It's coming to the end of 2009, so I think it's time to call this blog to a close as well and reflect on what exactly this thing called "heart" is.
Heart is different for every person. For me it's something terribly private and individual. It's something that requires I leave myself alone at night frequently until I come back and find safety in myself and the fork that leads in either direction to sleep. The journey continues on either or both paths. As sleep takes over the distinction blurs and I no longer know whether I walk on one path or two. Then I understand life more generally. Then, I wake up, and sixteen hours pass where my understanding of life decreases gradually, and my heart is the caller that aches for that understanding to return.
But sometimes I can't sleep so easily. This semester hasn't been so bad for that, except for the times when my stomach simply would not let me sleep. Yeah. I guess. Usually sleep is the cure, but sometimes it's not.
Why am I so tired that I can't concentrate on anything anymore? I guess three and a half years of concentration have gotten to be too much, much like they did four years ago, when I was applying for undergraduate schools. Back then the stress played its tune differently on my brain, though, and I just fell into a pit of depression that lasted through my college interviews. It figures that the only one that was any good was the one with a mathematics major. That guy was a student at Tufts, and I know who his advisor was too. Tufts was good for me, though, and I hope that I can magically find my way into the proper school for my brain and heart (and other parts) for grad studies.
This freewrite is drifting, much like cars on an icy highway. More like bumper cars on an icy highway, the crashes turned into bounces. With bumper lanes on the side like a round of kids' bowling. Thoughts bounce against each other, on a two-dimensional plane with no three-dimensional motion despite a three-dimensional existence. Let me jump within that third dimension.
I had intended to mention this thought since around the seventh freewrite here, but I never remembered to do so. Well, here it is... Okay. I speak two languages very fluidly, French and Japanese. And I know only a few words in either of the Philippine dialects my relatives know. Putain is a word in French that means "whore." クソ (Kuso) is a word in Japanese that means "shit." But put the two swear words together, and you get "Puso" - a word in Filipino that means "heart."
I guess that's my story. Very little more needs to be said. You put the moments together that you grind through and cuss through and obliterate yourself through even though you never intended to and emerge as something else that's still you, because you made sure to respect yourself all through it - that's heart for me. Coming out of it knowing that you respect yourself for all you can be. And not grinding yourself down simply because other people are grinding themselves down. But I've done that. Even through this most recent semester I was doing that the whole time. And how do I avoid that? I guess the wrong way to do that is to avoid it by refusing to acknowledge it. Telling myself not to grind too hard doesn't work when I don't realize that I'm grinding myself down anyway. This past semester I was doomed from the start with my schedule. Or maybe I was just doomed period and didn't want to accept it. Maybe I still haven't.
Well, the best thing I can do is forget and come back to it. That's the procrastinator's way, haha, but here it applies to something I've already done or felt like I've failed at doing. That thing I failed at doing is 2009. 2009 can go bye-bye. And it will. All I know is this: I've written a lot, and all that I've been telling myself hasn't told me too much. It's like an alternative rock album with nonsensical lyrics where every song is long. It's time to let it rest.
Let it rest, let it rest, let it rest.
-Alex
明けましておめでとうございます！
Monday, December 28, 2009
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Charity
A common problem with libertarianism's preachers is that they often do not explain what'd happen to people dependent upon welfare and other government programs if such programs were eliminated. Sometimes they end the argument with something like, "Instead of continuing inefficient government programs that are unsustainable in the long run and encourage dependency, we should turn to our local communities, charities, and churches for help." But this statement is not necessarily going to be convincing. In fact, it shouldn't be. An alarm should go off in your head somewhere, especially with the part about churches.
It is true that the Roman Catholic Church is one of the largest suppliers of charity money in Massachusetts, and it was apparently the largest not so long ago. Thus churches in themselves are considerable resources in the battle to provide (food, water, shelter, clothing, counseling, medical care) for people who cannot provide for themselves. But of course, when you think about the idea of church missions, you'd also think about missionaries. The world's history of missionaries is not pretty. You can very well look at it skeptically as religious organizations' exploitation of the desperate poor to expand the size of their membership. It may not have been the story everywhere, but it certainly is a common one. And looking back to today, is there not something reprehensible about fake abortion clinics that keep a woman in consultation until it's too late for her to get an abortion? These exist! So imagining the picture of an America where religious organizations provided all welfare, and government programs provided none of it, I would be nervous, and you should be too, regardless of your religious convictions. I have to ask myself the question as a libertarian: Should poorer citizens have to sacrifice the liberty of their religious convictions to obtain resources or care that they cannot afford to pay for? The answer is a no that resounds off the variously contoured inner surfaces of the skull encircling my brain.
