Is It That I'm Afraid?

I seem to have been assessing myself a lot this semester.  I discover new things about myself every day, through the people I interact with, and the things that I do.  This itself isn’t uncommon, but the frequency at which this is happening is a bit alarming.  Why has this semester been so revelational?

I think it has something to do with the fact that I’m moving to California.  My guess is that I’m feeling a compelling need to gain a fully comprehensible sense of identity before I move.  I want to know who I am before stepping foot in a new society so that I can stay true to myself. 

The weird thing is that for every step forward I take, I feel like I’m taking two steps back.  For every question that I answer about myself, several more spring up.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it’s making me very unsure of whether or not I’ll have myself all figured out by the time I have to move. 

I am a completely different person than I was a few months ago.  This became really apparent after I couldn’t figure out how I wanted to express myself in certain social situations.  I used to know exactly how I wanted people to perceive me, but now I’m finding that as I’m changing, I’m unsure of how I want to act.  It makes me feel like I’m coming off as a bit awkward at times, but that’s the price I pay for trying to figure myself out. 

I just hope that by the end of all this, people will still be able to accept me, regardless of who that turns out to be.

This is a little incoherent, but I’m not really in the mood to edit right now, so I won’t =]

Stay classy.

Window To The Past

I found this old excerpt I had written a few years ago.  The funny thing is, I don't remember why I wrote it, or what it is in reference to.  All I know is that every once and a while I just write down a constant stream of thoughts, and this is one of those streams.  Anyways, I thought it would be neat to share it with everyone:

"What are my assumptions on life?  What are the constants?  What am I looking for?

Am I changing?  Yes.  Is it a bad thing?  No.  I feel like... I don't know what I feel.  This is the road block.  He thinks I'm diminishing.

Am I?  I'm not sure.  On the one hand, I am acting differently, I am changing.  But does this change come at the cost of a sacrifice?  Am I compromising myself?  He seems to think so, but I'm not convinced.

His interpretation of compromise and my interpretation of compromise are different.  This is exactly what is happening - I have the answers now.

I am changing, but not compromising, because I'm following what my essence is telling me.  Outsiders looking in might think I'm selling out, but it's not true.  I'm following what I feel is right, which isn't compromising.  I can only do what my essence tells me to do at any given moment.

That issue is now resolved.

UPDATE: I don't know anything."

Is that cryptic or what?  Who the hell am I referring to when I say "he"?  I really can't remember.

Stay classy.

Dead End

About a year ago, I lost one of my closest friends.  We got into an argument over something trivial, but apparently it was a squabble large enough to merit us not talking to each other for months.  The strange thing was that I wasn’t morose at all.  In my mind, he wasn’t worth keeping around if our friendship was so volatile that a stupid disagreement could have set us on our separate ways.

I continued on with life.

I haven’t actually seen him since the beginning of this semester.  We bumped into each other accidentally and ended up having a nice conversation.  We talked about school, video games, and whatever – just like old times.  Before we went off to wherever it was that we were going, I said, “Hey, we should hang out sometime.”

I figured that the reason we stopped being friends was stupid anyways, and that enough time had passed that it couldn’t have been that big of a deal anymore.  I was wrong.  After I asked him if he wanted to hang out again, his response was, “No, I don’t think so.”

Ouch.  That hurt, a lot.  I felt really cruddy after that.  In fact, I still feel cruddy.  I didn’t know how much I missed hanging out with him until we had that conversation.  And now I realize that nothing is worth losing your best friend over.

Just Go For It!

Over the weekend I read a graphic novel series by the name of “Scott Pilgrim” (perhaps some of you have heard of it).  Once I was done reading, my mood was initially gleeful, but after a few minutes of merriment, my disposition quickly deteriorated to sorrow.  This isn’t the first time this has happened.

Whenever I finish a book, TV show, or video game with a great plot and characters, I usually get sad afterwards.  The reason this happens is because when I really enjoy something, I tend to get attached.  I immerse myself in the make believe, and my mind does everything in its power to convince me that the world before me actually does exist.  This illusion only dissipates once I reach the conclusion of the story.  Reality takes its firm grasp on my existence once again, and I am forced to swallow the truth that the window into my imaginary world has nothing left to offer me.  No matter how many times I go back and re-expose myself to these stories, the plots are always the same, and the journeys of the characters will inevitably come to an end.  No matter how fierce my desire is to experience more of these fabricated worlds, the overwhelming truth is that these worlds have limits.

