Keep me up till five only because all your stars are out, and for no other reason.

It doesn't happen very often (and truly, these events would be the very archetypes of improbability were their existances acknowledged in the first), but ever so rarely I am able to set to rest (for a couple of months at least, or most) an issue. To be sure, I have not completely defeated the question, but I have at least abated a pressing anxiety, which I will pretend to explain in the following paragraphs.

I do not imagine myself to be alone in this. It is, at its core, a question of purpose, and I will be damned (I'm not even kidding) if I'm the first one to wonder in this way.

I feel sometimes as though time ravages around me, devouring anything I will let it grasp. My Blue Blanket, my rabbit, my Green Machine, my sensation in tooth number 9, Brandon, and countless, certainly innumerable, opportunities. I feel like I should be an expert in something already. I should be Mr. Manager of a Banana Stand. I should have discovered something, or written something, or invented something, or contributed something to something. But no. I'm John Wuchenich: Unaccomplished. And it was getting to me.

It's the same feeling I had for about eight weeks my Junior Year of college. I was in Honors Research Writing, and had a thesis paper to write. Unlike most of the class, I hadn't done reading during the summer to prepare my topic, and so it took me a bit of time to do, what with all the reading and notetaking and planning and writing and revising and all. I knew it would be some work, and I put in the effort, but no matter how much I worked on it (and it really did turn out good; I got asked out for it (well kinda, but that's another story)) I could not shake the feeling that I wasn't putting in enough time into it. I'd feel guilty if I spent any free time doing anything else. A little ridiculous, maybe, in retrospect. But I got that same feeling when I was working (or, as was largely the case, not working) on my senior project, and the week leading up to the MCAT.

For some time now, that panic has been back. What am I waiting for? Why am I wasting my time doing anything else? Why am I not writing that paper?

That means two things now. It's not just my 40 page thesis about a certain piece of legislation in Hong Kong, but the story of my life.

I told all y'all the other day that I was pissed with Salinger (or maybe pissing Salinger) (great, now it sounds like Salinger is a beer. Well, he is addictive. Friends don't let friends sip Salinger and write. Too bad I was drinking alone. Isn't that one of the signs of alcoholism?) You'll pardon me if this next bit tastes like vomit, or is at least somewhat emetic. I was under the influence when I read it, I suppose. Or maybe I was like those scuba divers who descend too quickly and earn themselves some nitrogen narcosis. And in my altered state, I found the coolest piece of coral (sound familiar, Kosrae guys?) that really wasn't cool, but euphoria makes everything look better. So I return from my Deep Dive with this increasingly stupid-looking chunk of calcium carbonate (and maybe the bends (is that why I'm nauseous?))
So yes, I lied. Here's the piece of coral. You are getting the Salinger quote. Yes, even after I told you to read it yourself. Sorry to any of you who have seen it.

"Do you know what I was smiling at? You [21 years old and unpublished] wrote down [on your draft registration form] that you were a writer by profession. It sounded to me like the loveliest euphemism I had ever heard. When was writing ever your profession? It's never been anything but your religion. Never. I'm a little over-excited now. Since it is your religion, do you know what you will be asked when you die? But let me tell you first what you won't be asked. You won't be asked if you were working on a wonderful, moving piece of writing when you died. You won't be asked if it was long or short, sad or funny, published or unpublished. You won't be asked if you were in good or bad form while you were working on it. You won't even be asked if it was the one piece of writing you would have been working on if you had known your time would be up when it was finished—I think only poor Soren K. will get asked that. I'm so sure you'll get asked only two questions. Were most of your stars out? Were you busy writing your heart out? Of only you knew how easy it would be for you to say yes to both questions. Of you'd remember before ever you sit down to write that you've been a reader long before you were ever a writer. You simply fix that fact in your mind, then sit very still and ask yourself, as a reader, what piece of writing in all the world Buddy Glass [the name of the character this particular note was addressed to] would most want to read if he had his heart's choice. The next step is terrible, but so simple i can hardly believe it as I write it. You just sit down shamelessly and write the thing yourself. I won't even underline that. It's too important to be underlined. Oh, dare to do it, Buddy! Trust your heart. You're a deserving craftsman. It would never betray you. Good night. I'm feeling very much over-excited now, and a little dramatic, but I think I'd give almost anything on earth to see you writing a something, an anything, a story, a poem, a tree, that was really and truly after your own heart."

