Disappointingly, this is only the second post to live up to my blog's claim that most of these posts will be about superheroes.
So, yesterday, the Avengers: Infinity War trailer was released. The movie marks the third Avengers movie (I know, it probably feels like there have been fifty). It's a pretty significant milestone because, unlike the other movies, which have been planned maybe two to three years in advance at most, we've known about Infinity War for five. (Six by the time it's released). Thanos (the main villain) showed up during the first (they started having two per movie after the Avengers) end credits scene and the 11 movies since have been building up to his ultimate reveal. If you look up the definition of "slow burn" in the dictionary, Marvel Studios Creative Director Kevin Feige is there, smiling at you.
I don't think we often appreciate enough just what an outstanding cultural phenomenon the Marvel Cinematic Universe is. It has, thus far, spawned 17 movies (with 7 confirmed to be on the way) and 11 TV series. It's utterly unmatched in its scope by every possible metric. It's the first franchise of its kind, where multiple series are strung together by a central overarching thread. The fact that the universe is made of incredibly distinct heroes, each with their own specific genre, makes it so that viewers won't feel it's become stale (and despite several complaints to the contrary, it hasn't, or else the Infinity War trailer wouldn't have become the most viewed trailer of all time just after 24 hours.) It enables the studio to release upwards of three movies a year, raking in billions upon billions for Disney. And it hasn't stopped. Every year, they release a movie that trumps records set in the previous year.
This is made all the more impressive by the fact that all attempts to replicate its success have been complete failures. In 2012, the same year Avengers was released, Sony released a reboot of their Spider-Man franchise which had previously ended in the disastrous and bloated Spider-Man 3. Two years later, in 2014, they released Amazing Spider-Man 2, which killed the franchise once again. ASM2 attempted to cram in two major villains while also including a romantic subplot and trying to set up for their anticipated villain team-up: Sinister Six, which features a collaboration between the fiercest of the web-crawler's rogue gallery. This was almost the exact same issue that killed the original Spider-Man trilogy, which tried to cram Sandman, Venom, and the Green Goblin into a single film. As a consequence of this mess, two years after ASM2, it was announced that they would share the rights to Spider-Man with Disney, allowing him to be in Captain America: Civil War. Disney inhaled an attempt to replicate their success, turning Sony's disaster into their new project. Kevin Feige is the Genghis Khan of big Hollywood.
Also in 2014, Fox, staggering along with their X-Men franchise (which had gained minimal steam after the success of X-Men: First Class in 2011) released X-Men: Days of Future Past, the events of which literally reset their timeline, enabling them to start their universe from scratch - a blatant attempt to, like Sony, replicate the success of the MCU. While Fox hasn't collapsed to the extent Sony did, its Avengers counterpart (the main X-Men storyline) took a big hit with the box office mediocrity and critical failure that was X-Men: Apocalypse. Apocalypse suffered from almost the exact same issues as the two fatal Spider-Man movies: Bloat. It introduced an enormous cast of fantastic, but far too weighty characters, including Storm, Jean Grey, Cyclops, Nightcrawler, and Angel, while also attempting to balance the issues of their original cast as well as the enormous task that is the Apocalypse storyline. Oh, and they tried to set up the Dark Phoenix saga, an infamous and enormous storyline that they attempted to tack on to the end of their already overstuffed plot. And while Deadpool and Logan were both large successes, they're undermined by the failure of Apocalypse as well as Fox's struggle to get any of their other projects off of the ground, like Channing Tatum's Gambit, which was supposed to have been released in October of 2017. (Not to mention the fact that Fox had originally been extremely resistant to producing Deadpool.)
Then there's DC. It started off alright with Man of Steel, which while not receiving mass acclaim, didn't do poorly enough to kill the universe before it even got off the ground. But it was quickly followed by Batman V. Superman and Suicide Squad, which suffered from, you guessed it: Bloat. Suicide Squad tried introducing this massive cast of villains and didn't even attempt at any sort of characterization. Batman V. Superman revolved around a Superman we had yet to care about fighting a Batman we had just met. Oh, and Wonder Woman was there? For some reason? It was all a poorly concealed attempt to set up for a Justice League which ended up being BLOATED.
(Wonder Woman was good, though).
It's not just superheroes either. Men In Black is reportedly creating a universe with 21 Jump Street. I've heard rumblings of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Transformers extended universe. Yeah. Both of them. Together. There's also the Dark Universe, which is supposed to be the overarching universe between Tom Cruise's new mummy movie, Luke Evans' Dracula, and upcoming Frankenstein movies. Finally, there's also the giant monster universe, (composed of kaiju like Godzilla, King Ghidorah, Rodan, Mothra, as well as King Kong) which I'm personally really excited for. Not because I think the story is going to be good (Kong: Skull Island had such a shallow plot it barely reached my ankles) but because I'm a sucker for giant CGI animals.
The only attempt at another cinematic universe that has gotten off to a decent start besides Marvel is the Star Wars Universe, which is also the only other universe run by Disney.
(Sidenote, but I really hope we end up having a Disney Princess team-up, because that would be awesome. Maybe that could be the endgame for all these pointless live-action reboots of classic Disney movies.)
