In the mantras and canon of our time we bear witness to a cycle of indistinguishable idiocy and genius manifested concurrently and regularly throughout the ideological avenues available. We read, hear, and see—and subsequently regurgitate—a great volume of substance and fluff every day. The trick is learning to differentiate between the two. It has been said that our generation is one in which information is everywhere but knowledge nowhere—perhaps more so than ever before—and yet even the knowledge of the aforementioned is no protection. In the past, education was considered to be a great bastion of independent thought and a bulwark against authoritarianism, manipulation, and thought control. In the more recent past—especially following the introduction of the internet—education and access to information may well have become a liability. Entire generations that are reared in an environment characterized by a constant and instantaneous flow of information are accustomed to and expected to take advantage of the extensive educational opportunities afforded to them. Moreover, they seem hell bent on doing their damnedest to play the role prescribed to them to the utmost of their ability rather than questioning why it is that they should be playing the game at all.

As more and more adolescents give up their young lives in the pursuit of ever more degrees and accolades in the service of their material god, it appears that academia is increasingly playing host to a junior contingent of players intent on getting a head start in the rat race to nowhere. The interesting thing about the market is that it is a self-enforcing phenomenon capable of not only sustaining itself over the span of generations, not only intensifying with each passing year, but of fooling the vast majority of participants that they are quietly going about their business in a conveniently busy, ordinary, and meaningless manner of their own accord.

Listen! Can you hear it? The wind is singing: the wind, the trees, the falling leaves resound. Look up! Can you feel rhythm? The trees are waltzing: the shimmering canopy swaying and rustling in the breeze. Look around! Do you see them? The trek continues: working, sweating, the people head off to here and there and ends unknown. Look down! Can you feel it? The peaceful, powerful cool of concrete vantage in the shade. Wait a minute! Do you remember? The simple pleasures, dreams, and whims of yesteryear? Let’s go! Are you ready? Let’s run away into the dark: into the wild, into the night. Hurry up! Can you smell it? The ocean: cool and blue and waiting just beyond the cliffs. Smile! Do you see it? Deep and blue and full of life. No one’s here. Jump! I’ll race you out into the surf. 

     Travelling on its own—both locally and internationally—has always been something that I enjoyed and something that I intend to pursue for the rest of my life. Though I’d been abroad and experienced other cultures in all their wonderful foreign-ness before, though I have certainly done my share of volunteerism over the years, and though I’ve always considered myself to be at least moderately open-minded, I am starting to believe that there is something to be said for putting yourself out there that little bit more and combining the two. What could be better than exploring, serving, and consequently learning something in the process? If nothing else I’ve learned over and over again that no matter how wide you believe your perspective to be you can always broaden your horizons. There is an interesting side effect to consciousness: a sort of innate responsibility that seems to come along with understanding. When you come to understand the global prevalence of need, the potential for connection, the power of exchange, and the possibility for impact, it is difficult to look at things the same way ever again.

     Granted, you can learn a lot about yourself and other people wherever you are,  you can always make a difference right at home in your own community, and even something as simple as sitting down to talk to someone or taking an interest in their lives can be meaningful, powerful, and even life-changing. Some call it awareness, some call it activism, some call it service, some call it sympathy, and others call it guilt. People seek out extraordinary circumstances for different reasons: to get away and see some of the world, to move beyond your comfort zone and thus to learn, to experience, to explore, to do something worth doing, or even to do your damnedest to make some sort of a difference. What interests me, though, is not the dizzying array of expressions and emotions conjured up by that rare moment of connection forged between two strangers whose paths would, in all likelihood, never have otherwise crossed if not for the onset of extraordinary circumstances both intentional and otherwise. The truly powerful thing—for me at least—is that, regardless of the reaction engendered in the host in question, when someone takes the time to try to do something for someone else, when someone endeavors to make a positive change in someone else’s life—however small their contribution might be—a change seems to be rendered in the lives of both parties involved rather than purely that of the recipient.  Global service isn’t just about giving. It’s also about getting something back.Most of us will move out into the world one day and settle down in both the literal and the figurative sense of the word. I often look at older generations and wonder what happened to them. How did the passion of their youth slip away? When did the causes they once championed give way to the grindstone? Why did they sell out to the machine they raged against? I think a lot of it has to do with apathy, with shutting out need and inequality, and with ignorance whether self-inflicted or otherwise.

     Then I look back at my peers and at myself and the possibility that one day our time will come and the world will catch up with us terrifies me. Will I give up one day? Will I give in? Will I go on to have a family and live out my life for the American dream with a white picket fence, a grassy yard, a nice car, and a television? I don’t think that I am alone in that, more than anything else, I am afraid that at the end my life the whole endeavor will turn out to be meaningless, that I will die with could haves, should haves, and would haves. 