But that doesn't quite answer the question of how I have put aside my fears of not yet being an expert. See, at twenty-two (and an unmistakably retarded twenty-two at that), I am too old to be a Boy Wonder or a prodigy by any stretch of the word. I am a little discouraged at this. It's discouraging to think that I'm going to be neither a football star nor a genius theoretical physicist (both who, coincidentally, have about the same retirement age, or at least they're past their prime in their mid-30s). Not that I'd most want, more than anything else, to be a Manning or an Einstein. Nor a Marsalis or a Michaelangelo or a Miyazaki, much as I respect their work.

Given my heart's choice, I'd write (because I'd most want to read) the story of Gandhi. Or Paul Farmer. Or Jesus. And those guys started a little later. Undoubtedly they were bright little boys, but they weren't Bobby Fischer or anything. To be sure, they were stars on the rise, but weren't publicly hailed, at 26. Or lets keep to the previous analogy. They could bring out their stars, but they weren't seen as giant galaxies at 26.
I'm indecisive at times because I know that the choices I make have a lasting impact on the rest of my life. Every choice. Damn chaos theory. Or maybe it's the Bible. Or that old emperor in Mulan. One of those says that everything matters. It can be paralyzing. Who should I keep as friends? Where should I go to school? Where should I live? What should I use for transportation? How much should I work? Study? Exercise? Eat? Do I have time to go to a baseball game? When do I do laundry? Should I finish this blog or get some sleep? What socks should I wear tomorrow?
Do my socks matter? Who knows. That's what bugs me. What if, more than anything else ever, wearing green socks on Saturday, April 1, 2006, would change my life? What if it would ill behoove me to not get 8 hours sleep? When everything matters, it's easy for me to get caught up on triviality's trinkets.
Still, what am I waiting for? Do I really think a most perfect path (yellow brick road, perhaps) will pave my way and will brush away all the impertinent, curio-peddling street vendors. I'm not gonna embark upon the journey of my life only when the fiery chariots come to lead me triumphantly through the streets of Jerusalem. No one starts out great like that (except maybe Harry Potter). But really. Einstein was a patent clerk (ahh yes, I went straight for the most overused one). Jesus was a carpenter. A carpenter! That's why they're called humble beginnings. And really, it's not going to matter whether you're in Haiti or Durban or Oxford or Loma Linda. Diligence, passion, and aptitude is success's template the world over. Regardless of the color of your socks. And I needed to know that it's OK to commit myself to something that will be impermanent in my life. I can work my damned best at ADRA even if ADRA isn't my calling, and it's not a waste of time or energy.
So that's it. That's my insight. I don't need Ben Carson knocking on my door to convince me that I want to be a doctor. Maybe I won't want to be a doctor. But I won't know until I try. So stop waiting for that chariot and start writing the life your heart wants to hear about. Tyler Durden agrees.

Still, all I'm really doing (probably) is putting off my midlife crisis for later midlife. But I guess this is good, otherwise it might mean that I would die at 35.

That's morbid. Let's throw in an AD quote to lighten the mood.
[George Michael and Maeby sitting in the staircar]
George Michael: Yeah, uh, I'm gonna, um, you know, I'm gonna stay out here and, um, watch that famous Reno sunset.
Maeby: Isn't it behind you?
George Michael: Yep, there's...there's mirrors...It'll actually look closer.


Another recently acquired gem/coral shard (though this one didn't require the SCUBA gear):
Paul: The pineapple is so good. It will make you roll your eyes.
Ahh the wisdom of 6-year-olds.

Paul and I had another conversation today.
Paul: Where are you going?
Me: Back to my apartment.
Paul: Why?
Me: I need to hang my laundry up to dry.
Paul: Excuse me John, do you know Anaket?
Me: Is that your friend?
Paul: Yes.
Me: Is he the one I met?
Paul: Yes.
Me: Is he the one who bit me?
Paul: (giggling and playing with his shirt) Yes!
Me: The one who bit me while you were biting me?
Paul: (now almost squealing) YES!!!
Me: Yeah, I remember him.
Paul: He told me something today. Do you know what?
Me: No. What did he tell you?
Paul: He said he is made of stone. OK, bye.
And he ran off before I could respond. Or maybe I shouted a "Bye" after him, but I doubt it caught up. He was running pretty fast.