Star Wars was originally a strict series, following the story of the Skywalker family. While it had always been a much more expansive universe than the six movies we knew and loved, with hundreds of books and the critically acclaimed Clone Wars tv series, in terms of movies, it was strictly Skywalker. That changed with the release of Rogue One in 2016, which saw them follow the adventures of Jyn Erso. Rogue One was a critical and box office success and bodes well for the upcoming Han Solo and Obi-Wan standalone films, as well as director Rian Johnson's upcoming non-Skywalker trilogy. To be fair, Star Wars does have several factors working in its favor. It relied heavily on the world-renowned reputation of the Star Wars saga. But Rogue One was a sizable ensemble we had never seen before and they made it work because they took the time to work out each character and integrate them into the plot. It also helped that the movie was constantly trying to set up for another movie.
So why does it look like they'll succeed? And why is Marvel succeeding, where all others have failed so miserably? Well, to start let's look at what appears to be a pretty common thread: Bloat. Marvel doesn't suffer from that at all because their entire process has been an extremely slow-burn. They released five movies and waited four years before releasing their team-up film. This allowed each of their major team members: Thor, Captain America, Hulk, and Iron Man, to become established characters among the public before being thrown together. Justice League, although it was also released four years after Man of Steel, came before any movies for Aquaman, Cyborg, and Flash. Not to mention Batman and Wonder Woman were introduced in a team-up movie.
Marvel also makes sure their brand never goes stale. One minute they're releasing a standard classic superhero film like Iron Man then they flip it around on you with a political espionage like Captain America: Winter Soldier, THEN they'll hit you with a space western like Guardians of the Galaxy. And X-Men is at their best when they're doing the same, releasing weird comedies like Deadpool alongside old westerns like Logan. I've said this before and I won't stop saying it, superhero movies are at their best when they're not superhero movies at all, but genre films about superheroes.
In any case, check out Avengers: Infinity War, because it is the result of some remarkable entrepreneurship.
Friday, December 1, 2017
Friday, November 10, 2017
Originality
You probably haven't noticed, since I assume most people aren't constantly taking note of my various tics, but I'll occasionally make this "awkward" face, where I grimace and make my eyes dart to either side as if I'm avoiding eye contact. I do it on purpose, it's supposed to be comedic, pretending to tell the person that what they just said is deeply uncomfortable. I got that from Ethan Chen.
Here's another tic: Sometimes I'll jerk my neck muscles, pulling the corner of my mouth down into a sort of half-grimace. I started doing it after seeing my friend's dad do it once.
Another: If I'm walking and thinking hard about something, I'll tap my thumb against the rest of my fingers in a deliberate sequence. I got that from a character that appeared in a single episode of Fringe.
My weirdly posh and over consonated speech when I get heated? That's Schmidt from New Girl. The way I draw out certain letters and peculiarly extend words when attempting to sound authoritative or menacing? James Spader in Age of Ultron (also James Spader in the Office, but less). The specific way I hold my phone as I glance at it under my desk? From the pages of Van Gundersen. Stuttering and sentence fragmenting for comedic effect is a combination of Justin Roiland's characters in Rick and Morty along with some Amir from Jake and Amir.
The point is, my personality is and, for as long as I can remember, has been a hodgepodge of behavioral quirks from my peers, my favorite characters, and anything else I pick up along the way. I don't think there's a single aspect of my behavior that can't be at least partially traced back to another source. Which is a really strange thought. Am I an actual person with original thoughts and concepts and ways to be, or is every part of my identity just something I stole from someone else?
And I know I'm not the only person this applies to, so are any of us really our own people? Now, this might not be a bad thing, I kinda like the idea of being a sort of Voltron of behavioral traits, but at the same time, I want some things that are my own.
But is it even possible to have something entirely your own? So much of our lives are influenced by our environments, fancy science people have said time and time again that nature's impact is so minimal compared to nurture: The socioecnomic standing you grew up in, the emotional support from people around you, the media you consume, determines who you are way more than any sort of innate traits.
While I was thinking over this, a quote came to mind that often does when I start thinking about originality. It's from legendary director Quentin Tarantino and he says, “I steal from every single movie ever made. If my work has anything, it’s that I’m taking this from this and that from that and mixing them together.”
Now, anything that comes from Tarantino should be held in the highest esteem, obviously, but I hold this one in particularly high regard. Though he's specifically talking about art, I think this applies to us as well. I think what makes us who we are isn't so much who we inherently are, but what we choose to take from the world around us, and how much.
Here's another tic: Sometimes I'll jerk my neck muscles, pulling the corner of my mouth down into a sort of half-grimace. I started doing it after seeing my friend's dad do it once.
Another: If I'm walking and thinking hard about something, I'll tap my thumb against the rest of my fingers in a deliberate sequence. I got that from a character that appeared in a single episode of Fringe.
My weirdly posh and over consonated speech when I get heated? That's Schmidt from New Girl. The way I draw out certain letters and peculiarly extend words when attempting to sound authoritative or menacing? James Spader in Age of Ultron (also James Spader in the Office, but less). The specific way I hold my phone as I glance at it under my desk? From the pages of Van Gundersen. Stuttering and sentence fragmenting for comedic effect is a combination of Justin Roiland's characters in Rick and Morty along with some Amir from Jake and Amir.
