Mainstream

I had a recent conversation with someone who called me "mainstream", and while we may have differing concepts or terms of the description, but it inspired me to think more about myself.

I know what I am, or what I appear in the eyes of others...I am sensible. I am, at least on a superficial level, the person you want to be. Or rather are told to be like(mostly an asian thing, I feel as if asians more than other culture carry a strict universal "formula" for being a person, and are highly competitive in this degree). I am the guy that reckless girls are told to date, I am the person that ambitious students are told to become, I am the guy that people feel like they should be more like when they "grow" up. Whatever "growing up" means.

For many reasons.

I think I've always known this, and I've had a lot of superficial successes in my life because well...I did listen to my parents at a young age, and maybe I'm gifted and driven. By the time I really reached my rebellious state it was too late to do any real damage, I suppose I'm referring to the kind where that single misstep drastically changes a life. People may not necessarily want to be like me, but they want to have what I have. Be it my "aura" or my "abilities" or my "successes." Sure why not? I like them and want to keep them too.

But sometimes I find myself doing what seems least reasonable, because I want to try something different. I want to escape who I am. Because I've been down those paths, and I've followed those roads that others may see but not touch, and I'll tell you that its just as empty and sad as any other road.

I don't want to be sensible...I don't want to make sense. I can tell you, that there's nothing you can do in life that makes everything clear. I even feel like I have a weaker grasp on myself as a person, than pretty much everyone I know. Being sensible, doesn't mean you feel sensible. In fact it sometimes feels like you've betrayed your own inner self.

And when people give me that vibe, that you seemed to have done it "the parent's way" it tends to bristle the hair on my neck. It doesn't really upset me, but it riles me, gives me cause to almost emphasize my lesser reasonable attributes or experiences. When people ask me about my school I tell them about all the drinking I did there. When people ask me about the experience, I talk about getting detained by security, missing classes from hangovers, mostly screw up stories. When people tell me they think I'm really smart or intelligent, I tell them about how I crash cars, or smoke, or whatever. I don't want to be that guy anymore...

But maybe, I just am that guy. The annoying guy that knows all the answers the teacher is asking. The one that the parents in your family circle gush about and tell you how much more inferior you are relative to me.(assuming they are asian) The one that makes average successes that you might personally feel good about, pale in comparison. I am the one that makes you feel bad to take the linear path of reason and sensibility, where results and actions are judged and graded on a relative scale...and my score is always higher than yours.

I will trump you, whether I want to or not, whether I mean to or not, and whether I'm really aware at all.

The truth is, I suppose, that I am only above average in most degrees. Take the *average* person's level of successes and accomplishments, and increase it somewhat and that's me. I feel the same way everyone else does, but to the bigger of the fishes. There is always someone better than the better and onwards to the best. Perhaps the only defense and way out of this vicious cycle, is to redefine your "scale" in such a way that is more favorable to you. That, or be happy with your place on those scales. I mean, who are we kidding? Life is about scales, and everyone needs to know who they are better than. But its the sad ugly truth that is along the same lines of everyone is inherently selfish.

[ esca | 9:59 AM | ]

 

Sympathy Empathy Compassion

Three different words, three different meanings, conventionally, similar usage. They are common methods of support. They don't mean the same thing, by any means, but I feel most people use them in the same context. Let's say your dog dies, I would say I'm sympathetic, I'm not sad, by any means, your dog means shit me. However, since you mean something to me, I'm willing to offer my condolences. If I were so inclined, I might feel empathetic with, I am touched by your sadness and your sad vibe and demeanor in turn makes me a little blue too. But I still don't really care about your dumb dog. If I am a compassionate person I would as Atticus Finch asks of us, to try to walk in your shoes and try to feel as if I were the one who personally experienced the loss. However, I suppose that your dog can still roast in hell. I'm just sad because I?m thinking of my poor puppy passing on.

Sympathy, Empathy and Compassion are not necessarily exclusive, meaning I can be sympathetic to your problems, empathetic of your feelings, and compassionate of your situation all at the same time. But, it is important not to confuse or mix those topics.

