on sad stories

Some friends and I went to see the movie Twilight last night. The theater was packed, mostly with preteen girls who kept clapping and cheering whenever handsome guys appeared on screen (so annoying). The movie was all right: it was a romance story about a human girl falling in love with a vampire boy, and the vampire boy must overcome his thirst for her blood in order to be with her. I told my friend Jessica, “Five years ago I had a romance story nearly identical to that one. I guess I should have written and published it.” She said, “Definitely.” I then proceeded to tell her, “My version didn’t have a happy ending. It was a romance story, but it turned out that the girl fell in love with the vampire boy, but the boy was actually deceiving her so that he and his family could torture and then consume her as dietary sustenance.” She told me that I need to start writing stories with happy endings. The thing is, that’s quite difficult for me. A week ago, Jessica and I were swapping stories made-up on the spot. Her story was quite romantic with a fantastic happy ending. Mine was a tragedy with a happy ending. She said, “Your happy ending sucked. But the sad part was amazing.” For some reason, and I’m not quite sure why, sad and depressing and tragic stories are much easier for me to write. Perhaps it’s because sadness, depression, and tragedy—with quite the speckling of irony—has been the definition of my life thus far. “Maybe one day,” I told Jessica, “if my dreams become reality, then my stories will have happy endings.” My two favorite authors—Cormac McCarthy and Ernest Hemmingway—are quite nihilistic or at the least naturalistic in their writing; while my worldview does not align with any of those, my writing reflects those worldviews. Perhaps there is a hint of truth to Hemmingway’s statement: “Every true story ends in death.”

hungering for more

As I look at my mundane, unexciting, run-of-the-mill life, I can’t help but hunger for more. Hunger for life. For vitality. For a new kind of blood to course through my veins. I want so much more than I have now. I’m not talking about material possessions. I’m talking about the quality of life that I live. I want more, life abundant and beautiful, a life that seems more like an orchestra or ballet or rave than waiting at the doctor’s office till they invite you in and tell you that you have some type of incurable disease. I have a frightening nightmare every now and then: I’m twenty-five years old, sitting at a bar, throwing down shots and smoking a cigarette, drowning out my misery and suffocating in regret. I want so much more than I have now. But this is life: what you want, you can’t have; what you have is taken away; and happiness is as fleeting as the spring rains. Or maybe this is cynicism. Maybe my idea of being a realist is just self-deception. Maybe I need to pull some unknown mask from over my eyes, or at least see the world through a different lens. I have sought happiness in achievements, in popularity, in wealth, in romantic relationships. None of it offered happiness, and yet I constantly pursued happiness through those things. Each came with more stress, more anxiety, more emptiness. Right now I am wrestling with pursuing happiness down an avenue which promises no happiness but only more emptiness. Why is it that we as human beings are so apt to search for happiness and contentment in ways that glorify the self? Maybe here is the issue: when we seek happiness through our own glorification, we fail; and our failure is due to the fact that we exist not to glorify ourselves but to glorify Another. By seeking happiness through our own successes, our own achievements, our own accomplishments; or through our own wealth, our own prosperity, our own material possessions; or through our popularity, our fame, our social networking; or through any kind of relationships that caters to the need of the self instead of being outward focused; maybe by searching for happiness through these things we fail because we are not designed to glorify the self.

me & jessie at Potter's Ranch

Finally! I have a week where I don’t have any papers due, no exams to study for, nothing but class and work and hanging out with friends. And it couldn’t have come at a better time. Last week was pretty rough, both with the whole ordeal involving my friend plus conflicts with other friends. Hopefully things have smoothed themselves over.

Amanda came onto campus last night. We joined Jessie and my Thai friend Sarah, and we went to The Highlands in Clifton. It’s a nice coffee shop with a courtyard. We sat in the courtyard, threw back coffees and lattes, had a grand time filled with lots of laughter. Jessie and Amanda hit it off really well. Jessie and I are really close. She’s one of my best friends on this campus. Lots of people think we are dating, which is hilarious, because neither of us have dating intentions for one another. She’s a pretty fantastic girl, and it’s great having her as a friend. She told me last night, “If we weren’t friends, I’d be so lonely and feel so lost.” It’s quite sentimental, and it is a shared feeling. Here is a picture of the two of us at Potter’s Ranch:

I’m here for the weekend, and it gets quite boring. Kyle said we were going to hang out, but he disappeared. His car isn’t in the parking lot. So now I’m stuck here doing nothing. I’ll probably play my flight simulator game for a little while. Perhaps clean my room. Maybe do laundry (I was hoping to stave off laundry till tomorrow). When Kyle gets here, we’re going to watch “300” and I’m going to help him write two papers for “Classical Greco-Roman History.”