The point is, my personality is and, for as long as I can remember, has been a hodgepodge of behavioral quirks from my peers, my favorite characters, and anything else I pick up along the way. I don't think there's a single aspect of my behavior that can't be at least partially traced back to another source. Which is a really strange thought. Am I an actual person with original thoughts and concepts and ways to be, or is every part of my identity just something I stole from someone else?
And I know I'm not the only person this applies to, so are any of us really our own people? Now, this might not be a bad thing, I kinda like the idea of being a sort of Voltron of behavioral traits, but at the same time, I want some things that are my own.
But is it even possible to have something entirely your own? So much of our lives are influenced by our environments, fancy science people have said time and time again that nature's impact is so minimal compared to nurture: The socioecnomic standing you grew up in, the emotional support from people around you, the media you consume, determines who you are way more than any sort of innate traits.
While I was thinking over this, a quote came to mind that often does when I start thinking about originality. It's from legendary director Quentin Tarantino and he says, “I steal from every single movie ever made. If my work has anything, it’s that I’m taking this from this and that from that and mixing them together.”
Now, anything that comes from Tarantino should be held in the highest esteem, obviously, but I hold this one in particularly high regard. Though he's specifically talking about art, I think this applies to us as well. I think what makes us who we are isn't so much who we inherently are, but what we choose to take from the world around us, and how much.
Friday, October 27, 2017
Superheroes
I think I've finally figured out why I like superheroes. Aside from the dope powers, I mean. And specifically the reason I enjoy the superhero multiverses of Marvel and DC. It's the same reason I love reading through the various works of the Star Wars Expanded Universe (even though they're not canon anymore. Thanks, Disney) and Tolkien's seemingly endless Middle-Earth mythology. It's why there are so many fanfictions written for the Marauders from Harry Potter. It's what makes Butler's flowcharts and Sutton's lectures so oddly compelling. ANd it's why the Marvel Cinematic Universe continues to be one of the most financially successful ventures in the history of cinema.
We love lore. Huge, fantastical threads, reaching back for centuries that trace to today. Stories are so much better, so much more substantive, when they have history. When the story does not truly begin where it begins, but when there are eons that have built up to this one point. Imagine if The Force Awakens was the first Star Wars movie ever released. It would still be a great movie, no doubt (if anyone ever tells you it's "just A New Hope recycled," cut that person out of your life.) But picture the final scene with Luke and Rey. The audience on opening night (which I attended 😎 ) wouldn't have erupted into uproarious applause. But because they have forty years of knowledge on Luke Skywalker, because he's built up this image as a cultural icon, because he is more than a character limited to this one movie, the scene hits hard. But, at the same time, A New Hope was still a great film. And while the audience wouldn't have erupted into applause had The Force Awakens been a standalone film, there still would have been a sense of awe: "This is the historical figure there's been so much talk about this entire movie. That-- that's the guy! Whoa." Because we inherently love lore. There may be individual preferences when it comes to implied versus explicit history, but having a history at all makes it so that no action stands alone.
If, like me, you occasionally act, you know how deeply relieving it is to have a character history, whether it's canon or something you develop on your own. The more extensive the better. Every action, every verbal tic, every slight lean, every syllable of every word, is conscious. They are motivated by years and years of development and history. Each action carries with it the energy of that person's entire life up to that point and then some. And such is the case with stories themselves.
That's why I find superhero universes and superhero team-ups so fun. The Avengers would not have been the cultural and cinematic watershed that it was, had Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Captain America: The First Avenger, and Thor (three cheers for white dudes!) not been released prior. Everyone of their choices hits with so much more impact and all have the potential to make you go, "Ooh! Ooh! That's because of X that happened in their other movie!" Same goes for The Defenders, but that doesn't excuse the fact that it was an utterly trash movie.
Guardians of the Galaxy, which had a team of characters that hadn't been introduced prior, was by no means unexciting (overrated, but that's a different discussion), but who are the raccoon, the green lady, the tree, and the white dude? Why should I care? And what I thought was the worst part about Guardians and, indeed, every team-up movie that didn't do what Avengers did, is how clunkily exposited each character's personal history is shoved into the plot. They literally have a scene where a guy lists out each member's rap sheet during a police lineup, one after the other. I am by no means a thorough (or professional for that matter) writer myself, but introducing your characters via lineup is like Chapter 2 in Lazy Screenwriting 101. C'mon James Gunn.
Superheroes are particularly fun because as opposed to Tolkien's or Lucas' tales, they take place in a world that's largely identical to ours. This means less room for intricate character histories, because Middle-Earth and the galaxy far far away have to be developed extensively before they can get to that. (Though the histories of worlds and universes are fun in their own right and the endlessness of the worlds adds a sort of spatial parallel to lore's temporal endlessness.) But superheroes get to put humanity on display at the individual level. You watch personal histories, personal conflicts and threads, which is far easier to connect to than the history of a nation-state or a planet. And since this is an industry that's been riding high for half a century, these histories reach way back.
These far-reaching histories get even more interesting once these separate threads have interacted for a while. Seeing Captain America and Iron Man interact in Avengers is awesome, but it's even more awesome in Captain America: Civil War Now, instead of just being motivated by their distinct histories, they're also motivated by their connected histories. "Ooh! Ooh! This conflict has been building up since The Avengers, when it was clear there would be a struggle in the power dynamic between the two, supplemented by their contrary values of protection and freedom which also caused conflict in Age of Ultron!"
