[Most Recent Entries] [Calendar View] [Friends]
Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
Alexander Allain's LiveJournal:
| Friday, October 4th, 2002 | |
| 12:30 am | Sometimes I want to run down mass ave screaming at the night with my arms flailing like streamers in front of me until I collapse and cry. |
| Thursday, October 3rd, 2002 | |
| 4:44 pm | Broken days When everything is too complicated to analyze, sometimes being descriptive is helpful. Yesterday I slept through two of my classes and skipped an optional math recitation. I had stayed up until five AM the night before talking to one of Minyang's roommates; staying up late to hold a conversation about politics and language is not a good idea, though it was a fun conversation. I need to focus for my expository writing class; I need to be able to write clearly and precisely -- I need to see the details of the thoughts I have and express those details and the evidence for the details. If nothing else, the class demands an accuracy and precision that I hope to learn to achieve. When looking at something and writing about it, I do not want to say what I see; I want to describe what the thing is. I feel the need to increase my working vocabulary, but I do not mean simply the number of sesquepedalian words I know; I mean that I must know the precise words for those things which I see all the time but cannot describe in words without writing clumsy clauses qualifying a word with a very general meaning into describing something very specific -- sometimes I feel as though I am writing an essay for french class and I have to describe something for which I do not know the word (instead of writing "the men were announcing the game" I might write "the men were describing the play on the field"). In any case, in Computer Science and Math time trickled today. We went over almost nothing, although in math we learned more about math related to and needed by multivariable calculus -- vectors, cylinderical coordinates and spherical coordinates. |
| Friday, September 27th, 2002 | |
| 3:25 pm | Drowned in your minds I've lost my voice. Words are cold and precise now, and I see that the minds of others have massaged the thoughts to warmth and life, whereas mine takes the thoughts and vivisects them until coagulation and the system fails. But I am partially free, and if nothing else, resigned to fate. In sixty years, I will almost assuredly be dead; in forty years, I will almost assuredly be senile; in ten years, I will almost assuredly be alone; in four years, I will almost assuredly have a Harvard degree. Now? I am voiceless and with my thoughts. I owe a lot of people emails -- they must be written eventually, but I have nothing to say right now, and I don't want to write nothing, or something irrelevant or boring. There is not much of a connection between each thought, but perhaps because I have not written in so long, I can be forgiven. |
| Tuesday, September 24th, 2002 | |
| 3:26 pm | It's been a while since I last wrote. Since then, I've decided upon my classes: Philosophy 3: Introduction to the Problems in Philosophy Math 21a: Multivariable calculus Computer Science 121: Introduction to the Theory of Computation and Formal Systems Expository Writing 20: Seeing Art The past is turning into stone -- lifeless and dead. The future is just about as dull, but at least there is the hope of learning something and becoming a more efficient thinker. I need to emerse myself in something; but I don't know what I want to become part of. |
| Wednesday, September 18th, 2002 | |
| 1:23 pm | Andy's livejournal reminded me of the end of TASP -- the last days, the last week, the last minutes, the final kiss and removal, the hopes, the expectations, the daring dreams and foolishness -- the love that she then felt, and the wrenching fear that I felt. It doesn't matter anymore; she's no longer who she was: everything changed when she was no longer simply one who loved Neruda and wanted to be loved. I miss immensely the feeling of the end of TASP, but that is why it is beautiful to me; if I were to relive it, nothing would be significant or the same. I suppose that was a time when the world touched nothing about her, and the world touched everything about me -- and it was pleasant, even though I knew the world was the opposite of my own desires. At least I could pretend -- and at least I never lied to her in any way that would have been against what I believe to be important. I am who I am, and that contents me. |
| Sunday, September 15th, 2002 | |
| 10:54 am | I dreamed... I dreamed about something from the past, and everything in the dream was consistent and expected enough, except the feelings. I felt different this time, different from anything I'd have expected to feel -- and I don't think that in life I've felt quite the way I did. It was, perhaps, what I should have felt like then -- what would have been real, or authentic, or authenticating, even -- at least, evidence of authenticating. It was nice though to wake up; I like that I can feel anything in a dream and the feeling will fade when the sun burns it off my eyes. |