Let's take girls, because they tend to be more tightly knit social animals. Like a rabid pack, mess with one of them, and they all turn on you with such swift ferociousness. But let's just say you come to them with a particular problem, looking for some moral support. You bring them your sad sad tale and like the warm mother spirit they listen and feel for you. She understands.

Two days later, you bump into them again say at the bookstore, and when your sad sad tale comes up to the surface of the conversation its accompanied by a blank expression. Oh, you're not over it yet? Oops, I'm sorry. Again.

When anyone says that you are sorry for someone else, why are you? What are you sorry for really? Can you truly be sorry for someone else's problems that are not your own?

[ esca | 6:43 PM | ]

 

MJ, not his airness but the other one...

I was bored the other day so I watched for 15 minutes while heating/eating some food, some Michael Jackson special on VH-1. Michael Jackson has really become the laughingstock scapegoat for all sorts of weird things these days. Is he a pervert weirdo? Someone who has tried to physically change the color of his skin and has strange fetishes for little boys? And is in complete and total denial over this? My sixth sense tells me that's maybe its all somewhat true and he's probably had a really messed up life. I mean, would you want to be Michael? Despite the fact that he's ridiculously rich, would you want to be in his shoes and everything that entails?

Personally I'd rather scrub toilets. Just an expression of course. I'm very PC.

Anyways back to Michael, I mean, he seems weird, but if you expand your boundaries a little bit, he's not that unusual. He's probably just the most well known and visible person with his particular set of issues that also happen to be very pronounced.

I mean, the whole skin thing may at first glance seem very unusual, but if you consider the reasons behind, it doesn't seem quite so out of place. How many black people would want to be white, maybe if they were asked as part of a secret ballot? Its not even a black thing, but how many minorities inside desire to be white? If nothing else because "white" is the dominant sphere of this society, and how many minorities, if they have a distinct sub-culture, end up rejecting their own? Choosing not to speak the language of their parents, or adopting their different traditions. Probably the path and the goal is different but I feel like its the same basic form of thought.

Besides people change their physical appearances all the time anyways, and in my mind, even dying your hair is part of this changing appearance. Plastic surgery, liposuction, its all the same, just more acceptable. Plus, don't they have that one show on TV now, the extreme makeover show, where they basically take someone who feels they are unattractive(usually a girl) and then they cut her up and present her for the first time in front of their family. This just strikes me a very wrong, but everyone seems happy about it so I suppose that is what is most important.

Anyways, I just feel sorry for Michael.

I'm not going to touch the child fetish thing though...even that is too much for me.

[ esca | 5:15 PM | ]

 

Suicide Club

I watched this movie, a Japanese film, called Suicide Club. It won some international film festival, and the abstract on the back of the cover describes an interesting scenario…in Tokyo, 54 school girls laughing and giggling walk up to the a subway terminal, hold hands, and chant, one and two and three, and simultaneously jump in front of the arriving train…blood splatters everywhere and onto peoples faces and clothes as mangled body parts are strewn about.

It’s a disturbing movie, but interesting topic matter. I thought it would be more of a documentary type thing, but its fictional, and more of a psycho-thriller than anything with a little bit of Japanese social commentary.

[ esca | 10:26 AM | ]

 

Accidents...

I was originally planning to go up to Magic Mountain over the weekend with my brother and his friend Megan for some wholesome roller coaster fun. Unfortunately we got into some real life roller coaster un-fun with a nasty car accident. Wasn't my car, but Megan's car, essentially slamming her honda accord head first into large blue SUV. I'm thinking Ford Expedition, but don't really remember. It's a tough car and when I looked at the damage, I believe only the fender was messed up. On Megan's car however, the front hood was pushed up and the radiator was completely smashed. The accord was no longer drivable and stuck on the northbound 5, about 200 yards before the Washington Blvd exit. Sucks.

Nobody was hurt though, and I think it was actually a fairly low-speed impact. The highways were pretty dense at this point, and I was about two cars behind them. As far as I can gather, the cars in front had to brake suddenly for some reason, which is typical in LA, and they just were not able to brake in time.