So pretty much that’s what happened when I read Scott Pilgrim.  I was talking to a good friend of mine about how I was sad that this world, like so many others, had nothing left to feed my imagination.  After hearing me whine for a few minutes, she said

“Well if you like it so much, write your own story.”

Cue light-bulb.  It was one of those moments where I knew inspiration had struck.  I couldn't wait to see what sort of crazy things were going to start spilling out of my brain.  All day I could feel an idea brewing deep in my head and as soon as I was done with classes for the day, I sat down and started writing character bios and a plot outline for my own graphic novel.  The only reason there was no post yesterday is because I was too busy getting all my ideas on paper.

I’m not going to disclose any info on my graphic novel for the time being.  I want to flesh out the story a bit more and see if I can find any artists who are interested in helping me out.  As of right now, I really want to see if I’ll be able to manifest my ideas into physical form.

Well, that’s all for today.  Until next time, stay classy.

P.S.

If you are an artist who is seriously interested, let me know!  Drop me a line at mpennisi2@gmail.com and I’ll get back to you.

Pure Blood

It would make sense that I would be attracted to people who I have a lot in common with, wouldn’t it?  That, however, is not the case.  The people who I find to be the most alluring are those whose interests differ drastically from my own.  I’m not exactly sure why I gravitate towards people with unfamiliar interests, but I’m not about to say it’s because “opposite poles attract”.  I mean seriously, I think it’s kind of lame to use popular anecdotes to describe how I think.  Let’s dive a little deeper. 

If I had to take a guess, I would say that it has something to do with the fact that I like to challenge myself.  I thrive on change and enjoy being exposed to new things.  So then it starts to make sense that I would seek out individuals that have new things to offer me.  The unknown facets of a personality are what interest me most; they can offer a bounty of new knowledge so long as you have the curiosity to find out more. 

I’ve come to realize over the years that everyone is far more insightful than I could ever give them credit for.  I’ve been surprised time and time again at how profound the thoughts of others can be, regardless of how strong the mental connection I share with them is.  Because of this, when I meet someone who is very different from myself, it sparks my intrigue to unfathomable heights.

Another way I view the reasoning for my interest in dissimilar people is when I take my offspring into consideration.  Why would I want my progeny to grow up with only one perspective on life?  Essentially, if I have children with someone who is very much like myself, then they would grow up learning about all the ideals that their parents share (or in other words, just one point of view).  On the other hand, if I raise my children with someone who doesn’t share my same point of view, then my children will be exposed to two ways of thinking.  What this means is that they will have to think for themselves when considering how to view the world, as they won’t have just one perspective that they can recognize as true.  In my eyes, that is much more valuable.  While I’m not a parent and probably won’t be for quite some time, I imagine that this is how I would want to raise my kids.  I don’t want to be the type of parent that tells my children what is right and what is wrong.  I would rather give them the tools they need in order to make decisions on their own.

Again, this is all merely just speculation.  I don’t really have any way of knowing for sure why I like people who I don’t have a lot in common with.  At the end of the day, what I’m really looking for is companionship, which draws up a valid question:

Shouldn’t a companion be someone who I have a lot in common with?

It just seems like it would be easier to get along with someone who has a similar perspective on life.  I suppose that when I envision my ideal match, they would be someone who is open to other ways of thinking while retaining their individualistic thought.  I don’t think it’s that farfetched to find someone like that, do you?

So how about you?  Are you more attracted to people who you have a lot in common with?  Or people you don’t?

Stay classy.

Biding My Time

The question is simple:  What would you do if you could freeze time?

Having the ability to control time has always fascinated me.  Everyone is bound by time.  Sure, sometimes time can be good to you or be against you, but ultimately it is indifferent.  I feel like being able to control something which is beyond human influence would provide a limitless sense of freedom.

So what would you do if you could freeze time?  This is the part that fascinates me.  Since I’ve wondered more than once what it would be like to have this uncanny ability, I’ve noticed that the things I would do have changed over the years.  Specifically, the potential actions that I would partake in have evolved along with my maturity.

I’ll give you an example:  As a child, I would often fantasize about going to a toy store and taking all the toys that I wanted without having to pay (or in other words, theft).  Then, in my late teens, when I was in a long distance relationship, I wanted to freeze time so that I could walk across the US to be with my girlfriend.  Today, I don’t think I would do anything; I wouldn’t want to give myself any advantages over anyone else since it wouldn’t seem justified or fair.

If you look at the progression of my desires, they go from being:

Selfish acts -> Debatably selfish acts -> Selflessness

How very interesting.  Over time I have become less and less selfish, and eventually the desire to stop time becomes irrelevant, since it was a desire founded on selfishness.  I enjoy standing on equal footing with everyone else.  Besides, cheating may provide cheap thrills, but it gets old real fast.

