end-stopped rhyme
He asked for depressed, he gets depressed. I don’t understand life.
I’ve been on tenterhooks since my acceptance letter. I don’t know why, but I feel totally undeserving of my spot at Brown, especially when I consider all the significantly more worthy people from my school who were deferred or denied acceptance to equally selective schools. So now I am in a fit of panic. I have this weird irrational fear that the carpet is going to be yanked out from under my feet, and I am going to find myself in hell by June. Something will happen. Things can’t go this well for very long. Its Murphy’s Law, and if it isn’t that, it’s certainly mine. There is some hidden catch, some caveat, some technicality I missed that they are just waiting to get me on. Not to mention the fact that by the end of this four year ordeal, my parents and I will be financially destitute and reduced to liquidating our assets to have a place to eat and piss in privacy.
And that is only specific. I have been thinking recently. Of course, this is a change from my usual puttering around mindlessly, in a sort of semi-functional state of stupor characterized by poor human interaction skills, restless sleep and subpar academic performance. When break started, it should have been a time to escape from being so broken, but I made a list of things I had to do before school started again, and have been plugging away at it since. I have 6 things left to do. It struck me today, how many things I do only for the future. All of my decisions are controlled by a future that doesn’t exist, a future I can’t even begin to predict accurately. I am supposed to, or I should say, I am compelled by some hidden force to protect my future interests by doing things I am totally uninterested in. If I was doing the things I really wanted to be doing, I would spend all my time learning Japanese, training to be an ASL interpreter and honing my photography skills. But I have to focus towards the future, right? So I need to do all these things that I loathe, because its good for me, or character building, or something. I want to buy a Nikon D100. They cost roughly $1500. Because my family and I will already be financially destitute by the time I finish college, and with it rapidly approaching, it’s not exactly wise to make such a large and frivolous purchase. I mean, after all, its not like I am going to make photography my life, so why on earth would I spend so much of my savings on a camera? How about immediate self-satisfaction.
I guess some might argue that I shouldn’t spend the money because I should be thinking about how much I am going to need it very soon, and that it would be extremely selfish and short-sighted of me to spend the money now on something I really don’t need. And perhaps they are right, perhaps I should think towards the future and always be moving toward whatever is next. You know, the next promotion, the corner office, the bigger car, the nicer house, the …whatever it is. But why? What is it good for? I mean, after all, if you move far enough into the future, if you think so far ahead, all there is waiting for you is death anyway. Life on earth is finite, so why do we rush to the end? Undoubtedly because we must know for sure, that there is nothing there.
djno allthatisforgoodisnow
January 1st, 2004 at 3:39 am
optimistic: its natural for you to be feeling doubt about your admission to brown. they didn’t send your acceptance letter by mistake, so it was meant for you and they are holding a special spot for you.
pessimistic: they let you in because your application met their standards. there is a frat-like guy down the hall from me who is as dumb as a post. don’t know how he got into ucla. hopefully you won’t be crossing paths with people like him at brown.
as for the camera.. better cameras are always being made, so try not to fret. did i mention that sony has to fix my dsc-p1 for defective parts? anyway, good luck with whatever you choose and hope you’ll be happy with what you get.