Yeah, I'm an indecisive bastard.

I've decided I haven't fully left blogger for tumblr.

I'm still keeping a photodiary here that I'm about to whore out, so please take your time to marvel at the benblsdnbsovsnlvsnbsl:

www.philophoi.blogspot.com

www.philophoi.blogspot.com

www.philophoi.blogspot.com

I feel as though you can't ignore it if I post it thrice.*

Thank you!

*Why on earth do I need people to see it so much, you ask? Well, it's just in my nature as a person. I like to share what I've done with people, especially if I'm somewhat proud of it. I guess that's why I'm very bad at keeping physical, personal diaries. If I write anything half-decent in them, I desperately want to share it -- which sort of defeats the purpose of a personal diary -- and if what I've written is mundane, I'm uninspired to continue writing the diary at all.

The Inexplicably Unrelated & Unfinished Case of ...

Walks in. Grabs box with both hands, pulls it out of darkness. Inspects content of box. Inside there is one BLOG. Draws pen from coat pocket. Writes upon the BLOG with a pseudo-sophisticated scrawl.


Hey, Blogger blog. I... don't mean to... Ah... how do I put this? Well, I'm leaving you for now; I hope that's okay? No, no, I'm not quitting blogging... I'm just... leaving you. I'll be here instead, at a little place you might know called Tumblr. It's just... I've been unnecessarily posting the same stuff in two places for a while now... and although I understand you and Tumblr have some fundamental differences, I've chosen Tumblr. I mean, don't take it personally or anything. It's just... Ah.

Defeated, drops pen into box alongside BLOG. With a slight heave, pushes box back into darkness.
Exits.

Depth vs. Simplicity

The other week, an argument broke out in my English class as regards the quality of modern music. It wasn’t so much an argument at first — our teacher hesitantly, for fear of sounding old, opined about the decreasing quality of music nowadays. To his surprise, nearly everybody agreed. However, I’d been thinking about music recently and I had to beg to differ.

The main objection (to modern music) of the class was of its lack of depth and mere surface-level significance. “Music nowadays doesn’t mean anything,” could be something one of them said. I offered the following: Who are we to say what a song means to somebody? Perhaps to some of us Justin Bieber seems like a manufactured, talentless hack, but who are we to say that’s the truth? A thirteen-year-old girl may listen to him and derive from his music the most meaningful and significant sensations; maybe a choice she may have made, an important decision that slowly forms her character, may have been altered by a lyric that she heard and decided to interpret in her own way. My point is, the significance and/or importance of something (especially music) is never intrinsic to that something — it is always projected onto it by the beholder. 

It was argued that depth and intricacy to a song is what makes it good, and that a lack of that almost ruins our modern society because (without it) we are no longer being encouraged to think. This counterpoint was presented to me by the oldest guy in the class, who is a lot more articulate than me and a much quicker spontaneous thinker, and I naturally caved. “You have a point,” is what I probably responded. “Very true.”

However, that got me to think. Is this justification, this romanticism of thought and depth warranted? It occurred to me as I sat on the bus, reading a novel, on my way to college half-an-hour late. When I wasn’t thinking about being late, I felt this curious freedom: in being late, but not worrying about it; in just sitting on that bus, and letting it take me to college, regardless of what the time was. It was so liberating. But once I added depth to my thoughts, it all changed. I began to wonder, “What’s my excuse going to be?”, “Will they let me in?”, “Why must lessons be so goddamn early!” … As I further pondered my late situation, as I added depth to the matter, it became detrimental to my well-being, to how I felt.

On the one hand was the simplicity of enjoying being late at surface level. Not over-thinking the consequences and enjoying simply how things are (i.e. a nice bus journey, a good book, the interesting morning bustle of the city, simply arriving at college a bit late). While, on the other hand was the supposedly superior depth and thought. Predicting how my teacher will react, formulating some response based on my prediction of his reaction, cursing the very situation itself. It goes to show, as a matter of fact, sometimes depth is superfluous. On occasion, depth is a detriment. And I don’t think music escapes that occasion. Music (or poetry, for that matter) doesn’t necessarily always need to be deep and layered with an infinite variety of possible-meaning. Sometimes a song or a poem that clearly conveys its point, with blissful simplicity, is far more superior than the one that is convoluted in its pretentious depth.