The funny part about my mentioning the Roman Catholic Church, however, is that they apparently don't bug you about your religious beliefs if you go to them. That's obviously something I like. However, to look on the ugly side, there are probably a lot of parents who wouldn't want their kids alone with a priest nowadays, even for a minute in the confession box. Trust is a big issue here. Can you trust charities, churches, or even your local community nowadays? Could you ever have done so in the past as much as you wanted to?
But as long as there are significant economic (and social) incentives against breaking the law or doing bad things within the scope of the law, you can worry a lot less. There's another problem: this precondition is met with less frequency during a recession, such as the one we are in now (don't believe Ben Bernanke if he tells you we're not). So the argument at the start of this paragraph (which is one that libertarians make all the time!) fails during a recession. Not good. So what else is there?
There's the government. Can you trust that government? Bush 2001-2008 (and I'd say Obama 2009, although you're not supposed to say that yet because you can't criticize Obama and be respected by his supporters at the same time, much like it was for Bush during the previous period or how it is now for Palin during the same period), endgame. Well, there's the state government, which is more accountable to the people (sometimes. Not in Massachusetts) and I'd argue more trusty as a result. Nonetheless, I'm going to argue that there is an alternative to trusting the government.
Asking the government to take care of welfare is like asking Mom to wash the dishes when you know she's tired from working all day. It's neglecting a basic personal responsibility. The problem is that for the general welfare case, we often call this "social responsibility." But the CEO from Whole Foods is right to call it "personal responsibility" instead, and we need to start looking at it this way. It's easy to claim that putting the government in charge of ensuring food and water is a reasonable way of doing things when there are way too many people to take care of. However, there is at least a flaw with saying it's the only way of doing things. What if instead of asking bureaucrats to take care of welfare agencies, we empassioned ourselves to put on the shoes of the people who don't have enough, and all worked to stop it? While that sentence sounds idealistic, it in fact isn't. The strength of charity is remarkable as it is, and inspires admiration in those who aren't self-deprecating enough to be jealous of such people for what they perceive to be selfish heroism. I'm still amazed that there are people willing to go to the worst regions of the world and work for nothing but the knowledge that they are doing something good. What we need to work on is strengthening not just our confidence in the power of non-governmental charity but also our belief in genuinely participating in charity endeavors consistently ourselves. Yeah, us.
And that's something that I personally have to work on myself. I haven't done anything charity-related since high school. I think I just did it because it was right, something to do, and let's be honest, something to put on my resume. (There was plenty of stuff to put on my resume back then, though, as there is now. I did enjoy the work I was doing more than just knowing it would help me, but the resume part was there too.) But how can I claim that there can be a transition to less reliance on government programs without acting myself to help people who need something to rely on? That's something today's libertarians have to talk about. And it would help, of course, if libertarians were to establish organizations that offered help to all with full respect for personal liberty. If those Christian fundamentalists who believe in libertarianism united with those libertarians who are scared of fundamentalism to create an organization that provided services to people along with a guarantee of expecting nothing in return and accepting people without looking badly at them for who they are or their current personal situation, that would be a huge step. None of the politicians I see nowadays who epitomize libertarianism have underlined what they would personally do in situations where Americans do not have the government programs they have relied upon for so long. Yes, Ron Paul talks about putting a freeze on cuts from Social Security and so forth, but what about afterwards? Capitalism isn't perfect. No, it's not the politicians' role to start charities in the meantime, but if they're to be the only leaders, they're going to have to do everything. I guess that means political leadership needs to extend outward from politicians themselves. But that's something that our current political mess could've benefitted from anyway, with Cindy Sheehan being one of the few people I can name in the category of political leaders who aren't politicians.