| Saturday, September 14th, 2002 | |
| 2:50 am | I was right about something, at least Tonight was vaguely disconcerting. |
| Tuesday, September 10th, 2002 | |
| 1:58 pm | ... I think "..." pretty much sums up the day. What continues continues, and there is nothing worthy of words or of conscious thought. Walking back to my dorm again I passed near where I had dropped the pen cap, while ignoring the past. More and more I feel like I don't want to do things -- I used to want to do and be everything; now I want to be nothing. The more I consider my options, the more I want to concentrate in literature, philosophy, or english. I do not wish to work hard anymore, and I do not wish to succeed. I want to live in a small community on a farm and love my wife and children, especially my own. I want to read books at night and play with my cat. I want to be old, and I want to look back and smile at every moment of pain or joy; but I never want to wish to relive them. I want to watch everything fall away into the tatters of flayed ambitions, revealing shivering naked those who clothe themselves in hope and expectation. I had a moment of clarity last evening while talking to Julia. For a moment, I found my worldview beautiful, and I wanted to live it. But I do not believe I can; it is a self-defeating worldview; at each extreme it pushes back too hard, and the attempt to balance is a failure. "When you swear you're his, shivering and sighing and he swears his love is infinite, undying -- lady, make not of this: one of you is lying" "Unfortunate Circumstances" - Dorothy Parker Unfortunately, I've probably written that before, so it seems boring and stale. Well, then -- look at it again and find a new reason to loathe or love it. I'm sure there is something deeper and hidden. Stand before the poem until it overcomes you, until you no longer tell it what it means, until it makes itself real to you. Then you can hate it. |
| 1:21 am | Outside of time Today was disturbing. While I was sitting down, watching something, I realized that, while I was happy, I felt like I ought to have been unhappy. I completely blew off the writing test. I answered the question, and I had fun, but I'm not sure how far that's going to get me here -- or how much it will yield benefit for me to do nothing. Julia, you and your fucking ninety nine cent falafel -- well, tomorrow for lunch is falafel sandwiches! I'm so happy about that, though that's incredibly distressing. I feel like I'm wasting people's time. Most of my thoughts in the last day have been unrelated to the thread of conversation I've been part of; the others have been poor jokes. Perhaps I am too used to AIM, where I don't feel like I'm wasting someone's time -- there is no obligation to be online, and there's always something else for the other person to do. I'm feeling very apathetic. I'm sure that once I get into a routine, I will be better, but I'm vaguely worried that I will not enjoy the routine, and that it will make me only mechanically happy. Then again, I'm not sure what else there is. I solved the eight queens problem today. I've never been able to do it, but I did it today in a matter of seconds. But Andrew beat me at chess; he's good, and I don't seem to be playing well. I can't focus on it, and I'm not that engaged with it. I also dislike the thought that there are several people on campus who are much better than i. The new people who interest me do not seem to reciprocate. I suppose that is pretty irrelevant, but it can be irritating. I project a sense of apathy too much. It isn't that I don't care, so much as that I don't see why to care. Well, I have too much experience with new places to believe this one will be any different. And this time there are several hundred people to know; it cannot be all bad. I suppose for once I'm both choosing and believing in something. |
| Monday, September 9th, 2002 | |
| 2:41 am | In a murky dream, I see your face again There are things that are not suprising, which is fortunate. Among these things there are those things which are both surprising and unpleasant, though the surprise mitigates the suffering, if only because being surprised is better than being anxious. Of course, I have decided my only correct stance is one of detached disgust. Everything else is to surrender, or to make something personal which both is and isn't. Though disgust implies attachment, there can be that cold and cruel intellectual disgust that I find so enthralling -- and in the most literal sense of that word, to boot. Personal it must be because it was personal, but personal it cannot be because that is foolish and unfair. The universe must be on my side, and therefore I must be detached. Hate implies attachment; indifference is simply inaccurate; love is in