Day 257

Just finished watching "Igby Goes Down," a movie about a rich overprivileged know-it-all who can't love, hates most everyone, and likes to ruin everything. It's like the second coming of Catcher in the Rye, a book I've re-read a few times just to see if I was missing something. I mean, everyone's always talking about Holden as this great such and such. An inspiration, an example, a window into a certain angst. I never got it. But watching Igby, I sort of understood what Catcher in the Rye was driving at.

It was about finding your niche, despite your issues, your dramas, your goods and your bads. I guess it's really about growing up, or figuring how to grow up, something people still haven't done really. What is most shocking about being a full fledged adult (age wise) is how people are, incredibly, still hung up on issues that they could/should have seemingly solved eons ago.

As a child, I used to think that adults all had their shit together. What was neuroticism, what was jealousy, what was insecurity (in an adult) to a kid? I thought maturity and age came hand in hand. That's so not true is it? People calcify as they get older and have to fight to change. It's an uphill battle the entire way and oftentimes it's not even a fight people bother with.

When people talk about being afraid of "settling" in a relationships, how come it never comes around into being afraid of settling as yourself? Of being the you that will remain for the next thirty years or whatever. I think that's the thing that scares me more nowadays. It feels like 80% of myself is mapped out, and the other 20% I've basically given up on learning about.

It's like I've lost interest in the "why's" of me. I don't care why I do things anymore. Like why does the sun make flowers grow? I don't care, I just need to figure out what to do with the damn flowers. There's some sort of weak parallel to the creation versus evolution debate, but I'll pass on that since it's hackneyed.

I'm AIMing a friend in Darfur about her restlessness right now. It's existential season -- particularly for her, and she goes through this every few years, if not months -- and she's right now saying that even though she's always in crazy experiences and situations, she's "OD'd on sensory experiences in other worlds." So rarely is the answer somewhere out there too. Eventually, anything gets stale.

The answer is really in you, isn't it? All paths lead back to zero?