The Great Gatsby

I finally read it. Not quite sure what to make of it. I know it's supposed to be about the downfall of the American dream in the 20's, but I feel it could be summed up better as 'rich people have affairs and get into trouble while a upper-middle class man narrates and gets caught up in their problems'.

Maybe I'm biased. I suppose it does get across the feelings of being rich in the 1920's. As for the American dream, I don't think anyone can even define what the American dream is, so how could you comment on what this book says about it? Obviously Fitzgerald probably has a different opinion as to what it is than I do. I guess I believe it's equality for everyone, and Fitzgerald seems to think it's something else, maybe being poor and having the chance to become rich.

But then again, that's all it is, luck, chance. You could work hard every day and not get rich. You could work harder than the rich and those who become rich and still suffer and starve.

So I think the American dream never really existed, that sounds right to me. It's impossible. It was never shattered, there was never a green light on the other side of the bay. There's simply people on one side of the bay and people on the other side of the bay. People on one side of the bay stare all day at the other side and hope to get there, while the people on the other side never look back and only care about what's happening on their side. Some people set out on boats to get to the other side but the wind is almost always too strong for them to cross, once and a while the wind happens to favor one boat, suddenly they've made it to the other side and they never look back and claim they made it there on their own power.

If I had to say the American dream is anything, it's that: Hoping the wind is generous to you, then when it finally is claiming that there is no such thing as wind.

Obviously I'm making generalizations here, but I believe this to be true for the most part.

The Bystander Effect or: Diffusion of Responsibility or: Somebody Else's Problem or: The Exact Opposite of How I'll Live My Life

Pardon my use of Wikipedia to define these terms.

The bystander effect is a social psychological phenomenon in which individuals are less likely to offer help in an emergency situation when other people are present. The probability of help is inversely proportional to the number of bystanders. In other words, the greater the number of bystanders, the less likely it is that any one of them will help.

Diffusion of responsibility is a social phenomenon which tends to occur in groups of people above a certain critical size when responsibility is not explicitly assigned. This mindset can be seen in the phrase "No one raindrop thinks it caused the flood".

Somebody Else's Problem (also known as Someone else's problem or SEP) is an effect that causes people to ignore matters which are generally important to a group but may not seem specifically important to the individual.

In a sentence these all essentially equate to one thing: Doing nothing to stop something that is happening right in front of you just because there are other people around (who also happen to be doing nothing).

I refuse to let this happen to me. I know it's against my very nature as a person, I'm usually quiet, I don't like to draw attention to myself, I don't like to interfere in random people's business, I don't like to speak up in a crowd. At the very same time however, I would hate myself if I ever stood by while something horrible happened to someone else. I'm honestly not sure what I would do myself if this happened to me, I'm pretty sure I would completely despise myself as a person.

What does this all mean? If I ever see someone in trouble, in need of help, in dire consequences, in any sort of situation where I can personally do something, I'm going to do something. I'm going to speak up, I'm going to get involved, I'm going to take action. I don't care if it's someone simply tripping and dropping their papers everywhere or if it's something much more serious. I don't want to be that guy who stands by and does nothing. So many people do nothing. I want to do something.

I just want to help.

I'm going to help from now on.

60 miles away

Some 60 miles away about 300 kids are probably having one of the best nights of their summer.
Some 60 miles away from them I'm sitting at home doing nothing.
Some 60 miles away in another direction resides the biggest and liveliest city in the country.

I think this sums up my current state of life.

P.S. Is it possible to enjoy life without money?

Upon realizing my language requirements have been completed since high school.

Apparently passing French 3 despite only having taken 2 years of French in high school, i.e. starting with French 2 and then taking French 3 afterward, counts as taking 3 years of a language at the high school level. My advisors throughout my secondary-education career kept asking if I had taken 3 years of language in high school and I honestly replied "No, I haven't." and thus they cast me down the dreaded path of learning an entirely new language, Spanish.

Two years later, two years in which I struggled to pass two semesters of Spanish, dropping the first level and taking it again, then doing the same exact thing with the second level, I graduated from community college. The other day I sat down at UConn and went to sign up for classes at my orientation. "Have you completed your 3 years of high school language?" "No, but I did take my first year of Spanish at my former institution." "Oh, well you should sign up for the next Spanish class you need now and base your schedule around it." So I took the advice of the graduate student who was my temporary advisor and signed up for Intermediate Spanish and filled my schedule in around it.

Last night I got home from orientation with a horrible headache and passed out on my bed for a good 5 hours. Upon waking I went to see what in my UConn online account had been unlocked, here is roughly what went through my head as I perused (I did in fact peruse as in look through it extensivly, not glance over it as many people tend to use the word to mean nowadays) the website:

Hm, what couldn't I get into before? 'My Academic Requirements', oh wow, this looks useful. Oh, look, it tells me everything I still need to take and what I've already completed. Hm, yeah, we went over this in orientation... Right, right, still need to take those, got that done, good, good. Oh. Second language contempency, I might as well click on this bar and look to see what it says. Satisfied. Wait, what? Let's click on this sub-tab. 'student equiv 3 year hs French'.