And in case I’ve fallen victim to the pretentiousness of depth in this post, I’ll explain clearly here what I’m trying to say: the music or the poetry is like life in general. There are so many things we ruin with our love for depth and our disdain for simplicity (being a “simple” person is an insult, for example), but I propose we embrace The Simple: maybe you don’t have a girlfriend/boyfriend/spouse/bestfriend yet simply because you haven’t met them yet — not because there’s something wrong with you. Maybe that thing what’s-her-name said wasn’t layered with complications; maybe she just meant what she said. Even if she didn’t, why not simply ask her what she meant? Maybe we just die and it feels, simply, like how it felt before we were alive; maybe there is no superclub that holds the after-party in an unspecified area where you need to have impressed the Highly Judgemental Bouncer to get in. Maybe this is the only life we’ve got and we should enjoy it.

Thinking too much can really get to you, sometimes. Take meeting a new person: instead of prematurely assuming they’ll be judging you harshly, why not imagine them simply as another person who won’t mind talking to you. (You may be wrong. They might be a psycho-depressed lunatic who hates the human race and seeks for our general demise, but how the hell were you supposed to know? And if you have to think that in-depth about everything, how can you ever be sure of anybody or anything? Why not scurry into a hole, curl up, and let your thoughts fester in your skull for the rest of your life if you’re going to be that deep.) 

I don’t know, man. I just think there are times in which we should just read our books and enjoy the city instead of worrying about being late all the time.

Organisation

So Operation Organisation (I have a tumblr that I post slightly more frequently on with shorter posts such as this one) is currently failing. I hate it when I can’t seem to follow through with things. All my work is piling up, my room looks like a post-war zone — the only thing I’m proud of is that I’m doing slightly more reading than I have been recently… but even that can improve. 

I get these moments where I feel like I need to drastically change something about myself, about what I do, but then I fear doing so because our brains are innately partial to order and routine … My “order and routine” ironically being disorder and procrastination… But I need to break out of this routine, to create something more organised, so that I have more control over my life. It’s odd because I feel as though I have no spare time when, 80% of the time, I’m probably doing something that’s not related to anything (namely: being on the internet). I have the spare time, but it’s being used as procrastination-time which is entirely different. Procrastination-time is a meaningless filler — laden with sacks of Stress about what you should be doing — whereas spare time can actually be used for something.

I seriously need to yank on the reins of this mad stallion that is life and ride steadily in the direction I want to. 

We are such stuff As dreams are made on,

Preface: This is written like this because it reflects my unsure-ness on the topic. Punctuation contributes to order, but my belief on this wasn't truly ordered. It was formed as it was written.

what does it mean to be yourself? people are always telling you to be yourself, that's best, just be yourself, but what do they even mean? to what do i refer when i seek to be myself? this is interesting. what on earth does it mean to be myself?

recently i've been struggling with the idea of self. be yourself. who am i? i've noticed that in real life situations, i'm somewhat of a shapeshifter. i simply take the place of that which isn't there. if there is a group of people filled with predominately talkative, confident, outspoken people, i will almost inevitably become the shy listener, the one who barely contributes but absorbs everything. on the other hand, if a situation arises wherein the majority are in fact quiet and soft-spoken, i take it upon myself to initiate conversation and act more confidently.

i can't understand this. it seems that there is some general consensus (to which i wasn't invited to contribute) that states there is a self that you can be; you can simply reach into yourself and pull him out to assist you in these difficult times. be yourself. i don't know who i am! how can i be myself?

i know what i like; i know what i think of stuff; i know my qualities and personal history very well. if i and somebody else were given a quiz on me, i would indubitably destroy them in it. in this sense, i know myself the most, but this is not the self that everybody else refers to. everybody else refers to the perception of me. be yourself. i can't be a series of facts and likes and dislikes; what they ask of me is to be a persona. to have a personality. but the trouble is, the route of personality -- persona -- means mask in greek. masks are created to be removed, changed, to present with different fronts. and this is what people do, by nature. it's a funny thing how language can capture such intimate truths. but my point is, you ask me to be myself, and you clearly refer to my personae -- because it's impossible to be a series of likes, dislikes, and facts -- but these masks change. they change on everybody. some people may view my mask different because they stand in a different position, and the light falls on it now graciously, now grotesquely, now in a nature most profound. 

so what can i do? i can't be myself because i can't be a series of likes, dislikes, and facts; i can't be my personae because i have too many to choose from. and they affect people in an innumerable amount of ways. what do i do? there is no self to be.