And in that sense it all begins at home. We've got to have faith in ourselves, because putting it in governments is just keeping the faith further and further away from home, and sooner or later that is all gonna crash. And that faith in community I'm talking about begins with faith in oneself.
It is true that the Roman Catholic Church is one of the largest suppliers of charity money in Massachusetts, and it was apparently the largest not so long ago. Thus churches in themselves are considerable resources in the battle to provide (food, water, shelter, clothing, counseling, medical care) for people who cannot provide for themselves. But of course, when you think about the idea of church missions, you'd also think about missionaries. The world's history of missionaries is not pretty. You can very well look at it skeptically as religious organizations' exploitation of the desperate poor to expand the size of their membership. It may not have been the story everywhere, but it certainly is a common one. And looking back to today, is there not something reprehensible about fake abortion clinics that keep a woman in consultation until it's too late for her to get an abortion? These exist! So imagining the picture of an America where religious organizations provided all welfare, and government programs provided none of it, I would be nervous, and you should be too, regardless of your religious convictions. I have to ask myself the question as a libertarian: Should poorer citizens have to sacrifice the liberty of their religious convictions to obtain resources or care that they cannot afford to pay for? The answer is a no that resounds off the variously contoured inner surfaces of the skull encircling my brain.
The funny part about my mentioning the Roman Catholic Church, however, is that they apparently don't bug you about your religious beliefs if you go to them. That's obviously something I like. However, to look on the ugly side, there are probably a lot of parents who wouldn't want their kids alone with a priest nowadays, even for a minute in the confession box. Trust is a big issue here. Can you trust charities, churches, or even your local community nowadays? Could you ever have done so in the past as much as you wanted to?
But as long as there are significant economic (and social) incentives against breaking the law or doing bad things within the scope of the law, you can worry a lot less. There's another problem: this precondition is met with less frequency during a recession, such as the one we are in now (don't believe Ben Bernanke if he tells you we're not). So the argument at the start of this paragraph (which is one that libertarians make all the time!) fails during a recession. Not good. So what else is there?
There's the government. Can you trust that government? Bush 2001-2008 (and I'd say Obama 2009, although you're not supposed to say that yet because you can't criticize Obama and be respected by his supporters at the same time, much like it was for Bush during the previous period or how it is now for Palin during the same period), endgame. Well, there's the state government, which is more accountable to the people (sometimes. Not in Massachusetts) and I'd argue more trusty as a result. Nonetheless, I'm going to argue that there is an alternative to trusting the government.
Asking the government to take care of welfare is like asking Mom to wash the dishes when you know she's tired from working all day. It's neglecting a basic personal responsibility. The problem is that for the general welfare case, we often call this "social responsibility." But the CEO from Whole Foods is right to call it "personal responsibility" instead, and we need to start looking at it this way. It's easy to claim that putting the government in charge of ensuring food and water is a reasonable way of doing things when there are way too many people to take care of. However, there is at least a flaw with saying it's the only way of doing things. What if instead of asking bureaucrats to take care of welfare agencies, we empassioned ourselves to put on the shoes of the people who don't have enough, and all worked to stop it? While that sentence sounds idealistic, it in fact isn't. The strength of charity is remarkable as it is, and inspires admiration in those who aren't self-deprecating enough to be jealous of such people for what they perceive to be selfish heroism. I'm still amazed that there are people willing to go to the worst regions of the world and work for nothing but the knowledge that they are doing something good. What we need to work on is strengthening not just our confidence in the power of non-governmental charity but also our belief in genuinely participating in charity endeavors consistently ourselves. Yeah, us.
And that's something that I personally have to work on myself. I haven't done anything charity-related since high school. I think I just did it because it was right, something to do, and let's be honest, something to put on my resume. (There was plenty of stuff to put on my resume back then, though, as there is now. I did enjoy the work I was doing more than just knowing it would help me, but the resume part was there too.) But how can I claim that there can be a transition to less reliance on government programs without acting myself to help people who need something to rely on? That's something today's libertarians have to talk about. And it would help, of course, if libertarians were to establish organizations that offered help to all with full respect for personal liberty. If those Christian fundamentalists who believe in libertarianism united with those libertarians who are scared of fundamentalism to create an organization that provided services to people along with a guarantee of expecting nothing in return and accepting people without looking badly at them for who they are or their current personal situation, that would be a huge step. None of the politicians I see nowadays who epitomize libertarianism have underlined what they would personally do in situations where Americans do not have the government programs they have relied upon for so long. Yes, Ron Paul talks about putting a freeze on cuts from Social Security and so forth, but what about afterwards? Capitalism isn't perfect. No, it's not the politicians' role to start charities in the meantime, but if they're to be the only leaders, they're going to have to do everything. I guess that means political leadership needs to extend outward from politicians themselves. But that's something that our current political mess could've benefitted from anyway, with Cindy Sheehan being one of the few people I can name in the category of political leaders who aren't politicians.