It's kinda like having an inside joke with the stories you're consuming. A little wink and nod to something you both know happened. And while it doesn't define the quality of a work, it makes it pretty damn fun.
We love lore. Huge, fantastical threads, reaching back for centuries that trace to today. Stories are so much better, so much more substantive, when they have history. When the story does not truly begin where it begins, but when there are eons that have built up to this one point. Imagine if The Force Awakens was the first Star Wars movie ever released. It would still be a great movie, no doubt (if anyone ever tells you it's "just A New Hope recycled," cut that person out of your life.) But picture the final scene with Luke and Rey. The audience on opening night (which I attended 😎 ) wouldn't have erupted into uproarious applause. But because they have forty years of knowledge on Luke Skywalker, because he's built up this image as a cultural icon, because he is more than a character limited to this one movie, the scene hits hard. But, at the same time, A New Hope was still a great film. And while the audience wouldn't have erupted into applause had The Force Awakens been a standalone film, there still would have been a sense of awe: "This is the historical figure there's been so much talk about this entire movie. That-- that's the guy! Whoa." Because we inherently love lore. There may be individual preferences when it comes to implied versus explicit history, but having a history at all makes it so that no action stands alone.
If, like me, you occasionally act, you know how deeply relieving it is to have a character history, whether it's canon or something you develop on your own. The more extensive the better. Every action, every verbal tic, every slight lean, every syllable of every word, is conscious. They are motivated by years and years of development and history. Each action carries with it the energy of that person's entire life up to that point and then some. And such is the case with stories themselves.
That's why I find superhero universes and superhero team-ups so fun. The Avengers would not have been the cultural and cinematic watershed that it was, had Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Captain America: The First Avenger, and Thor (three cheers for white dudes!) not been released prior. Everyone of their choices hits with so much more impact and all have the potential to make you go, "Ooh! Ooh! That's because of X that happened in their other movie!" Same goes for The Defenders, but that doesn't excuse the fact that it was an utterly trash movie.
Guardians of the Galaxy, which had a team of characters that hadn't been introduced prior, was by no means unexciting (overrated, but that's a different discussion), but who are the raccoon, the green lady, the tree, and the white dude? Why should I care? And what I thought was the worst part about Guardians and, indeed, every team-up movie that didn't do what Avengers did, is how clunkily exposited each character's personal history is shoved into the plot. They literally have a scene where a guy lists out each member's rap sheet during a police lineup, one after the other. I am by no means a thorough (or professional for that matter) writer myself, but introducing your characters via lineup is like Chapter 2 in Lazy Screenwriting 101. C'mon James Gunn.
Superheroes are particularly fun because as opposed to Tolkien's or Lucas' tales, they take place in a world that's largely identical to ours. This means less room for intricate character histories, because Middle-Earth and the galaxy far far away have to be developed extensively before they can get to that. (Though the histories of worlds and universes are fun in their own right and the endlessness of the worlds adds a sort of spatial parallel to lore's temporal endlessness.) But superheroes get to put humanity on display at the individual level. You watch personal histories, personal conflicts and threads, which is far easier to connect to than the history of a nation-state or a planet. And since this is an industry that's been riding high for half a century, these histories reach way back.
These far-reaching histories get even more interesting once these separate threads have interacted for a while. Seeing Captain America and Iron Man interact in Avengers is awesome, but it's even more awesome in Captain America: Civil War Now, instead of just being motivated by their distinct histories, they're also motivated by their connected histories. "Ooh! Ooh! This conflict has been building up since The Avengers, when it was clear there would be a struggle in the power dynamic between the two, supplemented by their contrary values of protection and freedom which also caused conflict in Age of Ultron!"
It's kinda like having an inside joke with the stories you're consuming. A little wink and nod to something you both know happened. And while it doesn't define the quality of a work, it makes it pretty damn fun.
Friday, October 13, 2017
Awake
This one's gonna be short
My vote for the greatest sight and the greatest sound in the world, respectively: The night sky after snowfall and the chirping of birds.
When I was younger, I used to be really scared of going to sleep at night. Sleep, to me, was the ultimate relinquishing of control. My mind was free to wander into dark and scary corners I would never conceive of while awake. Nightmares are the product of an unreined consciousness. My body was similarly at danger. Rendered a useless sack of blood and bones, they could not defend against various villains that would inevitably come into my room. And something about the night, when good life has packed up, seems to produce a greater potential for evil to crawl up out of the corners where it usually hides.
So I would stay up, maintain my strongest defense, my consciousness, for as long as possible, often until the powerful tug of fatigue rendered me unable to. The skill has transferred some benefits to the present-day since my ability to push through the long hours of the night is useful for tight deadlines. At the time though, it didn't have the same practicality to it.
During the times when I didn't fall asleep, when I managed to make it through the entire night, I came to love two things, a sight and a sound: The glow of early morning and the chirping of birds. If I had a say in what the last things I could see and hear would be, it would be those two. They came to signal safety and comfort. When I saw the faint light of the sun starting to rise, accompanied by tentative chirps, it felt like life was coming back. There was no more need to be on guard, the world would no longer abide the creatures that might have come crawling in the night. There was life in the world now and that life could watch over me as I rested for a bare few hours.
