble in pop psychology, but my lack of stable communication and inconsistency in matters of writing is probably funded by a sizable wealth of nightmares including but not limited to: failing to please the few readers of this blog, losing whatever whiff of wit I previously had or currently have, disappointing myself, and further shriveling my once cosmic ego.
This ego was built on the foundations of scant, laughable successes. Having inflated to a dangerous size, and still making the occasional appearance when the proper cocktail of brain chemicals permits, this ego simply imploded. It can still be found in trace amounts - strewn among the wreckage of memories, trivia, gobs of syntax, and splintered personality traits that encompass the landfill-of-self I identify as 'Zain'. Essentially my hesitance to commit to any action has led to a cycle of extremes: either crushing disappointment at what I perceive to be abject failures or stale dissatisfaction at successes I deem unfitting for myself (there's that pesky, reanimated ego at play). In light of this duality of being, certain pathways open up and I have no qualms about pursuing them, as I already feel damned and tormented by what monks would call Demons and what Blues-guitarists would call Regret (coincidentally, both monks and Blues-guitarists harbor an appreciation and over-indulgence of alcohol); thus, what occurred outside of HPB, what occurs every waking cycle, and what will continue to occur (albeit in varying states of new-found vigor and temporarily muted tones) are results of a bristling, quaking, briny, and unsurprisingly Semitic self-doubt.
So I've made a cyclical return to the inception of a process I chose and continue to choose. At first (as a chubby, quasi-middle child) I yearned to be doomed, conflicted, or interesting by any measure of the phrase. Now my emotions are so muddled I can't extract a singular entity or goal from the unconscious muck I've brewed. And as a side-effect of this pathetic mental 'affliction', I'm almost incapable of speaking on any subject other than myself. Notice the amount of first person pronouns in this post. Clearly whoever plumbed the depths of his mind and ladled the discovered contents here is so self-obsessed, self-indulgent, and self-deluded, that an identity crisis was inevitable.
Ha! He even refers to his petty, school-boy, tormented, Hamlet, Danish, masturbatory inner-tussle as a "crisis." This is what the mystic Thomas Merton would refer to as "a position sometimes so impossible as to be absurd." A position that necessitates self-obsession but equally obsesses over a means to elevate the self to a position that would permit self-love as opposed to self-infatuation. Self, self, self. The only way I can properly view myself as a person rather than an idol to worship in place of god is to immolate my being and saturate my cells with external personage - the essence of others. I need to embrace the collective: the dents, the incongruousness, each acute failure, each blanching success, and I need to wholeheartedly accept every degree of being. If I can't unconditionally accept others, what chance do I have of shattering this obelisk heaved on my chest?
What faces me is more than a test of faith. Confronting me more than any ancillary life-choice is the difference between transcendence and acquiescence. With the 'knowledge' I've gained through sheer, uppity searching, I foot the precipice. I can leap, abandoning the constructs and monoliths which weaned my feeble mote of existence, or I can turn from the abrasively cold, curiously inviting maw of Nothingness. It's the human condition. It's the repetitive choice between immersion into a familiar, comfortable, sleepy prison and a descent into what could either be an infinitude of stillness, a saving grace, or both. It's the disturbing nostalgia you get when faced with a path you know could easily be your last. It's the plastic chair you spend forty years breaking in, only to collapse breathless surrounded by sun-kissed vineyards and a farcical legacy.
It's what I have coming and knowing nothing I welcome everything.
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