And in that sense it all begins at home. We've got to have faith in ourselves, because putting it in governments is just keeping the faith further and further away from home, and sooner or later that is all gonna crash. And that faith in community I'm talking about begins with faith in oneself.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Creativity
I've found that many things in 2009 didn't turn out to be what I thought they would be. But I also didn't realize what I thought they would be. That is, I had this expectation down inside of me that for some reason didn't come to the forefront of my conscious realization. It was just there, in its dormant state, and I was dormant uncomfortably. Like I was last night when I had a dream that one of my Japanese teachers (of the gender I'm not attracted to) was licking my entire face and trying to make out with me. I didn't even sleep much more than seven hours, either. Could it be really said that last night I slept well?
I'm writing a lot more fluidly and imaginatively than I have before, a lot less mathematically. It's amazing how much 25 pages of reading a novel in one day can do for your/my imagination. And it's amazing how I got that from re-reading a book. Or maybe it's because I just ate something with butter on it. You never know with these things. Nah, but maybe I know. I'm also elated about my first song, still, even though I'm not so elated at the same time over my either slight or big mess-up of a love situation down at Tufts, not to mention the fact that I continue to feel insecure about my relationships with people there, save one person and one person only, God bless her. That's what happens when you don't put yourself out there enough, which I didn't this semester. I didn't go out enough on low sleep into social situations like I always have, afraid that low sleep combined with high expectations would lead to low outcomes. Now I'm talking like an economist again, so let me drift back into the world of the writer. I've hesitated too much on my social life at Tufts, and I guess I've just gotta remember who I am at home, the me that I am when I'm most comfortable with the world and with myself: the I who starts things, brings people together, and in doing so brings himself together. I guess I tried too much to abide by the philosophy that I literally wrote down to myself as being important my freshman year (my very successful freshman year, my best socially): charity begins at home. Begin with yourself and then you'll improve your relations with others. But what I've learned now is you can't necessarily complete the course each time by yourself without other people's help. In fact, for me as a person sometimes that's impossible, if not most of the time. Maybe less than most of the time. Either way I have to keep this in mind, and put out a little trust into the world. I have to admit that with elections swinging the way they did and the political discourse recently and with my own inclinations I've lost a little faith (which I magnify in my head when I think about it) in the world around me. Politics isn't everything but it can eat you up when you don't have a really, really good sympathizer.
Wow, that paragraph was too long. May the reader forgive me.
I wonder what the average HTML color of my skin is. What better, more precise way to characterize it? I also wonder how each little mole got there - what was each and every little one's story? where did they come from and what purpose do they serve that I'm unaware of? What purpose could they serve if I only used my imagination? Well, I think here's one: they remind us that we're only human. There is nothing so ridiculous as the idea of a perfect look, especially when you consider that the perfect look changes depending on the time period. Even the natural look is indefinable.
I am taking a rest with defining myself as a mathematician. I can't really say that I am until I go through grad school, really, at least some would put it that way, but it's not about that. It's just that at this time in my life I'm not really feeling it as much anymore. Math has really been hammered through me like a nail this past semester and in order to improve my relationship with it it's time to take a spiritual break, if not a physical one. It was a little troubling over the past junior year of school to see myself as a mathematician more and more even as I was abroad doing mostly things that weren't math. And now I feel like math is gaining on me while I'm shying away from it. Math to me is instinct. Most of my time is spent doing other things, and to change that right now would be out of place. When I go to grad school (obviously this is an assumption), I will be perfectly willing to let math be my life. In fact, I welcome it, as one of the things that's bothered me about Tufts is that I've never really been able to concentrate on one thing, because I have so many avenues open for my various interests, and... well, I guess I have no excuse there. But I'm ready for it.