Seeing as how they were stuck, I drove off onto the shoulder, checked with the family of the SUV, and then called my brother again and my parents. All we could do at this point was wait for the cops to come and tow truck to move the car off the freeway.

When the CHP arrived, it was pretty interesting watching them coordinate the flow of traffic in such a densely packed area. I was on the phone at this point, I remember, talking with someone, when I noticed all of the sudden, that there were no more cars on the freeway. What the hell? So, stepped out onto the highway a couple lanes and looked back at the accident. I looked like the cops had blocked off all traffic from my vantage point. Very interesting indeed. Next thing I see are two squads cars with sirens-a-blazin' drive up a side road, get on the freeway via the exit ramp and drive backwards to the accident. Damn, I want to be a cop.

My brother then calls me about this time and says,

Hey Victor, they are going to push us off.
What?
I mean push us off the freeway, it'll take too long to wait for the tow truck.
They are going to push you off? How would that be any faster?
No, I mean ram us off.

Sure enough, from the distance you can see this mangled accord slowly crossing the freeway via push-power of the CHP. Those giant rammer things that the cruisers have? Yeah also good for pushing disabled cars. So, we didn't make it to magic mountain, but followed this tow truck around LA and went back to SD afterwards. Nobody got hurt so it was an interesting and tiring experience.

Side note, if you're ever in an emergency, don't bother using a cell phone to call 911. Of myself, my brother, and the family of the SUV, we all tried calling 911 on our cell phones respectively. I think the earliest of us got through at 20 minutes or so, and I ended up going over to the nearest Call Box and phoning in the accident from there. Which is also a pretty neat interface, with a automatically retracting/extending keyboard if you need to punch in additional information.

[ esca | 10:16 AM | ]

 

Sore loser, sore winner.

Some people like to quit when they are behind. I'm sure it happens to the best of us. You're in some *meaningless* competition, say a half-marathon jog. You've set a goal to jog the entire way but at the 6 mile mark, you *know* you won't make it. You're not tired at the moment, per se, but you will be, sometime before the end. So you stop. And walk. What's the point in continuing if you're likely not to make it? I've done this before

But interestingly enough, I also like to quit while I'm ahead. Funny huh?

I've done this for instance dating before. Quitting while ahead. One time I met this girl, who shall remain nameless, who I felt was out of my league. She was gorgeous, she was hip, she was stylish, she was flocked by guys a plenty. At the urging of my friend, who basically told me, look, you're right, you're the chump, I don't think she'd be interested, so you've got nothing to lose, I went up to talk with her. I think I must have said something pointless like she had a interesting hat. But for some reason she liked it...or perhaps I dare say me?

So we hung out once, and I don't really remember that much, other than feeling really nervous and perhaps out of place. Thinking to myself that I was being such a poser and she'd sniff me out eventually. That I wasn't quite as calm or collected as I was trying to project. All we did was just hang out and talk, and I remember just thinking that she was really pretty when she smiled. I remember being so excited afterwards that I was basically doing cartwheels in my head.

I never called her after that again.

I guess the pressure got to be too much. The weird thing was that nothing bad really happened. If anything, it was probably a pretty good first date. However, I guess my mindset at the time was, gee, I'm so far removed now from being "guy with nothing to lose" and "guy with no expectations" it took me out of my "zone of operation." I could think of nothing but horrific scenarios for the second date, or think of nothing except fumbling over my words.

My confidence was absolutely zero, likely wasn't there to begin with. I was sure that even if she was interested at the time being, she would very soon come to her senses. Why not just give up now, while I'm *ahead* so I can treasure this memory with great fondness in the future. So I can think back and go wow, you were such such the pimp. Go you! You rockstar.

Which of course is a little ironic because now I think about how stupid I was.

In anycase, I think personally at least for me, this all centers around failure, the fear of it, and how to cope. Perhaps this is the area that I need to work on the most, because I've never had that much experience with it growing up. Failure that is. Not that I'm really good at everything, but I don't usually do what I'm not good at. In fact, come to think of it, my circle of activities include a set of things that I don't particularly enjoy, but I happen to be good at. Geez I'm weird.

[ esca | 5:04 PM | ]