My love for the early glow and chirping began as a love of safety, but there was also something enticing about the limbo of them which made it superior to the chattering of birds and bright sun at high noon. The world was awake but absent of the interference of human life, straddling that boundary between consciousness and unconsciousness. The light was substantive but faint, not glaring and noisy like in the day. The birds were testing the waters, not yet ready to screech at the world in full-powered bursts. Though I usually fell asleep as soon as I could, I relished the few moments between the waking of the earth and my drifting off. In those moments, the world was at its purest, untouched by motion, and entirely my own.
The feeling of a glowing sky is how I imagine pioneers, explorers, early migratory populations felt. Before every inch of the earth was mapped, before everywhere you went would have people. When you could go out and explore and explore and explore the endless bounds and be at the mercy of the earth and not the other way around. When life in this place was still learning to walk. That wonderful limbo of possibility.
The issue with dawn, though, is that it's fleeting. For the few moments of its existence, it's fantastic, but it's bookended by the sluggishly departing night and rapidly approaching day. The only time this isn't true is the night sky after snowfall. After a fresh snow (which itself is already a fantastic thing to behold), once the sun has left, light remains in the sky: An eerie glow of a sky drifting off but not ready to sleep just yet. It's fucking gorgeous and unlike dawn, which is fleeting and always growing brighter, the night sky after snowfall keeps a constant glow through the witching hours. With dawn, you get to own the world for the hour of its peak, but after a snow fall, you get all the deep hours of night.
Winter is coming. Stay up some nights when it snows. Bask in the glow of the night, let it completely envelop you, it is so ridiculously fantastic.
I would talk more about the birds. It does offer its own unique flavor. Unlike the glowing sky, hesitant chirping is reserved for dawn. While the glow of dawn bestows a sense of security in the form of a vague abstract presence of life, the chirping is much chummier. They feel like "good morning" texts or poking a friend at a sleepover to see if they're awake. You're starting the journey of the day with someone. It's the worst irony, then, that I am terrified of birds. Big fan of their chirping though.
I love these things. These inconsequential sights and sounds that just overwhelm you with feeling. There are more. Sitting in 106S during 7th hour in the fall or late spring, when giant beams of light stream in through those towering windows (well, not anymore). Listening to the radio with my dad on the way home from practice. LEGO videogames with my brothers. Look for these. They're great.
My vote for the greatest sight and the greatest sound in the world, respectively: The night sky after snowfall and the chirping of birds.
When I was younger, I used to be really scared of going to sleep at night. Sleep, to me, was the ultimate relinquishing of control. My mind was free to wander into dark and scary corners I would never conceive of while awake. Nightmares are the product of an unreined consciousness. My body was similarly at danger. Rendered a useless sack of blood and bones, they could not defend against various villains that would inevitably come into my room. And something about the night, when good life has packed up, seems to produce a greater potential for evil to crawl up out of the corners where it usually hides.
So I would stay up, maintain my strongest defense, my consciousness, for as long as possible, often until the powerful tug of fatigue rendered me unable to. The skill has transferred some benefits to the present-day since my ability to push through the long hours of the night is useful for tight deadlines. At the time though, it didn't have the same practicality to it.
During the times when I didn't fall asleep, when I managed to make it through the entire night, I came to love two things, a sight and a sound: The glow of early morning and the chirping of birds. If I had a say in what the last things I could see and hear would be, it would be those two. They came to signal safety and comfort. When I saw the faint light of the sun starting to rise, accompanied by tentative chirps, it felt like life was coming back. There was no more need to be on guard, the world would no longer abide the creatures that might have come crawling in the night. There was life in the world now and that life could watch over me as I rested for a bare few hours.
My love for the early glow and chirping began as a love of safety, but there was also something enticing about the limbo of them which made it superior to the chattering of birds and bright sun at high noon. The world was awake but absent of the interference of human life, straddling that boundary between consciousness and unconsciousness. The light was substantive but faint, not glaring and noisy like in the day. The birds were testing the waters, not yet ready to screech at the world in full-powered bursts. Though I usually fell asleep as soon as I could, I relished the few moments between the waking of the earth and my drifting off. In those moments, the world was at its purest, untouched by motion, and entirely my own.
The feeling of a glowing sky is how I imagine pioneers, explorers, early migratory populations felt. Before every inch of the earth was mapped, before everywhere you went would have people. When you could go out and explore and explore and explore the endless bounds and be at the mercy of the earth and not the other way around. When life in this place was still learning to walk. That wonderful limbo of possibility.
The issue with dawn, though, is that it's fleeting. For the few moments of its existence, it's fantastic, but it's bookended by the sluggishly departing night and rapidly approaching day. The only time this isn't true is the night sky after snowfall. After a fresh snow (which itself is already a fantastic thing to behold), once the sun has left, light remains in the sky: An eerie glow of a sky drifting off but not ready to sleep just yet. It's fucking gorgeous and unlike dawn, which is fleeting and always growing brighter, the night sky after snowfall keeps a constant glow through the witching hours. With dawn, you get to own the world for the hour of its peak, but after a snow fall, you get all the deep hours of night.
Winter is coming. Stay up some nights when it snows. Bask in the glow of the night, let it completely envelop you, it is so ridiculously fantastic.
