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Carry on, the future's denied
Feb. 21st, 2007 03:53 pmI am drowning in my own anger and cynicism.
When I was younger, like in middle school, I wanted to get to college so that I could do something useful. I had images of colleges and places full of social activism, where I could finally get involved in things that even tangentially helped anybody. I wanted to go into a field that was remotely important. I felt like I would feel guilty if I spent the rest of my life sitting in my room reading fantasy novels and drinking tea, being of no use to anybody.
Somewhere along the line that died. Now I'm in college, and I'm not involved in any of the social activism that is indeed a rather big part of campus life. Now that I have money I don't donate it to anything; I just buy myself books. I'm majoring in English so that hopefully, when I grow up, I can work with books more than with people. I take the back staircase in and out of the building instead of the front entrance, so I don't see anybody and I don't see any of the events, lectures, awareness campaigns, or miscellaneous other things posted around the hall. I go to UU so I have somewhere to go for a little bit and feel better on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, but I'm not involved in the Social Justice Committee, I'm not attending the Medical Ethics lectures, I'm not involved in planning the Social Justice Soulful Sundown. I feel kind of bad for not caring, but not enough to get involved, as that would mean working with people.
It's the little things I'm sick of, and I just want them gone. Yes, I am absurdly sensitive about being insulted about stupid things, about the way I dress or the music I listen to, and this is not because I care if other people are in accord with me, it's because I feel like it's NOT FAIR. I was there too when we were little; I remember being told to not say things to people if you couldn't say anything nice, to treat people as you want to be treated, to not judge people based on their appearance, that there's no accounting for taste. And my TASTE... is just TASTE. It shouldn't be important to anyone but me. I don't go out of my way to belittle other people if I don't like their clothing or music; I just want to be left alone with mine. And this is why I get angry when I am accused of being too quiet or antisocial. How fucking far do I have to withdraw to be fucking left alone? People seem to think it is far more socially unacceptable to say nothing if they have nothing to say than it is to randomly insult everybody. Even the apparently perfectly socially acceptable habit of people referring to any music they don't like as "not real music" just pisses me off. A lot. If it has notes and melody and rhythm and chords and harmony and singing and stuff, it is probably technically music, even if you don't like it.
I am absolutely sick of it. I am sick of fighting to be heard when I talk and questioned into talking when I am silent. I am sick of listening to torrents of rude and judgmental comments from every quarter, and then being accused of being rude, aloof or unfriendly when I try to stay away from them. I am tired of withdrawing to my dorm room and still having to listen to the girl across the hall yell at her boyfriend while I'm trying to sleep, having Marcus come up to chat with me and Beth when he can't even keep our names straight, having Nicole come in and complain about things to Beth for hours and say things like how her problems with Rachel are Will's fault, when apparently it wasn't anybody's fault or a disruption to group harmony when she just suddenly and without warning stopped talking to me. And I have to say something back on those rare occasions when she says something to me, even though I'd really appreciate it if she didn't bother pretending to be nice, because I really don't feel like putting any more effort into accomodating her existence than that which it takes to walk around her instead of through her.
And then I go home where I hope ridiculous other people won't invade my very bedroom for a few days because I don't share it with anyone and thirty other ridiculous teenage girls don't live in between me and my bathroom, but then every time I go out into town I run into somebody, and when I'm home my little brother is there, alternately demanding I do things for him and refusing to do anything anyone else asks of him, alternately scolding me if I don't clean up properly and leaving his crap scattered untidily all around the house, alternately belittling me for staying in if I stay in and for having wierd friends if I go out. He belittles me for my wardrobe and my music and not watching enough television and not drinking enough and not playing video games and not being sufficiently vulgar all the time and not being athletic and having nerdy friends and being nerdy myself, and then Mom tells me that he's sad that I never call him, and then I call him and he's condescending and sarcastic. And at the end of the day I just feel used, because if Tim wants to tell me something I will usually hear it *before* maybe denouncing it as ridiculous, whereas Tim usually responds negatively to anything I have to tell him before I've managed to actually say it. I should just stop trying.
I don't. Want. Anything. To do. With people. I don't want to work with them, I don't want to talk to them, I don't want to help them. My politics have shifted from a sort of green/social-democratic position to somewhere between "It's time to climb back up into the trees now" and "Can global warming hurry up and kill us all already?" I don't want to plan for my future because I'm fairly convinced that by the time I'm forty we'll be living in the Dark Ages again; I just want to read. And drink my tea. And maybe watch a few old BBC sitcoms.
In other news, I'm trying to give up ice cream for Lent. Since I've already cut back radically on coffee and soda, we'll see if my system actually goes into shock or not. I'm trying to decide if my being tired all the time has to do with sleeping too much, despair or lack of the aforesaid stimulants. So we'll see if this affects it.