For a moment I was confused, but then something clicked in my mind, it suddenly made perfect sense. Then, out loud, at 1 in the morning as I was overcome with a horrible feeling due to all my struggle with a foreign language for naught, all the pointless stress, all the wasted time:

"You're fucking kidding me."

I lied.

I didn't run today. I didn't write today. I didn't even read today.

My leg still hurts from attempting to skateboard the other night and I figured I shouldn't mess with it just in case. I didn't feel like writing. I didn't feel like reading either.

I guess it was an odd day, I sat around and did nothing. I contemplated where I was going to try and find a job.

Here's my dilemma: If I get a job my time will be more limited and I'll have a lot of problems with trying to get time off for shows/tour/whatever. It'll be a pain in the ass. If I don't get a job... I won't have any money. Now, this is okay. I've thought about trying to live a simpler life where I don't buy anything. The problem is gas. It costs money to even go places as it turns out. I'll need to go from UConn back to New London quite often next year when I'm at school and I'm not sure how long the money I have will last me for that.

I just really like the idea of living a simple life and rejecting consumerism (as much of it as I can). Sure there are some things I could use (mostly guitar related things) but... I don't really need them. I don't really need anything besides a bit of food every once and a while.

We'll see what happens to me, at least, I will.

This weekend.

The weekend isn't even over and I've already finished the two books I wanted to read first this summer. I guess to be fair to those who are reading (from what I can tell, that's maybe two people), so far I've read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer and What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was a good book, though I felt that Foer used a lot of the same elements in this book as he did in his first one, Everything is Illuminated. He did do some work in this book with art and the actual layout of the book, playing around with things that authors don't normally concern themselves with, but I still felt he didn't do many things new compared to his last book. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not, to be honest. I'll probably read whatever book he comes out with next, partially because I enjoy his writing and partially because I'm curious if he's a one trick pony or not.

I just finished What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. I had decided I wanted to start running this summer and thought what better motivation was there than a book by my favorite author? As it turns out, he writes not only about running, but a lot about writing as well. Lo and behold it just so happens to be that I also wanted to start to get back into writing this summer. This led to an odd experience while reading this book, I felt like it was written for me. I know that's self-centered but it spoke to me on many levels. Here was a man who I idolize as an author, maybe even as a person, telling me how he goes about living his life, how he goes about running and how he goes about writing his novels. I wanted to write to him, to tell him all of this, but I can't find any contact information. I realize though, I don't need to send him all of this as it doesn't mean anything to him, only to me. Simply writing it down somewhere (here) is good enough. In any case, thank you Mr. Murakami, you have yet again inspired me.

Speaking of, The Great Gatsby keeps popping up in conversation or I keep reading about someone mentioning it and I continue to ignore it. Once again this happened while reading What I Talk About When I Talk About Running and I've decided to stop running away from it. I read the first few chapters my junior year of high school, but then my teacher decided we didn't have enough time to spend on it and told us we didn't have to read it, so I stopped reading. Honestly, I don't remember what happened, what the writing style was like, or if I even enjoyed it. I think at that point in my life I still had a struggle with enjoying something I was forced to read. That's something that I've overcome as I've entered college. This is a really long way to say that I'm going to be reading The Great Gatsby next.

Tomorrow I think I'm going to start with a run and who knows, maybe I'll sit down at this desk and attempt to write something?

I wonder how many books I could read in my lifetime.

I finished that one in under 24 hours. I'm pretty sure I could finish any book in under 24 hours, though there might be some extensively long books out there that I wouldn't be able to.

I should go find them.

Realizations

I just realized the plot of this book is quite similar to the best idea for a story I've had.

Sort of annoyed, but then again, is anything original anymore?

It's the start of summer.

I got my rooming assignment 3 months before I should have, with no actual notification, it just popped up. It's where I wanted to be, which is a nice thing to be able to say. I'm going to be living where I want to be living.

I'm starting to read again because I finally have the time. I'd like to read about a book a week, at the least. I've got a couple of shelves in my room devoted to books and I've amassed a somewhat large collection of books that I haven't had the time to read yet. 100 pages into the first book of the summer, one I've borrowed. Next I should probably read the other book I've borrowed, that way I won't have any books I need to give back to anyone. Then I'll probably start working on my pile of unread books. I'm not sure where to start, I've got a bit of a variety: Joyce, Murakami, Pynchon, Lovecraft, Kafka, Sartre. Well, I guess it's not that varied of a selection as the authors have similar writing styles or writing styles that aren't too far off from the 'norm' of my collection. I've got my tastes, I suppose.

Also, I'm starting to write again, as evidenced by this. It's not fiction, but it's close enough for now. Maybe writing here will sprout some ideas. At the very least it could help me learn how to write... coherently. Maybe develop a writing style of my own. I'm never quite sure if I'm emulating the current books I'm reading or my favorite authors when I'm writing. I suppose it's all part of that constant struggle for identity.

Don't expect to see me published anytime soon, is what I'm saying.

P.S. I found it slightly ironic that after I wrote that I went to go click on the 'PUBLISH POST' button.