drawing board:

For the last week I have been feeling low, when I should be feeling high. And of course, maybe there is no such thing as “should”—at times I have been told that feelings are yours, and because they are honest reactions, they do not need to be verified, justified, or even something we are ashamed of. Maybe we can control how we react, but we can’t control that we feel the urge to have a reaction. Maybe I’m not entirely happy (but the more and more I see of people, the more I recognize that others do not know whether they are entirely happy either), so maybe we are all involved in this ever going attainment together?--maybe we have a fidelity to be genuine, so at least we know (at most) that our individual actions, expressions and intentions can be depended upon. I just am, and always have been, mindful (perhaps, too mental and compulsively so) but I know that it stems from this self-motivating drive to attain a better understanding of my self, to reach a perfect understanding of my surroundings and the existence within and throughout—and this, I believe, can only be attempted/approached by examination, interpretation and experience (being within the moment, but yet somehow being removed enough to judge). But why do I have this need—this amount of work set out for myself that is at once so all consuming, evocative and yet possibly destructive? I am taken by feelings (though have become less and less emotional) and their ability to produce (potential) euphoria. As a child, I always read (especially historical books), kept self-designed diaries, wrote plays, produced plays and made newspapers that I sold in the mornings at school. I think the further and further I get from youth, the closer I come to seeing ever so clearly that with age we are most like (or most want to be) who we were as a child—before we were aware of the influence of others, media, the outside coming in, the perceptions that would eventually make us falter, alter and reconsider the position we dreamed and believed we could take in and on the world. As a child there never were any barriers; there was just hope and the dream of attainment, achievement really. I always wanted to share history—an emotional reality that was evidence of a particular history: The Frame of Mind. I wanted there to be a memory of what was, what was felt, what was believed to be true. This is still my dream—and the reasons or rationale are so outside of myself now, yet something I am so entirely invested in, that I have no control over whether I will do it or not—all I know is that I feel I have to, I feel like it is something I must try and do because if not, than what was a thinking mind for?

So within the week, I said I didn’t want to have expectations and I tried hard not to. But it was still outside my control, that I found myself being and have been leading up to the times, especially excited for them to happen. But, for one, being in LA only confirmed my lacking desire to want to be there and the difficult time I have to conform to that way. When I was younger, I was able to laugh at the whole dynamic and I found myself playing into the game, using it for my own self-promotion, but since college I have become increasingly incapable of doing such things, of going with it, of risking coming off dumb or more unaware than I am. Hollywood has a pretty fair share of bullshit (and perhaps, the reality is all business does), but a circle that is run and feeds off of self-importance and deceit is not worth any amount of glamour. Seeing how these plans didn’t change a damn thing—running off to different cities, countries, doesn’t change your world drastically—makes me want to slow down and become more invested in what is here around and within me, now. I feel like I have to go back to the drawing board and it makes me anxious (and I am aware how possibly silly and serious it all seems, but I put pressure on myself to make for my own success and to do it sincerely). Maybe I do need to be shaken (and trust me, I can’t help but find myself most attractive when I catch myself with a natural smile) but I also just know how imperative it is for me to be stimulated by someone (otherwise, I feel and come across rather flat). I want to open myself and have someone come walking in my world, and I want to fall inside theirs as well. But I am not passive and I can’t just do what I am not riveted by. The best of me emerges when I am fascinated by the relation I am immersed in (work, hobby, individual) but I am not involved in it yet—it has yet, to strike me (and the mediocre engagements coat me in an appearance of disinterest and it is then that I bore even myself). I am eager to be taken, consumed, surprised—and I know I will feel shock at the moment [I let] it arrives.