Relative Adventures

Which is worse: to be hurt by another, or to hurt another yourself?

A long time ago, when I was still quite young, my friends and I would play this game we called "The Adventure". Each of my friends would choose a character of their own and play as that character, while I would play the role of all other characters in the adventure, and I would come up with situations and events that I could put the characters through, just to see how everything would turn out. It was quite a lot like D&D; I know that now, but back then I was unaware of such things.

Of course, unlike D&D, where you play whilst sitting, "The Adventure" was played outside. We each had our favorite sticks, and we would do mock battles with them. We weren't very safe about it, either; I can recall hitting as hard as I could when hitting certain areas of the body, though I backed off quite a bit when aiming for more sensitive areas.

After I had played the Adventure for well over a year, I started to get the idea to write it all down. To basically put in book form what my friends and I had been playing all that time. I started working on that book probably when I was ten or eleven years old. It was a fun project for me to spend my time on, but it never really went anywhere. Writing on such a specific topic took too much out of me, I guess... I never could write more than one chapter at a time.

There were a lot of fun, interesting twists in that story, but there is one in particular that I am reminded of now. Two of the good characters, named Red and Raistlin, actually turned out to be an evil characters in the end. But the weird thing was that they were so similar on the outside, yet the inner motivation was so very different...

Both had been deceiving everyone else from the very beginning. Both had done so for their own personal gain. Both had hurt good characters in multiple ways to further their own ends. Both were trusted completely by the rest of the good guys.

But Red was evil, and Raistlin was... well, ... I guess you'd have to call him evil too. But he had a conscience. He sabotaged the good guy's plans just like Red, and he murdered a few good guys, just like Red, but in the end, he felt bad about it all. In the end, he regretted what he had done, even as he knew that what he had done was what he really wanted to do.

Is it right to call Raistlin misguided, then?

And how would you describe Red, who never regretted any of it? Isn't it logical to state that Red was more intelligent about it all because he did not let mere moral standards get in his way?

Indeed, whose moral standards are absolute? If all things are relative, then how can it be said that one's personal moral feelings on a subject is more correct than another?

And if this is so, then Raistlin was a flawed character... How is it that he thought he wanted one thing, but then regretted it afterward? And worse, even afterward, he still agreed that he had done what he had wanted to do, despite his regrets?

::sigh::

I wish I could play "The Adventure" again. I wish I could recapture my old spirit. I wish I could just let Raistlin take one further step... I wish I could get Raistlin to choose a higher moral standard, regardless of the relativeness of his own.

I wish this because I see myself in Raistlin. I see myself as lost.

Lost
By Phoenix G. Graves (aka Gregory S. Cochran)

A monopoly of memories that you'll never forget,
You won't need a picture, so don't take a pose.
A past of pain that you'd like to forget,
The monopoly of memories that you'll always regret.
Don't reminisce on matters of morality.
You won't enjoy bliss, the past is a pain you'll never forget,
You'll always come back,
Back to the road of reality,
Back to the past of memories that you'll always regret.
If you forget where you've been,
You're going down and there is no coming back.
This time I mean it, how can you be sure?
There is no coming back...
Take the time to forget,
Get lost!
Down your road to the end
There is no coming back my friend.
Get lost!
Into my forever,
Forever less than the emptiness.
Get lost... get outta my head
Before I make us both dead.
There is no coming back this time.
Down the road of memories
Forever less than the emptiness...
You're lost.

I hate relativity. It ruins the beauty of absoluteness. And yet, it somehow manages to retain its own kind of beauty, a beauty that shows that absolute truth lies beneath the mask of relativity.

::sigh::

I still hate it, though.

Is true love possible? Or are the petty feelings I know all that exists? Is it only those who negotiate that get along in their old age? Or is the mystical couple that everyone always hears about but never sees really possible?

Is it possible for me to find another that is right for me? Or is that term undefinable? Can I even say the word 'right' and have it truly mean something? Or again, is it all relative? 

I am so weird...

Once, someone who was completely baffled at why I overanalyze so much asked, "How is it that you can stand to ask so much about such minor things?"

My reply: "How is it that you can stand to ask so little about so very many things?"

Is it truly just a given for me, or do I have reasoning behind it?

::sigh::

I hate sigh-ing.

I hate thinking so much on a topic that I either give up on it or else I starve to death.

I hate not knowing.

"My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."
-Ayn Rand

If only this were true, then life would be as I wished it.

But it's not.

And that is what makes so sad, I think...

That is what makes me more depressed than anything else. Not that I have no true friends. That I can deal with. But that I can't have true friends.

::sigh::

C'est la vie.

"Deal with it, Eric. Otherwise nothing will ever get done," my inner consciousness tells me.

"But --"

"No! No buts. Just deal with it. Either live or don't. It's your decision. But either way, deal with it." 

And so I deal with it.

That is why I am in college now. It is why I tutor high school kids for money. It is why I deliberately stay till late at night in the computer lab just to help someone else on their homework. It is why I read Ender's Game when I feel too horrible to keep going.

I'm dealing with it.

But even though I deal with it like this on the outside, my inside is still confused. My inner feelings are still there, and are undealt with. But no one sees them, so who cares? Must I fix what I only I notice? Does this revert back to the question of whose viewpoint is most important?

God, I hate relativity.

::sigh::

Raindrops on roses, and whiskers on kittens...

I like the rain.

I think it is beautiful and relaxing. Where I live, hurricanes are relatively common, and my favorite thing to do during a hurricane is let the wind blow in my face and allow the rain to drench my body.

Back when I lived with my parents, I had access to their pool during the middle of the night. It only happened twice, but the two times a hurricane came in during the middle of the night, I enjoyed swimming in the pool in the darkness of night and feeling the wind blow fiercely above me.

