Optimism
It just occurred to me that I really hate having to be the guy who is accepting of his fate. I wish I could readopt that bubble that told me that given time she'd swing my way. I don't know if her resilience has fueled my passion or of it's pure God-given need. I don't know, all I know is that it's beginning to click that it ain't meant to be, and that grinds and cuts and wounds.

Also, I'm pretty pissed off that I have a B in Chemistry. If they would have just taught Advanced Chem RICE tables like EVERYBODY ELSE!

...

Lame.

I can't abide RDJ in Weird Science. It's despicable. I wonder if he feels that way too.

Our Life Is Not Our Own
"How can you achieve peace through war?"
"What else would you have us do?"
"Die."
"If we die, they win."
"If we fight, war wins - what if its not about us?"
"They'll kill more."
"Probably. That's their crime. Death will find a way. As will life."
"Are we indifferent?"
"Are we gods?"
"Are we ignorant?"
"Are we wise?"
"Are we blameless?"
"Never."
"Then how can we not fight?"
"Then how can we kill?"
"Because their blood irrigates the fields of peace."
"Peace cannot come from war, just as light does not arise from the void."
"What can we do?"
"Die."
"If we die, we win?"
"If there is victory, it is in death."

Fuck me, right?
I'm really childish. That's all I can really say. I'm just a giant and self-centered baby. One who's always on the stage and can't abide the shift of the spotlight. I'm mature enough to realize when the light should be on me and when it shouldn't (I don't miss the spot in Chem or in MilMovement, et cetera), but on that stage I'm supposed to shine. I think that's what I think anyway. And I think that's why I feel so impotent and broken and all this really egocentric feelings when I should just feel happiness and the most sincere gratitude for Drew and Nicole and their amazing work on developing our production.

The human mind has an amazing capacity to rationalize failure, to dull the sting. I like to think I taught everything they did; I just have to accept they did it better. They won them over. Probably by being better people than I'll ever hope to be. I have a real problem with good people. I'm so shamelessly envious, it's embarrassing. I've never felt so small as I did with them. But hey, at least I'm really wicked at reading those lines. That didn't belittle me at all. And the worst part is he meant it to be a compliment or something.

Fuck me, right?

That's how I've been feeling a lot lately. You're in good hands; Jarvis' hands. You got this Pete, can you handle it? You're worthless, you can't handle anything, you don't read my e-mails.

Fuck me, right?

You're not a good director. We should fire you and keep Drew instead. You're worthless. Can you stay [Drew]?

Fuck me, right?

I need God right now, but I don't feel up for an audience with Him. I don't want to feel peace or forgiveness (whether it's internal or external); I just want to destroy something. I want to yell and bang on a piano and...I don't know.

FUCK ME, RIGHT?

I used to think I had confidence, or bravado at the least. Now I realize just how humanly pathetic and finite I am. And I don't know how or that I want to change it.

Fuuuuuuuuuuck me.

And yet I have this middle school urge to pout, to post on Facebook (let's be honest, this is why I'm posting this online, in the off chance I can rustle up some anonymous sympathy and somehow feel better about my life). I want everyone to feel how I feel. Not that I want to belittle them, I just want them to appreciate my pain. I want them to walk a step in my delusional shoes.

Fuck me, I'm stupid.

I really wish I could be more adult about this, I wish my cognition matched my behavior.

(Stoic - that's a word right? I'm a theater guy! Oh, yes it is a word, can we suck your dick? Now, now, just doing my job.)

Stoicism. Comes from the Greek word for porch, where the first Stoic forums were held. Big name: Epictetus, focuses on apathea (that's right, apathy!), but has a different connotation than the modern use. It proposes we should rightly be indifferent to externalities and focus on cultivating the virtues we have control over.

And in the end, he's still a terrific, wonderful, Godsend guy. Why can't I appreciate someone for that? Why can't I just lift him up and thank God for his love demonstrated in such a why? Why do I have to be so fucking selfish all the fucking time?

FUCK

And why do I care about one person more than the rest? I think God and the Devil would both agree that I should give the fuck over it.

ME

But I can't, and instead I'm stuck in the flaming purgatory. I just want to punch shit. I've never felt so upset and stupidly violent in my life, and all I want to do is play LoL and feel a little good. Otherwise I might cry or die or something that rhymes with I.

Penisdipshitfuckingcockballsandsundrytesticles.

Somehow that helps...

Fuckingtwatmongers.

I know it shouldn't, but somehow the vulgarity is the antidote I seem to need. One that treats the symptoms. So that when it wears off it feels all the more potent (because the virus has worsened and my soul is blacker than before, moving from Midnight to Oil to Oblivion).

