He downloads this program that’s supposed to help him concentrate, eliminate all the distractions from his computer desktop, his Facebook messages and little instant message bleeps and bloops that pop up in the corner every now and then, everything. As he gives the cashier his brand new Bank of America credit card that, much to his girlfriend’s display, he cannot stop talking about and toying with, he wonders why the hell is he buying a second monitor.
I have to stop writing Roy and Riza fanfiction. I write nothing else. Its easy. All the hard work’s been done for you, the character development, the plot line. Everything. All I have to do is channel some of what used to be my pent up sexual frustration, loneliness and neediness into them and they come alive as puppets of my adolescent longings. Now what? I’m not exactly sexually frustrated anymore or lonely or needy. Okay, maybe I’m still needy, but at least I fixed the first two. In fact, now, I’m pummeled with more ‘real life’ stuff. Like, getting into law school. Like, what’s going to happen after I get into law school. How I’m going to survive three years grinding away at dense texts and competing like an animal against my much smarter peers, paying off a seemingly endless amount of debt just to get the damn degree, that maybe, maybe, I won’t even ever get to use because the economy is in a slump, there’s a recession going on and everyone’s getting fired and laid off and no one can find a goddamn job. Why does it have to be like this? I didn’t ask to be put here and I don’t see why I just have to shut up and live with it. Adapting is one thing but accepting this crap is another. I don’t want to master this crap either so don’t give me any of that, oh, just work harder and make something of yourself bullshit. I don’t understand that either. What the hell does it mean to make something of myself? In whose eyes am I something? In what way am I something? What qualifications, what degrees, what talents must I acquire to become this something? A Steve Jobs or Bill Gates? A Donald Trump or Rupert Murdoch? An Einstein or Oppenheimer? What? Do I need genius? Talent? Luck? I don’t know why I have to work so hard just to survive. What is surviving anyway? Why do I have this drive, why do we have this need? Why? Questions I’ll never have answers to, but doesn’t it mean something that I ask these questions? Does my curiosity not speak to some innate truth? Am I just copping out? Too lazy, too inept to deal with the harsh competition of life so I resort to midly fanciful, useless philosophical panderings in order to have some sense of self left to face the world with? Are these truly meaningless questions that we will never have answers to so we should just stop asking? Why do I feel so empty sometimes when I think about the world I am about to be swallowed by. This behemouth of tragedy, greed and evil, a perverted reflection of human nature that I am thrust upon to face and accept. The daily grind of work, of lethargy, boredome, dealing with people who are equally sickened by their situation, half-assed bullshit lives that no one wants to lead.
Maybe this is too depressing. A little too depressing. It used to be like this when I had no one and nothing in my, and I mean nothing, seemed good. I’d pine for days and weeks and months for boys who would never like me because I am fat. I would despair for days and weeks and months at my falling grades and lack of initiative in classes that will determine my future. But when you get past it all, looking back at it, how much of any of this really mattered? Very little, I guess. When white people had their social ups and downs in high school, I think most of us suffered from some kind of mental trauma of going to Stuy. Exhaustion is perhaps the best way of putting it and those with the drive and the fuel to make it past that succeed? Do they? Then again, what does it mean to succeed in the first place.
Say what you will about anime, but I’ll defend it to death. Honestly, there’s something about a good series that just stays with you and I mean, really stays with you. You hear the theme song, you think back to a certain a scene, a certain moment and it just gets you, deep down somwhere. Its like thinking about middle school and all of the days that you spent doing something meaningless and stupid with your friends but it was the best thing you could have ever done and maybe its generic, trashy and not as amazing as something more legitimate like science or whatever, and maybe it is a little bit creepy and the fandom is generally populated by fat people who like to dress up and fail at being their favorite characters, but deep down in there somewhere, there’s this feeling, this feeling that’s irreplaceable and doesn’t come from anything, anything else. It makes me want to run and keep running till I can’t run anymore and leap from a cliff into the invite world and embrace everything and hug everything and welcome anything and everything. I just had an ephiphany. Perhaps, this is joy. This very feeling. But its amazing and I can’t put it into words no matter how hard I try. It just makes me want to through myself from something large and tall and epic and feel the wind in my hair and ground fall away from me and let it all go.
There’s something about summer and the way the sky looks, the crisp blue with smidges of hazy white clouds flowing above a sea of green grass. Holding your friend’s hand and walking home in the half empty streets. Summers in anime are different from what they are here. You don’t feel the humid heat, you only see the colors and it looks amazing.