When I was younger, like in middle school, I wanted to get to college so that I could do something useful. I had images of colleges and places full of social activism, where I could finally get involved in things that even tangentially helped anybody. I wanted to go into a field that was remotely important. I felt like I would feel guilty if I spent the rest of my life sitting in my room reading fantasy novels and drinking tea, being of no use to anybody.
Somewhere along the line that died. Now I'm in college, and I'm not involved in any of the social activism that is indeed a rather big part of campus life. Now that I have money I don't donate it to anything; I just buy myself books. I'm majoring in English so that hopefully, when I grow up, I can work with books more than with people. I take the back staircase in and out of the building instead of the front entrance, so I don't see anybody and I don't see any of the events, lectures, awareness campaigns, or miscellaneous other things posted around the hall. I go to UU so I have somewhere to go for a little bit and feel better on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, but I'm not involved in the Social Justice Committee, I'm not attending the Medical Ethics lectures, I'm not involved in planning the Social Justice Soulful Sundown. I feel kind of bad for not caring, but not enough to get involved, as that would mean working with people.
It's the little things I'm sick of, and I just want them gone. Yes, I am absurdly sensitive about being insulted about stupid things, about the way I dress or the music I listen to, and this is not because I care if other people are in accord with me, it's because I feel like it's NOT FAIR. I was there too when we were little; I remember being told to not say things to people if you couldn't say anything nice, to treat people as you want to be treated, to not judge people based on their appearance, that there's no accounting for taste. And my TASTE... is just TASTE. It shouldn't be important to anyone but me. I don't go out of my way to belittle other people if I don't like their clothing or music; I just want to be left alone with mine. And this is why I get angry when I am accused of being too quiet or antisocial. How fucking far do I have to withdraw to be fucking left alone? People seem to think it is far more socially unacceptable to say nothing if they have nothing to say than it is to randomly insult everybody. Even the apparently perfectly socially acceptable habit of people referring to any music they don't like as "not real music" just pisses me off. A lot. If it has notes and melody and rhythm and chords and harmony and singing and stuff, it is probably technically music, even if you don't like it.
I am absolutely sick of it. I am sick of fighting to be heard when I talk and questioned into talking when I am silent. I am sick of listening to torrents of rude and judgmental comments from every quarter, and then being accused of being rude, aloof or unfriendly when I try to stay away from them. I am tired of withdrawing to my dorm room and still having to listen to the girl across the hall yell at her boyfriend while I'm trying to sleep, having Marcus come up to chat with me and Beth when he can't even keep our names straight, having Nicole come in and complain about things to Beth for hours and say things like how her problems with Rachel are Will's fault, when apparently it wasn't anybody's fault or a disruption to group harmony when she just suddenly and without warning stopped talking to me. And I have to say something back on those rare occasions when she says something to me, even though I'd really appreciate it if she didn't bother pretending to be nice, because I really don't feel like putting any more effort into accomodating her existence than that which it takes to walk around her instead of through her.
And then I go home where I hope ridiculous other people won't invade my very bedroom for a few days because I don't share it with anyone and thirty other ridiculous teenage girls don't live in between me and my bathroom, but then every time I go out into town I run into somebody, and when I'm home my little brother is there, alternately demanding I do things for him and refusing to do anything anyone else asks of him, alternately scolding me if I don't clean up properly and leaving his crap scattered untidily all around the house, alternately belittling me for staying in if I stay in and for having wierd friends if I go out. He belittles me for my wardrobe and my music and not watching enough television and not drinking enough and not playing video games and not being sufficiently vulgar all the time and not being athletic and having nerdy friends and being nerdy myself, and then Mom tells me that he's sad that I never call him, and then I call him and he's condescending and sarcastic. And at the end of the day I just feel used, because if Tim wants to tell me something I will usually hear it *before* maybe denouncing it as ridiculous, whereas Tim usually responds negatively to anything I have to tell him before I've managed to actually say it. I should just stop trying.
I don't. Want. Anything. To do. With people. I don't want to work with them, I don't want to talk to them, I don't want to help them. My politics have shifted from a sort of green/social-democratic position to somewhere between "It's time to climb back up into the trees now" and "Can global warming hurry up and kill us all already?" I don't want to plan for my future because I'm fairly convinced that by the time I'm forty we'll be living in the Dark Ages again; I just want to read. And drink my tea. And maybe watch a few old BBC sitcoms.
In other news, I'm trying to give up ice cream for Lent. Since I've already cut back radically on coffee and soda, we'll see if my system actually goes into shock or not. I'm trying to decide if my being tired all the time has to do with sleeping too much, despair or lack of the aforesaid stimulants. So we'll see if this affects it.