If anything, I'm ready for 2010. That's going to be a good year. I can feel it.
I'm writing a lot more fluidly and imaginatively than I have before, a lot less mathematically. It's amazing how much 25 pages of reading a novel in one day can do for your/my imagination. And it's amazing how I got that from re-reading a book. Or maybe it's because I just ate something with butter on it. You never know with these things. Nah, but maybe I know. I'm also elated about my first song, still, even though I'm not so elated at the same time over my either slight or big mess-up of a love situation down at Tufts, not to mention the fact that I continue to feel insecure about my relationships with people there, save one person and one person only, God bless her. That's what happens when you don't put yourself out there enough, which I didn't this semester. I didn't go out enough on low sleep into social situations like I always have, afraid that low sleep combined with high expectations would lead to low outcomes. Now I'm talking like an economist again, so let me drift back into the world of the writer. I've hesitated too much on my social life at Tufts, and I guess I've just gotta remember who I am at home, the me that I am when I'm most comfortable with the world and with myself: the I who starts things, brings people together, and in doing so brings himself together. I guess I tried too much to abide by the philosophy that I literally wrote down to myself as being important my freshman year (my very successful freshman year, my best socially): charity begins at home. Begin with yourself and then you'll improve your relations with others. But what I've learned now is you can't necessarily complete the course each time by yourself without other people's help. In fact, for me as a person sometimes that's impossible, if not most of the time. Maybe less than most of the time. Either way I have to keep this in mind, and put out a little trust into the world. I have to admit that with elections swinging the way they did and the political discourse recently and with my own inclinations I've lost a little faith (which I magnify in my head when I think about it) in the world around me. Politics isn't everything but it can eat you up when you don't have a really, really good sympathizer.
Wow, that paragraph was too long. May the reader forgive me.
I wonder what the average HTML color of my skin is. What better, more precise way to characterize it? I also wonder how each little mole got there - what was each and every little one's story? where did they come from and what purpose do they serve that I'm unaware of? What purpose could they serve if I only used my imagination? Well, I think here's one: they remind us that we're only human. There is nothing so ridiculous as the idea of a perfect look, especially when you consider that the perfect look changes depending on the time period. Even the natural look is indefinable.
I am taking a rest with defining myself as a mathematician. I can't really say that I am until I go through grad school, really, at least some would put it that way, but it's not about that. It's just that at this time in my life I'm not really feeling it as much anymore. Math has really been hammered through me like a nail this past semester and in order to improve my relationship with it it's time to take a spiritual break, if not a physical one. It was a little troubling over the past junior year of school to see myself as a mathematician more and more even as I was abroad doing mostly things that weren't math. And now I feel like math is gaining on me while I'm shying away from it. Math to me is instinct. Most of my time is spent doing other things, and to change that right now would be out of place. When I go to grad school (obviously this is an assumption), I will be perfectly willing to let math be my life. In fact, I welcome it, as one of the things that's bothered me about Tufts is that I've never really been able to concentrate on one thing, because I have so many avenues open for my various interests, and... well, I guess I have no excuse there. But I'm ready for it.
If anything, I'm ready for 2010. That's going to be a good year. I can feel it.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Embarrassment (恥ずかしさ) and Why I Like T-Pain
I am a very easily embarrassed person. Sometimes I just let the embarrassment eat me. I realized this as I was taking a shower a couple of hours ago, and I decided I'd make a list of things that embarrass me currently.
-I got an 82 on my algebra final
-I improved to 600 on the GRE subject test. That's still 40th percentile.
-I haven't sent out my rec forms to my rec writers for grad schools
-I have very little social life at Tufts so I don't really know what to say when people ask me what I did or what I'm gonna do tonight, or I just make up some excuse
-I wonder how the above bodes for my romantic life whenever I have a chance at some guy who likes me, although my chances haven't been as infrequent as I thought
That's basically it, I think. Oh
-I forgot to send my GRE scores to USC by the deadline, and that was Dec 15, and I still have not contacted them about it.