They say the greatest lie that ever was is “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori”, but sometimes I wonder if it’s something more along the lines of “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…”

Sometimes I wonder if there will come a time when anyone and everyone from our generation will be able to look back and reminisce collectively on the nights when we didn’t sleep and the pivotal moments that we lived through. I wonder if the cultural icons that we grew up with will last the test of time. And perhaps most of all I wonder if there will be a song that we will all unconsciously agree is a worthy anthem for all the ups and downs of our time. Sometimes I wonder if we’ll make it, if we’ll sell out like all that came before us, or if perhaps a few of us will keep fighting the good fight. When the old guard is dead and gone where will we take the world we are inheriting? I have peers whose insights and inclination to action inspire me and I have peers whose apathy and superficial preoccupations terrify me. There are days when I am ashamed to live on this planet and at the same time there are days when I am proud to live in this country and to be a part of this generation. And yet despite it all we move along  for the most part and time waits for no one I suppose…

In the depths of night where demons wander,

that brilliant dark where one feels more strongly,

I tear my tempered dreams asunder

quietly, tragically, and maybe wrongly.

I pour out my soul to a steady sea,

the fresh salt breeze and the subtle cadence

 of a cliff top walk and a muffled plea

as the waves beat on with endless patience.

I sometimes wonder “is it true I’m free?”

Reflecting on the watery depths below,

Could it bring out the very best in me?

And in the darkness my troubles grow

Until my lonely salted tears rejoin the sea.

Because only I can say what will yet become of me.

There is something beautifully humbling about travelling: when you look out your little window at 30,000 feet and you see an endless expanse of clouds beneath a sky that transitions from orange to pink to darker and darker blue as it fades into an expanse of unimaginable vastness and later the stars above, when you watch all the little people below going about their daily lives on the little pathways that criss-cross the little hills and valleys below before you realize that on a normal day your life is outwardly just as menial, when your plane encounters a patch of turbulence and suddenly drops uncontrollably shattering the illusion of safety and human mastery over the elements.  There is something strangely universal about the hordes of people coming and going off to ends unknown in the service of entirely different purposes absorbed in their individually unique and collectively meaningless lives. There is something powerful in watching the motley crew of jet-setters, from teething youth to toothless geriatrics, react as things don’t go as planned and their little worlds of pathetic self-interests are shattered.

Even when I’m surrounded by others—whether strangers or the best of friends—I always know on some level that I am ultimately very small and very alone. Even if I can connect with people I often fear that I don’t really relate to them. I find it telling to wait and see who does what when the shit hits the fan or when it rains and later pours. There will be the complainers, the whiners, the cry-ers, and the sigh-ers. Of course, some will yell and some will scream, some will sulk and some will steam, but mostly life goes on and I still dream. I know that people approach the task of living very differently but I can’t help but wonder If I’m doing it right. Some people drown out the world in a rhythmic cacophony of manufactured melody, others bury their thoughts beneath a smorgasbord of those of other people or immerse themselves in other worlds and other times with a steady diet of the printed word, and others still forfeit all personal responsibility and accept the doctrines prescribed to them by their personal branch of indoctrination and live their lives in various degrees of hypocrisy. As for me I like to watch and I like to listen but more than anything I like to try to understand how everyone else seems so sure of their course of action and their thought process. I like to remark to myself about this or that as I scrutinize and analyze, but try as I might to steer clear of judgment and bias I know that I do not. 

A spattering of spartan, concrete structures emerged from amidst the forest along the rugged coastline in disparate clusters of 20^th century modernity. The great ragged trees whipped around in the howling wind from the sea far below as the rustle of leaves in the Eucalyptus grove became a whistling roar. Energy was everywhere as thunderheads roiled overhead and white-caps beat ever onwards against the craggy shore. Though sturdy enough to keep out the gale, the woodland edifices were sterile and cold but for mortal interference. Twin fighter jets screeched overhead at an alarming speed and yet not a soul looked up to greet the screaming symbols of a bygone era.

The cold seemed to disregard whatever layers of clothing the masses saw fit and chilled them nigh to the bones from the moment their bundled bodies left the comfort of the warmth inside for ends beyond the threshold. There was steaming tea and coffee everywhere to be had and yet, still compatriots looked at each other with cold detachment. A gathering of likeminded persons of common purpose might pass the entirety of half an hour confined in line beside a potentially compatible companion quietly watching the minutes tick away at the top of their screen. Unaccustomed to the energy of meteorological events, there was a certain novelty in passage through it. Certainly, though, the fledgling cold soon registered with even the most easily excitable among them and thus the requisite treks to and fro soon became arduous.