I would talk more about the birds. It does offer its own unique flavor. Unlike the glowing sky, hesitant chirping is reserved for dawn. While the glow of dawn bestows a sense of security in the form of a vague abstract presence of life, the chirping is much chummier. They feel like "good morning" texts or poking a friend at a sleepover to see if they're awake. You're starting the journey of the day with someone. It's the worst irony, then, that I am terrified of birds. Big fan of their chirping though.
I love these things. These inconsequential sights and sounds that just overwhelm you with feeling. There are more. Sitting in 106S during 7th hour in the fall or late spring, when giant beams of light stream in through those towering windows (well, not anymore). Listening to the radio with my dad on the way home from practice. LEGO videogames with my brothers. Look for these. They're great.
Thursday, September 28, 2017
America
I don’t think people generally regard me as a loving Patriot. I rail against our glorious military and trash our renowned police force. I’ll deliver biting criticisms of anything with the slightest trace of imperialism, from tourism to white people wearing Henna. I could shit on any of the three presidents I’ve lived through for an hour at least. I want the electoral college burned at the stake, I think nearly every face featured on American currency is the devil personified, and capitalism can eat my-- casserole. But a very disgusting and poorly prepared casserole.
And yet, I love love love standing for the Pledge of Allegiance and the national anthem. If a vet approaches, I’ll readily give them my utmost respect (regardless of the imperialist ideals they may have partaken in). My favorite holiday is Thanksgiving. I will punch anyone who uses the British form of words (there’s no “u” in color) or who generally claims anything British is superior to anything American. You know what? That applies to any European country, really. My pride for the states is overflowing. Despite my many tirades against this country, I am, first and foremost (and maybe only) an American.
See, my heritage is Indonesian. Indonesia is a giant archipelago between Australia and continental East Asia. We’ve got coffee, tropics, beaches, poverty, hobbit fossils (Google it), and the fourth largest population in the world. But I’d bet good money that I’m the first and only Indonesian person you know. Or one of very, very few. And it’s for that reason that it’s difficult to think of myself as Indonesian. Think about your identity, your culture. How do you identify with it? Through the food? The clothes? The art? The community? Of those, I’m betting the latter is pretty damn important. Thing is, there aren’t a whole lot of Indonesian-Americans. It’s more likely to be born on February 29 than to be an Indonesian living here. I asked my dad, who's lived in this town longer than any other Indonesian person, how many of us there are in the C-U and he said less than 200. To the best of my knowledge, I’m the only Indonesian kid my age in all of Champaign-Urbana. There’s no one I can have conversations with about typical teen angst while also discussing our love of bakso. There’s nothing for me to latch onto, no one to relate to, no sense of a group to which my identity can point to and say, “That’s who I belong to.”
I realized this pretty early on, so I went looking for other tribes to call myself apart of, since the one I should belong to was essentially nonexistent in the immediate area. As a kid who worshipped Harry Potter, Spider-Man, and Jedi Knights, my first attempt at finding a new group was with white men. For obvious reasons, this didn’t pan out quite as I’d hoped. Not only was my pigment a little too melaninated to qualify, turns out the strength of their identity relied on the otherization and exclusion of people that looked like me or something like that. Go figure.
So my next attempt was with the Asian community. Which seems like a logical step because, the fact is, lots of people don’t have a group to identify with that fits their exact specific identity. Even white people are usually of varying ethnic and national backgrounds, but are still able to bridge those gaps with their overarching pale skin. But it never felt quite right. My skin, my facial features, my hair, none of it matched with being Asian. I never had to deal with being made fun of for my eyes or being good at math like many of them did, because I didn’t look like them. And at the end of the day, they went home to communities that came from the same country, which was still something I lacked.
What probably struck the deepest line between myself and other Asians was the fact that I was Muslim. Even if we could bond over the few traits that all first-generation kids share, they’d never understand how it felt to walk through the grocery store with my mom and her headscarf or wait for various “Allahu Akbar” jokes to ensue every September 11th. But I couldn’t turn to being Muslim either. I wasn’t Arab, as most Muslims are, and I’d taken on too many sinful Western values in my time here that I wasn’t welcome among their circles.
So there I stand, not Arab enough for the Muslims, too Muslim for the Asians, and too much in favor of preserving my sense of self-worth for white men. So there’s only one choice left, to be an American.
America is a contradiction in terms. We want to be free without bounds and yet we want protection from all harms. We want to champion human rights while also being an ever-expanding dominant power. WE are nothing and everything, at every instant ready to burst at the seams. We are an unsustainable impossibility. And such is the nature of people like myself, who can find no true identity. And so I turn to the American identity, which is, truly, the identity of those who have none.
Thursday, September 14, 2017
Little Man
Stuff's about to get real uncomfortably personal, so fair warning
Here's a secret. I've figured out how to intoxicate myself (fancymantalk for get high) without consuming a thing. In fact, I don't have to do a thing at all. It's brilliant really. Here's all that needs to happen: Someone has to say or do something that makes me think, that makes me really truly believe, in my heart of hearts, that they don't think I'm a good person, that they think me gross or immoral or incompetent. Now, they don't have to think it, but I have to believe that they do. Then, give it a moment to really settle in for me, and that's when the fun begins.
