recirculation, hopeful re-ignition

Just finished writing an essay related to Greek American influence and sent it to my grandparents. I was pretty pleased with it because it was semi-focused as opposed to a huge broad attack on every facet of Grecian influence, which would have been impossible to write about. I feel a little guilty hearing people call it "brilliant" or even "good" because most of the stuff isn't very original, pretty much pop-media philosophy lifted directly from the tail end of Media 101, but oh well. Anyway-

Gram's comments made me consider logging a few more entries into this, since she talked more about disciplining a natural talent to hone it into something really great.
Actually thinking about it now there's probably nobody better to take advice from on something like that than her, her talent at painting seems so organic now that I take it for granted. But I've heard countless times that her talent is a result of prodigious, diligent practice and years of lessons on top of the natural "spark". Her advice made me just now feel a semblance of the perennial 'spark' that I just mentioned so I figured I better seize the moment.

I think part of the reason I hate writing in this so much is that my stream of consciousness sounds so much better without a stenographer. Looking back on what I've got so far is like an ironed out perversion of my thoughts, a really selective organization of a handful of things that darted in and out of my mind. But reading it back feels slow and cumbersome. Maybe I just can't write with enough fluidity or focus yet to capture them before they change. I guess as I write - literally now- I can feel my mental voice become more and more aligned with the one here. So it's close enough I guess, except that I can edit my internal monologue, a pro and a con.

Just to reiterate, tonight's talk with my grandparents has touched a small part of the spark I've been looking for a lot in my life lately. So it's like I'm a trout being re-released into the stream of writing so to speak, hence the title. I'm finding that I like my blog posts more and more in terms of titles as I read them back. I usually just pick a word or two to sum up the feeling of the moment I'm writing in and usually my writing below conforms to meet my original premise. It might be kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy but its great to see it come together after.

I'm writing while I listen to music which I haven't been doing since Jake and I have been watching so much True Blood during the night hours. I think he likes spending the time with me a lot right now since he's grounded, plus it gives us something to share. We've always been really close but recently also completely different. So it's a good way to close the distance.

But its not just any music like usual, its Third Eye Blind's new cd Ursa Major. Third Eye Blind's debut has been so loved to death by me that it's better and easier to just think of it as a part of my personality rather than just an external collection of songs. I can't decide how I feel about this new one, its probably too early to pass judgment on it but I might as well anyway. I love a few of the songs but it's also really disappointing.

And it's strange to react with so much disgust to a band I love so much, because I feel like I'm turning the blade on myself. When Stephen Jenkins does the semi-rap delivery and misses the tone that he's nailed before, I feel like someone should just put him out of his misery. Or in 'Don't Believe a Word' when he drops the couplet talking about 'Brother, Brother' I want to avert my ears in shame. I really fill with a strong hate for some reason since it's such a low point in what could have otherwise been a great song. It hurts because I know he has it in him to create another CD like ones I love from my childhood but he continually fails to live up to the first. Blue grows on me more and more too, but nothing will ever match that watermark, I fear. That's part of the weird experience of loving something too much- fear of disappointment.

Either way, it's a rebirth for them as a band since the CD is at the top of the iTunes charts- they're getting a second life now which I guess I can only be happy and hopeful about. It sucks to see things you love and put stock in dissolve and disappear though. They still make fantastic songs that I love like "Second Born" or "Why Can't You Be" but by moving away from the album template they're losing focus. There's no point in fighting the tide though, the album is going to die (if its not dead already) and the only thing to do is hope someone masters the new mode well enough to capture as much meaning as the old one did. I'm filled with a nihilism since the attitude today is that nothing new can ever exist or be better than anything that already exists, but I guess I can hold out a futile hope. I'm deluding myself but I guess they call that faith.

I don't know what brings out the feeling of emptiness in people but maybe it is keeping a journal and constantly writing. It's like the existentialists talking about alienation and horror- when you keep staring at a blank page and you run out of ideas you just start disemboweling yourself and it all starts to unravel. You don't know what you want to do with your life, you're unhappy with the direction it's going but at the same time you feel powerless to change it- and at the same time you know its completely your responsibility that it's not changing.
Weird looking back on my writings from before too because occasionally the tone changes to one of bright inspiration, full of that lifespark I've mentioned several times here. Somebody said scars have the power of reminding us that the past was real, and that's exactly how I feel when I read them. They're scars of happiness and meaning that seems to currently be eluding me. And following a pattern in these posts, I'm scared that when I get to school again and start writing in this I won't be able to escape this restlessness. In short, I can't wait to get out of this fucking house and go to school, but in long, I don't want to go to school and find the same things I always find.

Maybe you can only find fulfillment in retrospect, maybe nostalgia is the antidote to the super saturated reality post-modernists talk about. When I look back on the past and I live through my joys and mistakes again, I find comfort but also a huge sadness. I wish that the feeling was something you could bottle and keep with you and gradually use up when you need it. Because when you hit the lows the highs are so distant and alien that it feels like they can't come again.

I only have memories of ease and carelessness, and I can't remember them that well. It's been something like 4 years. That's about all I've got tonight.