When you look at this list, it doesn't really seem that bad. But then I generalize this into a semester of mediocrity in my head. I feel that way. And then it makes me feel bad.
-I guess that in itself is embarrassing.
------------
Why I like T-Pain
T-Pain is an amazing artist. Not necessarily for the typical reasons. You know how every great artist has something wrong or quirky with him or her that comes along with his or her art? Like how Kanye's ego gets the best of him? Well, with T-Pain you could argue that what's wrong is inside the music itself. In other words, the music isn't as great as it could be. But that in itself makes T-Pain a very interesting artist for me. Maybe the most interesting.
If I feel down then T-Pain's music always makes me feel like there's something in the world in harmony with how I feel. I can hear an inherent sadness in his music, that exists despite the lyrics or the autotuning. I can hear it there. That's why I generally don't care too much about lyrics in music - because there's so much more to hear than lyrics. But yeah, I feel it there. I can't pinpoint where it is, but I feel it. And I hear it alongside something that's beautiful but separate. It's separate from the sadness. I don't like the idea of beautiful sadness. Sadness sucks. But I like the idea of beauty alongside sadness. That's how I really feel like things are in life, at least for my head. I can be instantly happy if someone finds the solution to something I'm sad about quickly. Like this kid from elementary school who suddenly forgot he was in dire pain after bumping into a pole or something when his mom told him that the food from Wendy's was here. Beauty too close to sadness is something that scares me. Well, no, that's not true. It's beauty that is sadness that scares me and I hate. Maybe.
When I listen to music in general, well, it's often "bad music." But when I hear something that I myself think is strange but bad in music, and it's alongside something that's very good, I am immediately interested. T-Pain does this to me every time. He managed to make art out of "Cyclone" and "Low" (he uses something called a "mode" in music theory terms in the latter song). It's clear that without him, songs like "Kiss Kiss," "Shawty Get Loose," and "Freeze" (all of which have Chris Brown. I'll admit that the last one is one of his own rather than one where he's a featured artist) are nothing, outright boring. But basiaclly, how does he do it? And what's missing?
Well, what's missing is a classical background or a proper training in music production. He could probably smooth a lot of things out if he gained a little bit of experience in either of the two. But as it is, he's doing really well. And that's something that excites me - someone who can get by WITHOUT the traditional hierarchical systems of learning. There are very few who can do that, because the hierarchy is just that strong. And he basically made his own way with the autotune trick, which has been used before but never so prominently. Finally he's an innovator in an industry that is so utterly lacking of innovation. And he's funny and he knows it and how to be funny.
So it's really interesting to see him grow and experiment. I think it's notable that he hasn't jumped on the dance bandwagon just yet. With my own music I'd do that, if I knew how. He probably doesn't know how and just is gonna go along and do his own thing. I do that. He's totally like me in that respect, if that's what it is. He started a trend in hip-hop without even intending to. I mean, his music isn't JUST autotune. It's music. Whereas 50 Cent is just a monotone bumbling thug, Soulja Boy a yelling dance instructor, and Eminem an annoying screeching boy who rhymes about unusual topics. And Lil Jon... well, he's the best example. Look where he is now - a producer getting production from RedOne. And that RedOne-LilJon song is GOOD, yes, but it should tell you about the lastability of his kind of work.
Can't wait for the next few T-Pain singles. I also can't wait until he actually makes a good album.
-I got an 82 on my algebra final
-I improved to 600 on the GRE subject test. That's still 40th percentile.
-I haven't sent out my rec forms to my rec writers for grad schools
-I have very little social life at Tufts so I don't really know what to say when people ask me what I did or what I'm gonna do tonight, or I just make up some excuse
-I wonder how the above bodes for my romantic life whenever I have a chance at some guy who likes me, although my chances haven't been as infrequent as I thought
That's basically it, I think. Oh
-I forgot to send my GRE scores to USC by the deadline, and that was Dec 15, and I still have not contacted them about it.
When you look at this list, it doesn't really seem that bad. But then I generalize this into a semester of mediocrity in my head. I feel that way. And then it makes me feel bad.
-I guess that in itself is embarrassing.