I'm not sure why, but it just made me feel so very good.

But now when it rains, instead of celebrating, I feel sad. Rain reminds me of things I think that I'd rather forget... Yet at the same time I hope I will always remember.

(Like thorns on a rose...)

How screwed up is that?

::sigh::

My sister makes me happy, I think.

Last night, I watched When Harry Met Sally on television again, and the ending made me smile such a big smile. Oh, but how I wish I could be as happy as they. Plus the music that played during the credits was the perfect kind of music to end that movie with. Whoever decided on those exact songs to play during the credits is a musical genius.

I smile with my sister. When she is in the room, I am glad to be in the room with her. No one else makes me feel like that. Not even my closest friends.

I wonder why this is true... Is it because of the time I've spent with my sister? Is it because our personalities mesh so well? What reason have I to enjoy my sister's company so much?

Imagine a cat. Could I love a cat as I do my sister? Why or why not? What makes them so different or so similar?

None of these are easy questions, and I doubt that perhaps they might even be able to be answered.

::double sigh::

I sigh too much.

I am too much of a sigh-er, I guess.

But that is me. It is whom I am.

And I doubt it will ever change. 

::sigh::

SHeDAISY, PenPals, Jail, RPGs, & Hot Tubs

::sigh::

I met Cindy Wunsch today. She's the artist manager of SHeDAISY, among other bands. She is a pretty cool person... I'd never met anyone in the music business previous to this, so it was particularly interesting to me.

She gave me a couple of CDs and her business card, and she told me to e-mail her sometime. I think I shall, though not anytime soon.

There's one thing I hate about e-mail: it's too fast. Being pen pals with somebody using snail mail is easy. You just write them, then they write you, then you write back, et cetera. But when you use e-mail, the letters arrive so quickly that if you compose a reply immediately after receiving the letter it is more of a weird form of instant messenging rather than pen pals.

My dad sent me an e-mail today. He said that he spent five days in the metro jail. He didn't specify what for, but I bet it has something to do with my parents' divorce. They haven't lived under the same roof since November of 1999, yet their court battle still isn't over.

::sigh::

I've tried to role play the past few weeks for the first time, and I've found it to be exceedingly boring. I honestly do not understand how these so-called friends of mine can stand to play it week after week, but they do.

They were fantasy role-playing in an anime-type universe, using both famous and unknown characters, like Sailor Moon and Teenagers From Outer Space.

I don't feel like participating in such role-playing sessions any longer. The idea of it is novel, but the implementation is horrible to me.

...

Do you know what I would really enjoy right now?

I would like to relax in a soothing hot jet tub and let snowflakes fall onto my face.

Unfortunately, no one here in Mobile, AL, USA has ever heard of such things... There probably isn't an outdoor hot tub within fifty miles of my current position.

::sigh::

... I feel like I'm going to sleep through the whole weekend...

...and I likely am, too...

What is fun?

Tomorrow is my Calculus midterm exam.

So why aren't I studying?

I don't know. I guess I'm just stupid. I feel like being here, online. I don't feel like studying. I don't feel like going to the TKE party on campus this weekend either. Does that make me weird?

I'm 21, yet I've never been to a frat party. I've never gone to a club, either. I've never been to a bar.

Am I anti-social? Perhaps. Ok, probably.

But I think I prefer it this way. Not to be totally anti-social, but to be as I am. I mean, I've gone to parties that my friends have had at their houses, and I used to have parties at my house, too. But I can't say that I've really had fun at them... Not in its truest sense.

So how do I have fun?

You know, that's a really good question.

I think I can remember having fun in the past... I remember playing games outside with my friends back in grammar school... I remember enjoying the thrills of sneaking out of my house to spend time with my first fling...

...But in the present time, ... I don't think I have fun anymore. I'm never happy.

Sometimes I smile at funny things, and I laugh at comedic movies. But far more often, I watch and read drama. I dream drama. And I imagine tragedy.

I think I'm depressed. And what's worse is that I think I've been depressed for so long that I don't even realize how depressed I really am.

But sometimes I see a glimmer of light. Sometimes, as I read a physics book or argue an interesting point to a colleague, I think in my mind, Am I having fun now? Is this what I've been missing? By the fact that I ask myself these questions, I believe I can safely assume that during those rare moments, I actually am enjoying myself.

But they don't come very often.

::sigh::

I should be studying right now.

Good night, diary.

Swallowing My Pride

We grew crystals in chemistry class today.

I've always been extremely interested in quantum physics, but chemistry is a whole different ballgame. To me, chemistry is too similar to cooking to be fun. You have to be so careful for good results in the laboratory, and I'm always so very clumsy with such things.

At least, I am in my own mind. Everyone else seems to think I'm great, but not me. I feel like I'm screwing everything up every time I get in the lab, even though I get near perfect lab grades.

Am I just not recognizing my own skill?

I find that hard to believe, because I am so very confident in other areas...

Yet, somehow I feel strange here in college. All my life, I've been the best student in class, the brightest kid on the block, the most efficient worker in the building. But now...

I guess I'm the best math student, but my math professor knows so much more than I do!

I know that it is stupid for me to say that... I mean, why do I even think to compare myself with my own professor?

Yet it still feels strange. I've never met _anyone_ better than me at something intellectual. _Ever._ None of my high school teachers, my bosses at work, even my friends online.

So now I look to my professors and realize that each and every one of them (except my C++ teachers) is more knowledgable than me in their own field.

::sigh:: What's even worse is that there's a chemistry student in my class that knows more about chemistry than I do. It's unnerving.

And yet, I feel so shallow typing such things... I can't say this stuff to my friends; they will think me full of myself. But I can't help it -- it's the truth.

And so I type it here. ::sigh::