so i sit in this dusty cellar of a mind, with my facts and my likes and my dislikes and also an array of masks, and i look at it all and ponder. am i doomed to the fate of an actor? is all i can do act? and it HITS me. BANG. language, you beautiful motherfucker, you reveal these hidden, intimate truths once more! when we think of acting, we think of pretending, being false. but there is a reason that it shares a name with its other meaning: to do, to go forth with an action. and at this point we must reach out and grab occam's razor to understand what that reason is. why do these two different meanings share the same name? it is the simplest reason: THEY ARE THE SAME. 

to act is to do is to pretend is to act. they are all the same. unless you wish to remain inactive, static, and become a nothing, you must act; you must pretend; you must do. we're all actors. shakespeare got it right in the tempest.

and so "be yourself" is "act". don't fuss over who you are, simply do. you have your personae at your disposal; enter the world with your likes and your dislikes and your facts and your masks and act to the very end. it's all you can do. you can't be your qualities -- that's impossible. you can only act them, if you wish to show them.

On Being Alone,

I do not doubt that experiencing things with others, sharing the moment, is indeed more fulfilling than being lonely, but recently I’ve been mentally toying with the idea of becoming slightly more… alone. I don’t mean actively isolating myself; I simply mean halting in the pursuit of sociability. But I shall explain.

This doesn’t stem from a dislike of those who surround me; it comes from my noticing that in adolescent culture so much focus is put on having the company of others. Sure, this isn’t a bad thing, but the emphasis is so strong that sometimes one can equate, in the eyes of the adolescent Zeitgeist, happiness with having company. So where does that leave those without company? Logically, without happiness. I’ve found that, being so immersed in the adolescent Zeitgeist (what with being a teen myself and all), these equations of company = happiness & -company = sadness  can actually become true to you and drag you into this (what I think may be unnecessary) sense of melancholy or even depression. It’s an unfortunate mind-frame because, although some people seem to be able to connect with others oh-so easily and maintain this — for lack of a better word — party (as in “group of people” or “social gatherings”, whichever you prefer) lifestyle, for others it doesn’t come quite as easily (perhaps they’re at a disadvantage somehow) and, instead of being encouraging and supporting the it’s-okay-to-be-alone ideology, the adolescent Zeitgeist makes them wear the crown of sadness.

My point here anyway is that I’ve been forced into wearing the aforementioned crown more than once or twice because I haven’t necessarily felt that there was somebody I could always connect with, but — inspired by the embedded video — I’m going to attempt to yank myself out of the Zeitgeist and embrace being alone. I’m not going to try unnaturally to be social; I’m just going to be me, attempting to chase goals and just be happy. It sounds sappy, but everyone’s primary goal is to be happy; nobody can say that they wish not to be happy. And by yanking myself out of the Zeitgeist, I may get closer in this pursuit of happiness.

Just to be clear (for myself more than anything):

-I won’t be trying overly hard to be social.

-I won’t be walking around feeling embarrassed not to be with anyone; I won’t feel the need to chill with people I’m uncomfortable chilling with just to avoid being alone.

- I won’t mind just sitting in the library or a coffee shop, doing some work, maybe reading, perhaps writing if my mood swings that way. Or just taking walks, listening to music, watching the world work around me. Anything. I’ll discover a whole new solitary side of experience.

- To be sure as well, I won’t be rejecting occasions to be social. If I’m invited somewhere, I won’t say “no” because I’ve yanked myself from the Zeitgeist; I’m not becoming a recluse. I simply won’t be depressed if the occasions don’t arise.

Two Epiphanies

i

It’s 6.10 AM; I haven’t got any sleep tonight, but I’ve just had an epiphany. Ever since starting my A Levels, I’ve had an internal struggle: what do I want to do at uni? English or Philosophy?

It’s clear to me now that I have to do Philosophy. I just have to. 

ii

As a rule, face what seems even not in my favour. I can just imagine a reader of this looking at that and thinking, What?! That’s your almighty epiphany? But for me, it really is. It just sort of snapped perfectly in my mind. I think in the past a major thing that’d stop me from doing is the anticipation of failure. But now, it just hit me: revolution only comes about when people face what earlier seemed impossible or tremendously difficult. And I’m a revolutionist (not in the political sense; in a personal sense, i.e. I embrace change). Ah, this is why I love insomnia! EPIPHANIES.