Arduous, that is, for those who don’t care to perceive what goes on around them beyond trifling pleasantries and idyll chatter. Fickle creatures by nature, the spawn of suburban excess and urban charity made their way about their collegiate maze day in and day out more perceptive, naturally, to insignificant downward ticks of the thermometer than to the iron curtain of austerity being rendered around them: the belated consequence of the faults of their parents. Ever vigilant, ever innovative, the vast array of youth morphed and adapted under a pressure they should have never had to bear. Some worked tirelessly in a perhaps futile attempt to orient themselves towards whatever remaining niche looked promising, others sought to steer a course that would maximize the outside funding of their educational experiment, some looked beyond their studies in the pursuit of hedonistic pleasures as they squandered away their $30,000 investment in futility, and still others played the game and laughed at the other players at the same time because they took the time to perceive the rules.

Full of hope and yet weighed down by unconscious despair edging on conscious frustration, some sought to make the best of what they were given and do the best that they could. The trouble is that not everyone understood what the goal was or if there even was one and if they did it was probably a goal that was prescribed to them. There is a certain providence in the fall of a dream, in the descent of children to the cynicism of adulthood, to the beautiful pitfalls they encounter along the way and the warnings that generation after generation ignores in tandem. Life is at once a fantastic endeavor of sensation and numbness, interaction and withdrawal, delight and depression, fulfillment, and regret, innocence and guilt, action and reaction. Those with the biggest dreams are the hardest to please and those with the biggest hearts are the easiest to hurt but those without only envy their feeling. Repression runs rampant and children never stop playing pretend. Distraction is everywhere and the possibilities are endless except for the universal restriction of choice. People in motion seek out new ends or cling to the old and live out their lives in coming and goings only to remember the times when they stayed or maybe they should have. Destinations unknown hold the ultimate sway as readiness is all.

The postmodern children of the new millennium can see the meaningless crusades of the 20^th century for what they were. They can see the institutions without the veil of nationalism or the convenient scapegoat of communism, they dare to challenge the orthodoxy of the great warring faiths in their political expediency, they can almost perceive the puppeteers pulling the strings because for them combine long ago lost all credibility and trust and yet, even as they watch the system flounder they cling to the paths laid out for them even as they witness how unsubstantiated the claims of their own indoctrination might have been. The cracks of the combine are evident but it is easier to follow the shepherds on paths well worn by the sheep that came before than to stand apart from the flock and face the inevitable responsibility to act in opposition to an apathetic world of excess and scarcity.

Do you ever wonder what the places where you live out your life today were like in another time? What the sad old buildings of a bygone era were like in their prime? Have you ever considered all the feet that have trod the ground you tread before you? Or the music that echoed through the same halls before you were born? You might be lost –I might be lost—but what’s to say that those who meandered their way through the same pathways and were late to the same lectures before me weren’t just as lost in their own time? The faces come and go, across generations and in and out of a meaningful role in my life, but the story is the same. There are those, that were, those that are, and those that will be and every one of them had to, has to, or will have to deal with the same shit. Every single person must learn to navigate through the haze of indoctrination and deception to emerge above it or learn to resign themselves to their air of blissful ignorance—whether real or manufactured— paint on a smile and pretend to be happy.

Sometimes I wish for ignorance,

To dream the dreams I shouldn’t,

To return to naïve innocence,

Where I’d do the things I couldn’t.

Now they make me shrink away

from all I am and all I’m not.

It seems that I will just betray

The person who I ought to be.

But other times I remember.

Remember that I’ll never be

Just quite good enough for me

Even if there’s still an ember.

I wish that I could show them all

The faults that I see every day.

If they could read the subtle scrawl

I doubt if even one would stay.

Sometimes I want to go away.

Sometimes I forget it all.

Sometimes I pretend.

Then it all goes to hell.