So what do you guys think?  Would you freeze time if you could?  What would you do if you could?

Stay classy.

The Final Cut

Doing poorly on a midterm usually does a pretty good job of making one concerned about their future.  I got a particularly difficult midterm back in one of my classes recently, and an interesting point of discussion came up as we were going over the exam. 

I performed pretty well on the exam, but the rest of my classmates were pretty bitter, as they didn’t perform as well as they had hoped.  Because this wasn’t the gripe of one or two individuals, but rather 80% of the classroom, our Professor offered a possible grading solution.  The qualms of the students could be answered by grading according to their “z-score”.  Essentially, grading by your z-score would boost your overall grade in the course significantly if you performed better on the next exam, thus rewarding improvement.  So then what about the students who performed consistently throughout the semester?  The people who did well on the first exam wouldn’t suffer any loss in grade for performing worse or just as good the second time around. 

On the surface, it seems as if there isn’t any reason not to utilize this grading scheme, right?  Here’s the caveat: When grading according to z-score, the people who performed poorly on the first exam have the potential to do better than those who have been more consistent all semester.  Because this doesn’t seem 100% fair, the Professor told the class that if anyone opposed this grading option, he would not implement it. 

If you were in the group of students who did poorly on exam 1, the choice to vote for the z-score was obvious.  I however, was among the more consistent students, and so I had a choice to make.  I sat there pondering the situation, and I decided that I was going to veto the z-scoring option.  My reasoning was that I’ve been a fellow classmate of many of the kids in this class for years now, and I know firsthand that they don’t put forth the effort that I do when it comes to schoolwork.  A lot of these kids are underhanded and malicious, and I saw no reason that they should be able to get a higher grade than myself in this class when I have worked harder than them all semester.  I had my solution, and I was partially content.

I say partially because I still felt a little uneasy, though I couldn’t explain why.  I felt as though there were no clear solution to that situation, and that it wouldn’t be possible for every party involved to emerge happily.  This rationalized my decision, and even though I felt a small pang of concern, I was able to stick to my guns with this thought in mind.  Then, one of the students who also did well on the exam rose his hand and asked the class to please consider the option afforded.  His reasoning was that everyone has that one class that they get off to a bad start in, and there’s no reason why you couldn’t have sympathy for the students who fell to the left side of the bell curve.

That’s when I realized that I had the ability to make sure that everyone could be satisfied.  I went back to my assumption that not everyone could be happy in this scenario and I realized that everyone could be happy.  The only thing holding me back was the thought that someone was going to do better than me even though they weren’t as dedicated from the start.  But what did that matter, really?  In the end, I am still going to get a good grade in the course.  So what if someone else did better than me?  I was essentially deciding that I wouldn’t be happy based on someone else’s performance, which I don’t feel is justified.  If I decided to veto the z-score, I would be adopting the cut-throat mentality that I hate so much.  I don’t want to be like the rest of the business students in my school.  I’m not about stepping on someone else to ensure that I do well.  I want to succeed purely from my personal strength and hard work.  Much like my thoughts in this post, I don’t feel as though I have the right to pass judgment on someone else.  I decide the fate of no one.

It’s comforting to know that I’m able to maintain the same mentality time after time, even when in clouded thought.

Stay classy.

The Phoenix Has Landed

As I mentioned in this post, one of the nicknames that I have adopted recently is Phoenix.  For those of you that don’t know, a Phoenix is a mythical bird whose most notable attribute is to resurrect itself from its own ashes.  Now, as I mentioned in the post I linked to above, I have been struggling to overcome some of my personal demons.  I’m happy to say that I am no longer struggling with my past.  I have come to terms with everything that I have done, and while I never want to go back to being consumed by a nefarious void of pride and negativity, I don’t regret anything that I have done.

I hold no regrets because every part of my recent past has contributed to the reformation of my persona.  I am currently more in touch with myself than I have ever been, and that wouldn’t be possible if I didn’t make some mistakes.  I have effectively started anew, much like how a Phoenix is reborn. 

Like I mentioned above, “Phoenix” is a new nickname for me – how befitting and coincidental that this came about just as I was trying to turn over a new leaf.   Makes you think.

On an additional note, I have been using the same bag to carry my books to class for the past 4 years and I never noticed what was on the back.  Take a look:

Stay classy.

PS – I feel the need to add the profound words of Kanye West, “Being nice is the shit… workin’ on being a doper person.”