------------
Why I like T-Pain
T-Pain is an amazing artist. Not necessarily for the typical reasons. You know how every great artist has something wrong or quirky with him or her that comes along with his or her art? Like how Kanye's ego gets the best of him? Well, with T-Pain you could argue that what's wrong is inside the music itself. In other words, the music isn't as great as it could be. But that in itself makes T-Pain a very interesting artist for me. Maybe the most interesting.
If I feel down then T-Pain's music always makes me feel like there's something in the world in harmony with how I feel. I can hear an inherent sadness in his music, that exists despite the lyrics or the autotuning. I can hear it there. That's why I generally don't care too much about lyrics in music - because there's so much more to hear than lyrics. But yeah, I feel it there. I can't pinpoint where it is, but I feel it. And I hear it alongside something that's beautiful but separate. It's separate from the sadness. I don't like the idea of beautiful sadness. Sadness sucks. But I like the idea of beauty alongside sadness. That's how I really feel like things are in life, at least for my head. I can be instantly happy if someone finds the solution to something I'm sad about quickly. Like this kid from elementary school who suddenly forgot he was in dire pain after bumping into a pole or something when his mom told him that the food from Wendy's was here. Beauty too close to sadness is something that scares me. Well, no, that's not true. It's beauty that is sadness that scares me and I hate. Maybe.
When I listen to music in general, well, it's often "bad music." But when I hear something that I myself think is strange but bad in music, and it's alongside something that's very good, I am immediately interested. T-Pain does this to me every time. He managed to make art out of "Cyclone" and "Low" (he uses something called a "mode" in music theory terms in the latter song). It's clear that without him, songs like "Kiss Kiss," "Shawty Get Loose," and "Freeze" (all of which have Chris Brown. I'll admit that the last one is one of his own rather than one where he's a featured artist) are nothing, outright boring. But basiaclly, how does he do it? And what's missing?
Well, what's missing is a classical background or a proper training in music production. He could probably smooth a lot of things out if he gained a little bit of experience in either of the two. But as it is, he's doing really well. And that's something that excites me - someone who can get by WITHOUT the traditional hierarchical systems of learning. There are very few who can do that, because the hierarchy is just that strong. And he basically made his own way with the autotune trick, which has been used before but never so prominently. Finally he's an innovator in an industry that is so utterly lacking of innovation. And he's funny and he knows it and how to be funny.
So it's really interesting to see him grow and experiment. I think it's notable that he hasn't jumped on the dance bandwagon just yet. With my own music I'd do that, if I knew how. He probably doesn't know how and just is gonna go along and do his own thing. I do that. He's totally like me in that respect, if that's what it is. He started a trend in hip-hop without even intending to. I mean, his music isn't JUST autotune. It's music. Whereas 50 Cent is just a monotone bumbling thug, Soulja Boy a yelling dance instructor, and Eminem an annoying screeching boy who rhymes about unusual topics. And Lil Jon... well, he's the best example. Look where he is now - a producer getting production from RedOne. And that RedOne-LilJon song is GOOD, yes, but it should tell you about the lastability of his kind of work.
Can't wait for the next few T-Pain singles. I also can't wait until he actually makes a good album.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Sadness
Sometimes I feel as though I don't have the time to exist.
Sometimes I feel as though all the yesterdays where I saved up and worked my way haven't accounted for anything at all today. What's the point of saving and building up? I don't believe in living for the day generally. I believe in living for the year. I like the philosophy "live as though tomorrow exists" rather than "live like there's no tomorrow." Because when it feels like tomorrow's too late, I just feel terrible. The worst is when it feels like yesterday was too late. That's the worst. Like when you messed up the day before, yesterday you couldn't do anything about it. That's the kind of atmosphere that's descended upon me.
I want to live as though tomorrow I have another chance. But when I feel like I'm living like there's no tomorrow, I quite properly feel like I'm dying. So many things and situations in life can get me down, but it takes one of them above all else to get me down, and that obviously has to do with love (or lack thereof) and sociality (or lack thereof). Without that little problem in my life (my lack of a social/love life), well, the others would be trivial. But pile them on and you get a nonabelian hellspace.
(I can't believe I'm being self-respecting and making a metaphor as mathy as that. Forget pithy, mathy's the new in.)
I'm going back and adding parentheses later like I'm writing a math problem's solution. Or proof. It's probably more the proof mentality, actually. Like I'm trying to prove something new to myself. But here I don't know what it is I'm trying to prove. Or I just forget.