The eyes are the first to go. Actually, they might not be, but they're for sure the first thing I notice. They lose focus and turn my field of view into an overlap of two translucent images. They won't retain a solid image for more than five, ten seconds tops. Not that it would matter either way, since by that time I've also lost any semblance of my former ability to concentrate on anything. Sticking a movie in front of me or trying to start up a conversation is a waste of time, I'll comprehend neither.
All of this is part of the larger trend of my body working at 5% capacity. Moving is an ordeal. My mind no longer has the direct control over my body. It's like I'm controlling a puppet's strings. A puppet with like 50 miles of slack and a damn heavy rope. So I can yank the cord connected to its arm with immense force, but hardly any of the motion registers in the puppet itself. So I tell my body to ask my friend "What's that?" and what comes out is "wzzzt". If the same friend tells a joke, my eyebrows flicker up and my mouth does a little twitch. My body's basically shut down and been rendered utterly useless.
But my mind is working at 200% capacity. I know this because the motherfucker is scared shitless and all of that 200% is being used to scream "NONONONONONO". Ultimately, what's happening is whoever's running the show upstairs has decided to slam the "CODE RED" button because they think the person is going to hurt me. Because if you really truly hate the very essence of another person, you don't just wish them gone, you wish them pain. And surely if someone said anything remotely critical of me, that must mean they want to hurt me. So my mind and body go on the defensive. There's a tiny man in a dark corner in the far reaches of my head who's shouting and insisting "This is completely irrational, they're not going to hurt you." But why would we listen to him? Just because he has "logic" on his side? (Yes, you idiot, that's exactly why) And so we flip the switch into survival mode. Unfortunately, not a cool survival mode where your muscles tense and you become a superhuman version of yourself ready to take on the world. It's more like a possum playing dead. Barely a rung above comatose.
Lucky for me, this hadn't happened in direct confrontation, in real life. It was almost always over social media or from thinking over something that had happened earlier in the day. The actual attacks happened at home, where I was able to recede into the comforts of solitude and under the protection of blanket and bed. I could just curl up and figuratively suck my figurative thumb (I want it to be known I do not suck my thumb) and wait for the storm to pass. Once my body was unharmed and realized there was no danger, it could start recuperating. Even then, for the remainder of the day, I'd be emotionally crippled and incapable of usual levels of productivity, still paranoid and fearful, sensing threats to my safety that were invisible to everyone around me. But the bulk of the stress, the attack itself, was always confined to the security of my home.
That stopped being true last week during a rehearsal for MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM SHOWINGS OCTOBER 5, 6 AND 7. This really shouldn't have been a surprise to me, a kid who's incapacitated by criticism probably shouldn't take ventures into the performing arts. But I did anyway. Funnily enough, the performance had nothing to do with what happened. Someone asked me to move my stuff just slightly more aggressively than I would have liked. They weren't mean, they weren't malicious, in all likelihood they weren't being serious, but that's not how the motherfucker upstairs took it. He took it and ran, shutting down most routine operations and concentrating on fear, fear, fear. He had me stay in my chair, warning me that any move I make, especially in the vicinity of the person who asked me to move my stuff, could provoke someone. And surely I knew, he told me, that everyone in that room hated me. They were all just waiting to do something. Waiting for an opportunity to tear you to shreds. And when they do, he added, there's nothing you can do. They've got you surrounded.
Despite the immensely terrifying and imminent threat, I could have handled it given time. Had I been able to sit in my seat, I would've eventually recovered. But I was going to be onstage in a number of minutes and while Shakespeare has been performed in a wide range of dialects, I doubt the bard's eloquence or wit would come across as well amidst slurred speech or (an option that was becoming increasingly more likely) tears.
The little man in the corner piped up just loud enough to point out that my friend Steve was across the room. He could help, the little man yelled. There's no help, the man in the control room shot back. I made my way to him, an ordeal that at the time seemed akin to the Fellowship's long and treacherous journey to Mordor. Steve, without missing a beat, helped me out and talked me down and I recovered quicker than I ever had and got onstage and immediately rocked the fuck out of that performance with my eyes still freshly puffy. The Flu Game doesn't hold a candle.
Now, dear reader o'mine, you might've noticed something about my tone here (and indeed, in my life in general). But it probably seems especially inappropriate here. How I'm padding every deeply personal revelation under fifty layers of sarcasm, self-effacement, and metaphor. See, I've always fancied myself a bit of a badass fighter antihero type and growing up on nerd pop culture, I've tried to take cues from the Han Solos and Mal Reynolds of the world - the coolest guys don't show their hand, which I'm doing by writing this post. It's not that they don't have struggles, but if you really have a struggle, then you're not gonna talk about it. Tragic backstories are told through flashbacks or dramatic reveals, not expositional chitchat. Talking to Ra-- Steve did a lot to assuage that feeling. Not for a moment did he question it nor did his concern for the situation ever dip. Frankly, a lot of the tears (figurative tears, of course, I'm a man. For real, though I don't suck my thumb) were more out of pleasant surprise than panic. It was ridiculously validating, it helped me convince myself that what I was going through was very much real, even if I asked for help. I definitely wouldn't have been able to write this post if not for Steve. And even now, I still have to cushion it with jokes - it still feels wrong to talk about it.