this case a lie. Nothing ever ends, but many things are easy to forget. I am counting on that to be true not of myself alone but of all people; it will make the little list I keep much easier to shorten happily. I hope I do not die young. Creativity and originality are the two most overrated concepts. There is nothing wrong with something creative -- or something original -- but they are not inherently better, and without sufficient reasoning behind a "creative" or "original" idea, the terms can be used to justify many very stupid things. I think there is no greater sin in attempting to be creative while ignoring the more important skill -- the ability to be fantastically obvious. Perhaps it seems like a copout to say that the obvious is the best, but I do not mean the simple obvious. I don't mean, even, in general that the obvious is necessarily what should be searched for first. In a few specific contexts the obvious is best -- conversation and oratory. The ability to say the obvious in a profound way, the ability to reveal the nuances contained in an idea without stating them or even making the implication more obvious than necessary, is what I find most impressive about some people. The delivery is only a part, I think. There must be an aura attached to the person, and the person must understand timing exceptionally well. Most important, without elegant language, it is impossible to state the obvious profoundly. Perhaps that is what it means for a thing to be "sublime". Reading Longinus, I get the impression that I may be talking about somthing similar -- to him, the sublime was something heroic -- something that also must be obvious (or brilliantly nonobvious...but we all know the ends...) -- stated well, concerning an important subject. Beauty is wonderful, but the sublime is, well, sublime -- a totally different baby, and one which should not be aborted. In my experiences, I've only seen one or a few people who seem capable of being sublime, or, if nothing else, capable of stating the obvious effectively. |
| Thursday, September 5th, 2002 | |
| 4:11 pm | and set against an abstract terror... I remember that about nine months ago I was lying down on the grass a warm autumn night, talking on a cell phone, and staring into the sky between the branches of a tree. It was right before I told her that I didn't think we shared the same sense of beauty, and that I thought we would have to break up. It was such a nice sense of terror -- so beautiful. Some vast benevolent force holding its thumb by my left ear and its forefinger by my right and squeezing gently. |
| Saturday, August 31st, 2002 | |
| 1:13 am | Hmmm... I've been told I demand a lot from the reader -- just by asking questions all the time. Recently I seem to be posing the questions to myself. Doesn't that seem like cheating? Almost asking other people to do the thinking for me when they overhear my internal thoughts... |
| Friday, August 30th, 2002 | |
| 9:22 pm | This is the end, beautiful friend Today was my last day of work. My boss took me out to lunch, and after work we went to play pool and to the first half of the Saints game. I'm going to miss working for the law firm; even though I often sat around waiting for stuff to do, it was a good experience. Law is an interesting field, and I got to do more than just office work -- I worked on a report on their website, got to do some evidence analysis, and learned that stuffing envelopes is a very time consuming task. It was also nice because I talked to people. At my last job, I never even saw the face of the person with whom I occupied a cubical (and I got paid minimum wage for doing computer-related work -- which is way below the going rate, no matter how old the employee). I hope to keep in touch with the people from work; if nothing else, when I come back to New Orleans I'd like to see them again. Reflecting on the past summer hasn't given me any stunning insights. Rather, I think I'm just a bit awed by the fulfillment of my expectations. Maybe I'm getting better at predicting the future. First, my website has picked up again with the onset of the school year. I predicted that, and I'm very pleased. Soon it will be fully back online, and then I should be able to use it for paying most of my college-related expenses. Second, I remember at the April weekend that I was ready for Harvard to start. After being downsized, I expected the summer to be a little lonely, but also a good wait. I think I was right. It was a bit unpleasant sometimes, but it was also nice to live as myself. Recently I've finally begun to forget what it was like -- she has become a strange piece of clay in my mind when I think about her. I don't feel like I know anything about her but how she responded to my fingers. Third, I'm looking forward to seeing the people I know who are going to Harvard. I haven't talked to Lester much this summer, and I haven't seen any of the TASPers for a long time -- I was lucky