My Exceptionally Current Likes and Dislikes

Things I am enjoying (for various reasons, which may or may not be accompanied here—I haven't yet decided):

The end of Spring Break (though, i'm sure this belongs in the second list of most of my readership. Nevertheless, I am, to quote myself earlier, "pleased as punch," which is so pleased that it means I'll use a phrase without even caring for it's etymology, or caring for the Grammar of this explanation.)
Finishing another Salinger. He's such a joy to read. It's troubling, or at least I feel disturbed, that we could have similar styles if (or maybe there is no if, and we just do) I didn't try to, for my identity's sake, remove, or at least somewhat divert, that incessant stream of consciousness.
Listening to that gecko rustle through the bag that houses my cache of Western World goodies every time I turn on the kitchen light. Although, he must consider it his bag, and I'll let him; he spends more time in there than me. Still, his furniture (the Boston baked beanbag chairs and black licorice beds) will be repossessed over the course of the next few days, or possibly hours.
The pre-Opening Day anxieties that every baseball year brings. Silly me, thinking the Pirates will be contenders. You, the reader, would think I should learn.
Playing "Who's Taller?" with Vietnamese people. This never gets old. I only hope we never start playing "Who's Shorter?" That game's old just thinking about it.

Things I am not enjoying (for various reasons, which may or may not be accompanied here—I haven't yet decided):

Cooking for myself after a week's hiatus.
Sounding like Buddy Glass, because I just did finish another Salinger, but at least I no longer sound like Austen. The diction and manners inspired there brought naught but trouble to my orations and tete-a-tetes alike. I have no intention in keeping such language so much as near at hand, for it lends itself excessively to panegyrics and verbosity, devices I employ immoderately even now.
Finishing another Salinger, because once again I'm trying to identify with Seymour Glass, just as I do with Dostoevsky's Alyoshas or Duncan's Everett and Peter Chances or Potok's Danny Saunders. Seriously now, who writes stuff like "Keep me up till five only because all your stars are out, and for no other reason," and then explains it so it hits you, instead of leaving it for fluff a bad movie might try to use as it's big romantic line. Damn you Salinger. I hate getting lessons unexpectedly from someone who knows he'll get his message across. That's not the message, by the way. The message comes after that. I won't ruin it. Read "Seymour: An Introduction." Actually, the message isn't quite spelled out, but so long as you don't find me dysgraphic, I should think that you might manage J. D. just fine.
Needing sleep.
Conservation of Mass. If I got to reinvent physics, or just make some Notable Exceptions to its laws, I'd make sure that there'd be be absolutely no downside to drinking as much water as you pleased.

A literary display of John's great condescension and charity

Current mood:irate

It happened quite late this year. Rather, it's happening quite late this year. This period of time in which I
1) Haven't any good ideas at all,
2) Have a thorough distaste and ineptitude for productivity,
3) Can't manage the completion of (m)any tasks or conversations without an obligatory and crucial error of some sort, and
4) Won't be bothered to be sociable, amiable, or prepossessing under most circumstances

Also, I often adopt a bit of a superiority complex. But given that I'm usually under the influence of a perennial inferiority complex, I end up finally believing I'm as awesome as I actually am. Yeah, it's pride the roundabout way. Or complete misapplication of multiplication to self-esteem.

This is typically a late January, early February occurance, as that has been the time of year when I was least likely to, hmm, something. See the sun? Have a break? Associate with friends? Watch the Steelers win? Keep up my resolutions?
In any case, that affected state has caught me now and left me more glowered and less glum than usual. Ineffectuality has scowled my disposition, and I am as determined as ever to regain my normal wisecracking, overtasking, self-effacing, accommodating manners.

But enough on my temperament, and onto some thoughts.

This week I read a chapter in my book (as pictured below) that caused me to realize that I was misguided in my dread over the prospect of a mechanistic universe; my real anxiety comes in the possibility of a mechanist human body. So it's all well and good that we can call on Heisenberg to abolish determinism, but what I really need is biology to show that my thoughts, my rationale, my feelings, my beliefs are more than nerual pathways and electrical impulses, hormone molecules and biochemistry. That's where my science and religion crash. It shouldn't be bothersome, for I at least feel as though I make my own choices. But the notion that I might be so easily manipulated by drugs or electrodes makes me doubt that I have much choice in my thoughts or feelings in the first.