You know, proofs are hardest to prove when you forget what it is you're trying to prove. And I do have to remind myself of these things all the time. That's why I'm writing this. What I'm trying to prove to myself, or prove that I can prove, is that there's another tomorrow where I have another chance. I messed up today but I can sure try again. The odds were biased unfairly against me and I deserve another chance.
And you know what? Math has put something else into my mentality: the idea that everything in a math problem you see in a textbook can be proved with stuff you've learned previously. So to a certain degree I don't want to learn anything more, because I'm under the subconscious impression ingrained on me by math classes that it will just get in the way. But this is no good if I want to succeed in grad school. It's funny that I'm thinking about this now. Maybe I could write another personal statement and point this out about grad school research and my frustration with math at the undergrad level. A frustration which I haven't realized was there until now.
It's not just a frustration about math, though. It's more about frustration with what I've produced, in general, in life. It feels like I'm just doing the same thing over and over again. My show felt like that tonight. My lack of romance felt like that tonight. My lack of party felt like that tonight. And my tired main playlist of songs feels like that tonight. Even this blog smells like that tonight, but I have a feeling right now that I'm finding something more than I found before.
And I've got to learn. I've got to learn. I'm hungry for it. I want to try new things, find out what the hell else it is I can learn to solve novel problems in life. Because they're there, and you can either go about denying that they are problems or go out and solve them. I choose the latter.
But now I have no choice, for I must sleep. That's the worst.
Sometimes I feel as though all the yesterdays where I saved up and worked my way haven't accounted for anything at all today. What's the point of saving and building up? I don't believe in living for the day generally. I believe in living for the year. I like the philosophy "live as though tomorrow exists" rather than "live like there's no tomorrow." Because when it feels like tomorrow's too late, I just feel terrible. The worst is when it feels like yesterday was too late. That's the worst. Like when you messed up the day before, yesterday you couldn't do anything about it. That's the kind of atmosphere that's descended upon me.
I want to live as though tomorrow I have another chance. But when I feel like I'm living like there's no tomorrow, I quite properly feel like I'm dying. So many things and situations in life can get me down, but it takes one of them above all else to get me down, and that obviously has to do with love (or lack thereof) and sociality (or lack thereof). Without that little problem in my life (my lack of a social/love life), well, the others would be trivial. But pile them on and you get a nonabelian hellspace.
(I can't believe I'm being self-respecting and making a metaphor as mathy as that. Forget pithy, mathy's the new in.)
I'm going back and adding parentheses later like I'm writing a math problem's solution. Or proof. It's probably more the proof mentality, actually. Like I'm trying to prove something new to myself. But here I don't know what it is I'm trying to prove. Or I just forget.
You know, proofs are hardest to prove when you forget what it is you're trying to prove. And I do have to remind myself of these things all the time. That's why I'm writing this. What I'm trying to prove to myself, or prove that I can prove, is that there's another tomorrow where I have another chance. I messed up today but I can sure try again. The odds were biased unfairly against me and I deserve another chance.
And you know what? Math has put something else into my mentality: the idea that everything in a math problem you see in a textbook can be proved with stuff you've learned previously. So to a certain degree I don't want to learn anything more, because I'm under the subconscious impression ingrained on me by math classes that it will just get in the way. But this is no good if I want to succeed in grad school. It's funny that I'm thinking about this now. Maybe I could write another personal statement and point this out about grad school research and my frustration with math at the undergrad level. A frustration which I haven't realized was there until now.
It's not just a frustration about math, though. It's more about frustration with what I've produced, in general, in life. It feels like I'm just doing the same thing over and over again. My show felt like that tonight. My lack of romance felt like that tonight. My lack of party felt like that tonight. And my tired main playlist of songs feels like that tonight. Even this blog smells like that tonight, but I have a feeling right now that I'm finding something more than I found before.
And I've got to learn. I've got to learn. I'm hungry for it. I want to try new things, find out what the hell else it is I can learn to solve novel problems in life. Because they're there, and you can either go about denying that they are problems or go out and solve them. I choose the latter.
But now I have no choice, for I must sleep. That's the worst.
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