enough to have seen Julia and Andy in Chicago, Andrew and Minyang in New York, and Andy in New Jersey; now I'll get to live with some of them. It's rather comforting to know I know people. Fourth, I've enjoyed watching myself be unlike I was. I'm better at talking to new people than I used to be -- I'm still not great, or even good, but at least I'm capable of doing it. Looking back on the beginning of the summer, I remember waking up after graduation and feeling at one of the low points of my emotional life. I was tired after sleeping only two hours; staying up all night had released a lot of adrenaline, and everything from Harvard came back. I remember the next few days were a nice recentering. Eventually time heals all wounds -- though I think there are always scars (as there should be, I've been told). Everyone from home is gone, almost -- Michael's leaving makes me feel like Newman is finally gone. I have nothing else to do here. The last day of work today, most of my friends gone; the only thing left to do is clean up and leave. I need to fix my website fully, get some other sites moved onto the server, ensure I've paid all my bills, get the finances in order, get a permit, go to doctors, pack, and leave. I think I'm ready to leave, thank God. |
| Tuesday, August 27th, 2002 | |
| 6:23 pm | Frustration I've done a few really silly things recently with regard to my website. Now I'm having to quickly deal with all of the changes I'm trying to make rather than handling them slowly. I dislike sending support representatives emails because I know it's annoying for them to have to put up with it when the answers are usually obvious -- i often have this problem. Unfortuantely, I feel very unsure of myself when dealing with the website, and my understanding is based on some abstractions that need to be made more concrete. "Plug it into the box and it works" doesn't work anymore. I need to know what's inside the box because it's asking me about it. Current Music: Led Zeppelin & Pink Floyd - Stairway to heaven |
| 1:23 am | Thank you for caring Thanks for caring enough to read my livejournal, for not running away with digust, clicking back from boredom, or any of the other things you might have done but didn't. |
| Sunday, August 25th, 2002 | |
| 1:01 am | Today was the last day my cousin and I will both be together for several months. Unlike last year, I won't even see her periodically during the school year; I will only see her during breaks, and those will be short-lived. I was thinking about the feeling of having people gone, and I don't really feel one way or another too strongly. It's nice to think of my friends being college-bound, so I'm happy for them; I'm used to being away from people for long periods of time, so I don't miss them. I feel some sense of relief - as if everything is simplified, even though it's really more complex. For instance, my email is not working right now because my site is switching servers. I was thinking today about the idea of learning a skill. The idea of learning skills is one that comforts me: skills are useful, improvable with practice, and generally give evaluatable results. Skills require systems of understanding which give guidelines for action; therefore, they are separate from thoughts - they are accepted norms. In a sense, I think one can be a skillful thinker if one never questions fundamental assertions: for instance, when playing chess one can be skillful without questioning why the skill is useful or why the rules followed are valid. Ideas are based on either theoretical or practical concerns. Theoretical concerns are interesting, and may give rise to new skills or improvements to skills. For instance, learning about the physical capabilities of the average person may help to improve the skills of a baseball player. Practical concerns need theory to help find solutions, but practical ideas are also more interesting because they are pragmatic: that is, creative. I think the most useful skills are those that involve gaining new methods of atacking theoretical problems; knowledge builds knowledge. In a sense, all that happens is a buildup of potential - what Eric referred to as "growing a block of wood to carve". But learning skills related to thinking will inevitably aid in learning new skills: learning is a skill, after all. I was considering the nature of thought as analytical or intuitive. It seems to me that most problems are solvable through an attack via either method, and that the analytical method is simply a way to clarify the problem before entering into it. It also seems that analytical thinking is inherently self-expanding, because it can analyze itself and build onto itself through a refinement of the process of analysis. Intuition, on the other hand, seems like something of a built-in, unteachable quality. Ultimately, with sufficient analysis clarying a problem and pointing out the interesting details, intuition will jump in and