I think I feel a little better. I don't know. I don't know how I would explain this nonsense to anyone, even if they asked. If I were another person my only conclusion would be that, hey Peter, you're a childish dick.

Fuck me, right?

(A childish dick who will write a blog about how he is a victim of his own hubris, still sympathy-mongering. The balls on this cocksuckingmotherfuckerIjustwanttowatchtheworldburnI'llgetbywithalittlehelpfrommyfriends...?)

Dying
I'm doing this poetry analysis on Percy Shelley's sonnet Ozymandias. If you know the work, then you'll recognize that the brevity of human existence is a theme undeniably touched on in the piece. Its a common motif in art. Everyone dies.

But in the books I read, the movies I watch, their lives are made immortal through their works. I watched the Matrix this weekend, and as disappointing as I found the second and third installments Neo will continue forever, in or outside of the source code, or whatever techno-fantasy justification exists for his perpetuated existence. Because he was a bad-ass who, despite the ability to do basically whatever the fuck he wanted, only manifested his power in the ability to fly, master martial arts, and stop bullets. Not a creative messiah, but a god in his own world.

And isn't that the way of them all? Even nonfictional accounts are a testimony to the subject, and even if they die they are encapsulated forever and shelved in a library near you.

They say you're the hero of your own story. And often enough the hero doesn't die, and in that way he lives doubly. The story ends, he fells Voldemort, destroys the Ring, survives Tarmon Gaidon, gets the Bluth Company out of trouble, WHATEVER. And then he's not only locked away for the rest of eternity, but their fictitious lives have years left to wile away on imagined future greatness, or to simply enjoy.

All of this aimless, unfocused musing is just a response to breakfast today. The Glee Club leads the singing of the last verse of the Alma Mater when a graduate of West Point is killed in action. And that's gonna make you think. The odds are tremendously in your favor. This is the first that has died this school year, which is terrific right? But nevertheless, just by taking the oath you accept that you're gambling your life. Sure, I might be more likely to die in a car accident or have a sixteen ton anvil fall on my head, but these are accidents and Acts of Acme, and are negligible risks that we are forced to take by living.

Becoming a 'professional warrior' just invites death to be a part of your life.

Which made me think about how unimmortal 1LT Daren Hidalgo is. We sang him a song, and for a moment his name resonated in the entire Corps, but its a brief moment really. Sure, he's got friends and family that will remember him longer, but it will dull and fade, only to be recalled achingly at particular moments. And they'll die, the only thing really keeping him from ultimate death. And then he'll really be dead. Totally, irrevocably dead after a score and some change of life. He went to school for almost his whole life, and in less than two years out of the gate he was killed. He Was Born, Then He Was Taught, Then He Fought, Then He Died.

Its amazing how our lives are simplified without an account of them. Let's face it, Harry Potter's story was shorter, but far more celebrated because seven well-crafted books made him a cash cow, a religious debate, and a hero. William Wallace was a nobody to much of the world until Mel Gibson made the movie, and now his epic is a standard for young men movie watchers.

Then I started wondering if being remembered matters at all. Why am I so obsessed with it? Well, its probably because I'm afraid of dying. Very few people at my age aren't, I reckon. I really hope 1LT Hidalgo was. Ready to die that is. In the sense that he knew his purpose, and when he was shuffled off the mortal coil he had reservations somewhere.

And I'm reading this book called The Name of the Wind. I want to finish it. Because someday (hell or highwater) I'm going to pen my own book. Maybe that'll be my legacy.

Whoa, maybe that's what we need. Do we need a legacy? Do we need children, or stories, or deeds, or something external to immortalize us? Something we did/made with our own hands?

Legacy. Interesting.

Ozymandias
I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert...Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Tomorrow
I mean tomorrow in the extremely inclusive sense, as in every day in the future. I really dread certain things happening. Like I didn't want IMs to start because I'd be playing out of company with some other group, and I'm not athletically confident anyway, playing with another team wouldn't help that. But I found out that pretty much all of E-1 Glee is playing Flickerball with E-3. Oh, its nice to have cliques of your own.

Also, Summer Training has been published to CiS. Right now I have Buckner (duh), but before that I have Air Assault. Holy shit. I'm intimidated. It'll be a great challenge, and one I have to start preparing for yesterday. I still wish I had Airborne, but I guess I should take this in be grateful. A lot of people wanted Air Assault and I got it, so for everyone's sake I should make the most of it.

Anyway, I survived my Math WPR and only have to get through an Arabic Quiz. Then Glee and Flipper Dinner and I have Thursday night. I don't know what I'm going to do this weekend. Probably try and redownload League of Legends, get a haircut, buy some more hygiene products (esp. dental).

Yeah, whatever.