An American's anxiety

     In the movie Citizen Kane Charles Foster Kane speaks a line that I find very appealing, "I'm an American, I've always been an American."

     This quote always made me feel a terrific sense of profound belonging. I'm not talking about having the American dream or a flag waving, star spangled sense of tear-jerking, fourth-of-July national pride. I'm referring to the national identity one gets from them and their family having been born in a certain place with a certain culture and attitude. There is something I find not wholly undesirable about this part of my person.

     However, I have an overwhelming feeling, that if I am to ever discover the true essence of myself and thereby create something with at least a little beauty, I must first get rid of any notion that I am anything but myself and that any word-able identifiers apply to my soul in any way. 

     I think that I ought to listen to the intuition which formed the latter paragraph on the grounds that any sense of nationality inevitably leads one to estrange themselves from the part of humanity which does not reside in the plot of land which marks their country, but I do not believe I will ever be able to fully shake from my psyche the American label, at least not in this life.

Here We Go

     The first order of business here, before I officially return from what might be called a hiatus of sorts, is to dedicate this post to Patrik--you may blame or give credit to him for this blogs shaky return to its somewhat oafish feet.

     Now! With a fresh paragraph I mark it official and with this marker comes the second order of business, which happens to be to get to the point of this post. Sadly, this is easier said than done, for there are many incoherent apparitions of thoughts that are manifesting themselves in my mind, but which when I attempt to take hold of and put down in plain English, fail to translate into anything except pure, literary fluff. These reflections have led me to the conclusion that I have no choice except to write on the nature of my reflections themselves, the format of which is this blog itself. I am aware that I have once already written a post on blogs and that one should only be alloted one of his medium in that medium, for if one reflects on his or herself too much I am a firm believer that they will eventually turn themselves inside out and the world will see them for what they really are, which happens to be nothing at all, and they will promptly disappear forever.

      It turns out that all I really have to say is that those of you who know the flesh and blood me are aware that my speech is nothing like my writing here. This concerns me slightly, because I consider myself one who always stands for real content from a person and when I detect a facade of any sort I usually denounce the work of the poor individual as utterly worthless. However, this writing, however obnoxious (and however many self deprecating comments I make) is from my soul which I offer to you. I close with an appropriate quote which also happens to be the quote for which this blog is named.

"One's identity ought not to be comprised of things which they don't partake in. It also ought not to be
reflecting those things of which we seem to emphatically take part in. The whole idea of a personality is almost entirely for the benefit of others. The truth is we are all incoherent enigmas who do not know ourselves--anyone who did is more than likely no longer continuing to cycle through this life."
-Author Unknown

Equal Consideration

Some would like to dismiss consideration for any sentient being that isn't human because it's lower cognitive abilities, or it's allegedly more limited emotional spectrum. But I would argue that equal consideration for all sentient beings should not be dependent on the mental or physical capabilities of the being.
Those who would argue the former point would mostly likely be inconsistent by the fact that they would likely consider the happiness and/or wellbeing of a mentally retarded human, but not that of an animal.

fashion as a fetter

There was a time for me (and I suspect for all of us) when I was unaware of "fashion," in reality it was more that I didn't care about it; I knew what I thought looked good, but I was okay with going to school or what-have-you wearing clothing that was regular, generic or plain so long as it was reasonably clean. It wasn't a choice not to care, it simply was natural for me not to be overly interested in it; if it had been a choice, then I would have cared, just in a different way.

Anyways, now days things are different. I do care about the styles, what is new, what is edgy, what is redundant and what is over with. But I'd be okay with all that, if only it didn't permeate every activity I did. Too often I gauge the coolness of an activity by how cool it looks not only that, but I also often judge the legitimacy of a thing by the how aesthetically pleasing it's setting and people are. 

This is developing slowly into something which Buddhism might call a fetter, (something which stops you from reaching enlightenment and ties you to suffering) it might sometime prevent me from seeing the truth in a thing because of that things hipness or lack of hipness. I think I know the answer to reversing this process though. I need to immerse myself in something that I care greatly about. Consciously spend more thoughts on a passion.

I want to state that despite all this I am not anti-fashion, I simply think that something used mainly to impress others could ever worth that much time.

To Quote a Friend: "A Blog, About Blogs"

Okay, okay. I know I just now posted, but whilst doing so a thought came into my head that I don't feel like saving to share later. It's small, coarse and perhaps endearing enough to be suspicious, but that's everything a blog post should be, right? Which brings me right into the matter at hand.
Blogs are such an interesting format for people to be channeling their thoughts into. Blogs are seemingly uncommon and-of-the-way enough that when we write in them we are confident that readers and friends won't venture from the downtown of facebook and texting far enough to reach the suburbs where our blogs reside and so we take on a certain amount of intimacy and sincerity with our reader (which we are sure will never come), that we lack in our status updates and photo comments.
Yet we have not wholly forgotten that we are on the internet for heavens sake, we do not go so far as to cross the threshold into diary land (at least not most of us) and it is this which makes blogs so wonderfully different from so many other writing outlets. The idea that someone might, that someone conceivably could search out or stumble across our stash of harvested thoughts, it is this which gives us the feeling of obligation to keep our posts coherent, somewhat relevant and organized. It is also this possibility that keeps us posting and attempting to keep our posts fresh, interesting, and intelligent. It's exciting to wonder who our ghost audience might be and to try and prompt them into giving comments and starting discussion.
Yep, blogs sure are crazy. I think what it comes down to is that we humans like to be peeked in on. We actually kind of want people to see us somewhat exposed, and for many people, their blog is a window, through which they bring to light, perhaps not their deepest and darkest,but certainly many of their more abstruse thoughts, hoping a few people might be spying in on them.

Perhaps a Little Too Snobbish a Thing to Say

Many people are in the habit of having notions that they want to believe so much that they just build their philosophy around--or subscribe to a philosophy that fits well with--these notions. I am going to tentatively point this out as a typical habit in "western" thinking.
Another way of pointing this out would be to say, we typically feel a great amount of guilt for a great amount of the things that we do, but rather than change these things we would seek to justify them, in such marvelously ingenious ways, that we come out fooling even our own selves.

An Apology or: How I learned to stop being frustrated by Wikipedia's cursory articles (on art and literature) and recognize them as manifestations of my high probability of enjoying the art, on which those certain articles had been written

At times I find myself exceedingly frustrated when I hear or read about a film, book, or any piece of art that I find worth looking into, but upon turning to Wikipedia, I find that the article cannot adequately explain whatever it is that I am looking up! My mentality at these times usually goes something like this,

"I'm a busy man! I need to know what art is worth spending my time on! And G-D-it, Wikipedia, it's your job to help sort it out for me!"

It's ironic (and worth noting) that I simultaneously can think this and also understand that any piece of art that I am personally likely to classify as "great" will capture a concept in a way that will not be able to be explained adequately and will only be fully understood upon viewing and comprehending the piece itself.

In other words, the things that I find "inadequately" explained on Wikipedia (I say "things" meaning art) are likely to be the things that I will most enjoy. So I apologize, Wikipedia, for thinking that you were slacking off. Keep up the good work.