reach an answer. That is, analysis is a way to stare hard at a problem until something comes of it. The rather neat thing about analysis is that things do come out of it on many levels: it can solve a problem or just make it solvable. (Charles's solution to reading a hard poem: find a key line and go from there.) The point is that analysis is a skill: breaking down a problem into issues and desired outcome, finding the essences of the evidence, looking for the combinations of and interrelations between the facts, attempting to solve the problem, then reevaluating the question, the evidence, and the connections. I often find the error lies in a faulty assumption or misapprehension of the problem. That then, is a way to improve my analytical skill: search for the faults in problem solving; rather than merely remember another pattern for solving the problem, find what thought movement would have lead to finding the faulty assumption, then practice it and learn it (thought movement: a mood-based focus on an aspect of a situation). All useful mental exercises seem to be about testing assumptions - assumptions about evidence, and assumptions about the question. I suppose that this is a reasonable approach, given that our school system is excellent at teaching the final step of actually doing the synthesis of ideas. So, what about the distinction between skills and thoughts? Thought is a skill, but skills aren't thoughts. Useful thought is the building of systems in which skills can be created or redefined and modified. What about analysis of art or reading? Both are creating new worldviews, and both are also inherently good practice for the skill of thinking. Current Music: Beatles - Blackbird |
| Friday, August 23rd, 2002 | |
| 4:51 pm | What things are I seem to be having trouble with abstractions right now. I can't seem to process them at all. It is a very disconcerting thing. Things are just "what they are" right now, but only what they are in relation to each other, not what they really are. Current Music: Hey You - Pink Floyd |
| Thursday, August 22nd, 2002 | |
| 7:46 am | I had a terrifying dream last night. A nun-shaped woman came to visit me, and she was stained purple on her neck and near her mouth. She told me it was because the lethal injection hadn't worked. Then she told me that she had killed someone; it seemed out of her character, so I asked her why, and she told me because she got very angry, and she explained that she was visiting me to warn me to be careful because she knew I was susceptible to becoming extremely angry without reason. It was scary because I then became angry without reason several times in my dream and was afraid I was going to kill one of my figments or later murder someone. In the dream, I felt almost as though I had been cursed, told my fate. Yes, those kind od dreams are surprisingly terrifying when you have them. I think the fact that the purple on her wrinkled skin reminded me of a fish also scared me. |
| Tuesday, August 20th, 2002 | |
| 10:51 pm | Minyang said something rather beautiful today about our world and how in it one can care as deeply about a pastrami sandwich as about a person - but it's interesting in a way because it also strips bare everything by pointing out that things are merely symbols. I think that recently I've been struggling to discover the difference between things as things and things as symbols: it is not so much a conceptual difficulty - otherwise I would spend a great deal of time talking about how each way of viewing things really works - as one of my own perceptions of what things are and how I view them. Perhaps it is a difficulty with applying what I know. Abstraction seems fundamentally crucial and profound - how can you, after all, think without it? but at the same time, there's always the sin of losing a lot of things. abstraction, i think, is only really valuable when used in the same way as analysis: to point to features rather than strip features. I don't think I'm thinking very clearly; I know I have a headache. So i'm going to go to bed right now. Current Mood: -- Current Music: -- |
| Monday, August 19th, 2002 | |
| 2:19 am | Villages may lie asleep but nowhere do the words reach upward - nothing simple enough as equal rest can be achieved through symbols when waves are silent at the parting from the past and nothing raises hopes like little plucky kisses placed very quietly: when there is nothing, we can find something there; when there is something, it should be lost for it may be still and dead. the trees are all around in green and brown and golden hues at times - when nature makes it such and so. lights are dimmed and candles quiet; and fears are lonely. the wool lies in piles for little reason but for some or perhaps more life. and that wool heaves and sighs when the wind is quiet and swift. and barren daytime and words are soothing to young chilldren, painful to the adolescents, and nothing to the old. |