The funny thing about UCSD is that despite the fact that we are a mile from the beach—and in San Diego of all places—the University seems to consist of  a series of modern, semi-subterranean, largely concrete and steel bunkers camouflaged by a Eucalyptus grove in the middle of the semi-arid desert that is Southern California. The campus is more or less a sprawling collection of brutalist, modern, and Cold War Era Space Age Architecture laid out over a huge area connected by various paths and access roads that could well be patrol routes. To make matters worse, our library could easily be a spaceship, a guard tower, a fortress, or a surveillance/communications facility. Every building seems to have at least a modest presence below the ground and there are vents and skylights in the ground periodically to service said aspects of buildings as well as a network of steam tunnels. Throw in our location on the edge of the cliffs overlooking blacks beach, where the army practiced the Normandy Landings before the real thing, and the fact that on a given day at least a dozen fighter jets and a good number of helicopters and transport aircraft fly overhead each day and the odd military undertone becomes more obvious.  Random satellite dishes, antennas, supercomputers, and a ton of research facilities and laboratories don’t help either. Regardless, I guess that makes us either cannon fodder or students depending on your perspective. :)

I’ve always thought that it would be awesome to send and receive proper snail-mail letters with someone. I’ve thought about it a few times but it always sounds like a silly/childish/useless thing to a lot of people. I guess in some ways I’m just a child and perhaps a romantic at heart.

On a semi-related note I recently wrote to my grandparents in South Africa telling them about my life in San Diego and college in general. One of them didn’t respond, which was expected given how far gone she is, and the other did but in a way that made me realize how far my grandma has fallen from the person I knew. I knew that she’s had cancer and a stroke and all but I guess that the fact that she is really getting old and wont be around much longer hadn’t really set in yet. It’s horrible to be sitting on the other side of the planet when someone you love isn’t well. I know that I couldn’t really do anything even if I was there, but it really hurts to think that I haven’t seen any of my grandparents in two years and I probably wont see them again until they’re dead or don’t remember who I am.

Until recently I was under the impression that my prior general fear for the future of the human race was misguided. I have discovered, as of late, that I had every reason to caution my optimism. In fact, in light of recent events, I have decided to return completely and absolutely to my prior outlook of marked cynicism. After sitting down and watching the Valkyrie by the fire with my family and a cat on my lap my brother proceeded to astound us all with the depth of his ignorance:

“Were the Nazis WWI or WWII?”
“Is a chancellor like a King?”
“What kind of government does Germany have?”
“Speaker of the House?”
I asked him who are senators are… “Senators? Don’t we have a lot of those?”
“Federal Reserve?”

This frightens me immensely.

The worst mistakes are the ones that I know I will never be able to tell anyone about: the mistakes, the regrets, the broken dreams, the gnawing inadequacies that seem to build up inside of me. They are the little things and the bigger things for which I can never forgive myself. Things that I can push away, postpone, or bury but that always end up resurfacing. Things that grow and grow inside of me evolving and compounding in a terrible cycle of senseless regret and guilt. The terrifying thing is that I can’t control it in the slightest. I can sometimes predict when the dam will break, but there isn’t a thing I can do to stop it. I’m scared of my own mind. I’m scared of myself. I don’t think anyone else has ever been as hard on me as I am and yet I can’t help it. Lately I’ve just been enjoying the periods of callous indifference and even profound happiness that come after/in between the “breakdowns”. 

I find it amazing that I can be excited about so many things at once: excited by music that I discover, excited by the prospect of getting to know people that I meet, excited for upcoming movie releases like The Hobbit and Les Misérables, excited for winter break, excited to go home and see my cats, family, and friends, excited for next quarter, excited for Istanbul, and excited about all the different things that could happen, all the places I could go, all the people I could meet, and all the experiences that may be just around the corner. I feel like for the first time in my life I am dictating my own course of action. If I want to go to a concert I go to a concert hall, if I want to read a book, I buy it, if I want to go on a date, I do that, If I want to stay up late, no one cares, if I want to be a hermit, I can indulge in solitude all I want, and if I want to take a class or travel abroad it’s finally my decision. I don’t have to ask anyone. I have to manage my time and maintain a balance and all but if I can make something happen I am free to do it and it is absolutely liberating. 

Recently I’ve discovered—or finally admitted to myself more likely—that there are just some nights when I am almost predisposed to be emotional. Nights when I feel more sentimental, more vulnerable, more likely to think about the past or worry about the future. I’ve realized that I actually see them coming to a certain extent. They seem to coincide with the days when I enjoy the little things that much more. The same days when every gust of wind, every interesting shadow, every reflection on the water or on a window is more likely to captivate me to such an extent that I do stupid things like trip up the stairs and make slutty girls think that I was just that smitten to them…  Honestly? They’re the days when I’m the most childish. They’re also the days when I’m the most cynical. Unfortunately they’re also the days when I’m the most aware of how alone I am. Interestingly enough they are also the days when I am most likely to go on a spontaneous adventure with whoever happens to be at hand or to sit alone and revel in my solitary existence. I think what I’m starting to understand is that though it’s a pain in the ass to lose control of myself, to a certain extent those are also the nights when I’m actually “feeling”, when I allow myself to escape the usual detached numbness that I seem to retreat into on occasion. Those are the nights in which I live.