Hmmmm
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Friday, January 28, 2011
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Great Quote From Patrick Bateman Himself
Christian Bale at his finest: " I think there's such enjoyment in just getting lost in a city. Having no idea where you are, how you're gonna get out of it. Getting to be the middle of the night, you're still lost, walking around. That's the best way to discover a city. That's how you're born into life. You got no freaking idea which way's up or down."
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Californication
Great quote from Californication on Sunday. If you don't watch it, you should. In last week's episode, the protagonist, Hank, writes a beautiful letter to his daughter. While I have no kids, it's impossible not to have some emotional connection to what he's talking about. Here's a small excerpt.
" To my dear beautiful daughter: I'm writing you a letter. That's right, a good old-fashioned letter. It's a lost art really, like handjobs--shit (crosses out "handjobs" on the typewriter). I have a confession to make: I didn't like you very much at first. You were just this annoying little blob. You smelled nice, most of the time, but you didn't seem to have much interest in me, which I of course found vaguely insulting. It was just you and your mom against the world. Funny how some things never change. So I cruised along doing my thing, acting the fool, not really understanding how being a parent changes you. And I don't remember the exact moment everything changed, I just know that it did. One minute I was impenetrable, nothing could touch me. The next my heart was somehow beating outside my chest, exposed to the elements. Loving you has been the most profound, intense, painful experience of my life. In fact it's been almost too much to bear. As your father I made a silent vow to protect you from the world, never realizing I was the one who would end up hurting you the most. When I flash-forward my heart breaks, mostly because I can't imagine you speaking of me with any sort of pride. How could you? Your father is a child in a man's body. He cares for nothing and everything at the same time. Noble in thought, weak in action. Something has to change, something has to give."
" To my dear beautiful daughter: I'm writing you a letter. That's right, a good old-fashioned letter. It's a lost art really, like handjobs--shit (crosses out "handjobs" on the typewriter). I have a confession to make: I didn't like you very much at first. You were just this annoying little blob. You smelled nice, most of the time, but you didn't seem to have much interest in me, which I of course found vaguely insulting. It was just you and your mom against the world. Funny how some things never change. So I cruised along doing my thing, acting the fool, not really understanding how being a parent changes you. And I don't remember the exact moment everything changed, I just know that it did. One minute I was impenetrable, nothing could touch me. The next my heart was somehow beating outside my chest, exposed to the elements. Loving you has been the most profound, intense, painful experience of my life. In fact it's been almost too much to bear. As your father I made a silent vow to protect you from the world, never realizing I was the one who would end up hurting you the most. When I flash-forward my heart breaks, mostly because I can't imagine you speaking of me with any sort of pride. How could you? Your father is a child in a man's body. He cares for nothing and everything at the same time. Noble in thought, weak in action. Something has to change, something has to give."
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Dazed and Confused and Back Again
Sorry for the lack of updates recently. I have been enjoying some quality R&R for the last month. Much deserved, but it has given me a lot of time to think about the state of things. While I have never been one for New Year’s resolutions, I have been thinking a lot about my college experiences and the things that it has taught me.
I am about to graduate. Which I could bore you to death with a long drawn out anecdote about how so much has changed and how I am now truly ready for the real world, I won’t. I don’t write to be conventional and I don’t like to bore my five readers with shit that they already have heard. Instead, I would just briefly like to impart a few nuggets of wisdom I have acquired over the last three years.
Never be Afraid to Try Something New. While college is labeled as the location for exploration, the kind of change I am talking about goes beyond binge drinking and recreational drug use. What I am talking about is fearlessness and having the courage to try something completely outside your comfort zone. During my college experience, I had changed my major three different times. From film production to international relations, I tried to always make my college experience about exploring untapped interests. For two years, I even took Russian, a language that previously had ZERO exposure to outside of the occasional old school Bond movie. Never be afraid to try something new. My generation has become so obsessed avoiding failure that they never take risks. To me, that is about the worst possible way to live. So invite new challenges into your life because the alternative will leave you wholly unfulfilled.
Never Take Yourself Too Seriously. Granted this one is a bit more personal to me, but I hate people who take themselves too seriously. All too often, people build an air of entitlement around their accomplishments, their social status or their wealth. To be honest, you probably haven’t done too much that requires you to carry yourself as a complete asshole. The sign of a truly insecure man (or woman) is when that person needs to step on other people to make themselves look bigger. In the end, you need to understand that all people are different, not necessarily better or worse. They have come from all walks of life to get to where they are now; living lives unique as the countless snowflakes fell this December. Just maybe this is the year that some people realize that life is just too damn short to allow small things to lead to a false sent of pretentiousness. As my father always told me growing up, “ There’s always somebody smarter, there’s always somebody richer and there’s always someone better looking.”
Never Leave Anything Important Unsaid. Maybe the general theme that I am trying to hit on throughout this scattered and incoherent post is that life is too damn short for most of the bullshit and drama that we allow to settle and fester in our lives. While thousand of people have made millions of dollars by selling the idea of living without regret, I prefer to go with a far more realistic way of thinking: never leave anything important unsaid. More often than not, you will regret leaving something important unsaid far more than just coming out and saying how you truly feel. We live in the age of communication, social media and ECT. Take some of that fearlessness that anonymity that we so masterfully employ and incorporate it into your real life. With every kind of relationship, friendly, romantic or professional, honesty is key. When communication and honesty die out, people lose the strongest of foundations of human interaction.
Hope I didn’t bore you all too much. Thanks as always for reading. I promise to try and make this a weekly occurrence. Maybe I should try some fiction writing next week?
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