All of this is part of the larger trend of my body working at 5% capacity. Moving is an ordeal. My mind no longer has the direct control over my body. It's like I'm controlling a puppet's strings. A puppet with like 50 miles of slack and a damn heavy rope. So I can yank the cord connected to its arm with immense force, but hardly any of the motion registers in the puppet itself. So I tell my body to ask my friend "What's that?" and what comes out is "wzzzt". If the same friend tells a joke, my eyebrows flicker up and my mouth does a little twitch. My body's basically shut down and been rendered utterly useless.
But my mind is working at 200% capacity. I know this because the motherfucker is scared shitless and all of that 200% is being used to scream "NONONONONONO". Ultimately, what's happening is whoever's running the show upstairs has decided to slam the "CODE RED" button because they think the person is going to hurt me. Because if you really truly hate the very essence of another person, you don't just wish them gone, you wish them pain. And surely if someone said anything remotely critical of me, that must mean they want to hurt me. So my mind and body go on the defensive. There's a tiny man in a dark corner in the far reaches of my head who's shouting and insisting "This is completely irrational, they're not going to hurt you." But why would we listen to him? Just because he has "logic" on his side? (Yes, you idiot, that's exactly why) And so we flip the switch into survival mode. Unfortunately, not a cool survival mode where your muscles tense and you become a superhuman version of yourself ready to take on the world. It's more like a possum playing dead. Barely a rung above comatose.
Lucky for me, this hadn't happened in direct confrontation, in real life. It was almost always over social media or from thinking over something that had happened earlier in the day. The actual attacks happened at home, where I was able to recede into the comforts of solitude and under the protection of blanket and bed. I could just curl up and figuratively suck my figurative thumb (I want it to be known I do not suck my thumb) and wait for the storm to pass. Once my body was unharmed and realized there was no danger, it could start recuperating. Even then, for the remainder of the day, I'd be emotionally crippled and incapable of usual levels of productivity, still paranoid and fearful, sensing threats to my safety that were invisible to everyone around me. But the bulk of the stress, the attack itself, was always confined to the security of my home.
That stopped being true last week during a rehearsal for MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM SHOWINGS OCTOBER 5, 6 AND 7. This really shouldn't have been a surprise to me, a kid who's incapacitated by criticism probably shouldn't take ventures into the performing arts. But I did anyway. Funnily enough, the performance had nothing to do with what happened. Someone asked me to move my stuff just slightly more aggressively than I would have liked. They weren't mean, they weren't malicious, in all likelihood they weren't being serious, but that's not how the motherfucker upstairs took it. He took it and ran, shutting down most routine operations and concentrating on fear, fear, fear. He had me stay in my chair, warning me that any move I make, especially in the vicinity of the person who asked me to move my stuff, could provoke someone. And surely I knew, he told me, that everyone in that room hated me. They were all just waiting to do something. Waiting for an opportunity to tear you to shreds. And when they do, he added, there's nothing you can do. They've got you surrounded.
Despite the immensely terrifying and imminent threat, I could have handled it given time. Had I been able to sit in my seat, I would've eventually recovered. But I was going to be onstage in a number of minutes and while Shakespeare has been performed in a wide range of dialects, I doubt the bard's eloquence or wit would come across as well amidst slurred speech or (an option that was becoming increasingly more likely) tears.
The little man in the corner piped up just loud enough to point out that my friend Steve was across the room. He could help, the little man yelled. There's no help, the man in the control room shot back. I made my way to him, an ordeal that at the time seemed akin to the Fellowship's long and treacherous journey to Mordor. Steve, without missing a beat, helped me out and talked me down and I recovered quicker than I ever had and got onstage and immediately rocked the fuck out of that performance with my eyes still freshly puffy. The Flu Game doesn't hold a candle.
Now, dear reader o'mine, you might've noticed something about my tone here (and indeed, in my life in general). But it probably seems especially inappropriate here. How I'm padding every deeply personal revelation under fifty layers of sarcasm, self-effacement, and metaphor. See, I've always fancied myself a bit of a badass fighter antihero type and growing up on nerd pop culture, I've tried to take cues from the Han Solos and Mal Reynolds of the world - the coolest guys don't show their hand, which I'm doing by writing this post. It's not that they don't have struggles, but if you really have a struggle, then you're not gonna talk about it. Tragic backstories are told through flashbacks or dramatic reveals, not expositional chitchat. Talking to Ra-- Steve did a lot to assuage that feeling. Not for a moment did he question it nor did his concern for the situation ever dip. Frankly, a lot of the tears (figurative tears, of course, I'm a man. For real, though I don't suck my thumb) were more out of pleasant surprise than panic. It was ridiculously validating, it helped me convince myself that what I was going through was very much real, even if I asked for help. I definitely wouldn't have been able to write this post if not for Steve. And even now, I still have to cushion it with jokes - it still feels wrong to talk about it.
But this whole thing is still particularly problematic for me because this is the type of stuff I should really be able to handle. Not because I'm a man (though I'm sure that plays a role) but because I'm literally asking for it. I have, by design, a very antagonistic personality. Like the characters above, I enjoy being snarky and combative but also fighting and taking loud self-righteous stances. I fully intend to pursue in public service / politics, where criticism is like oxygen. These are things I should be able to handle because of how I've crafted myself and laid out my future. So how do these attacks bode for me?
I've been trying to come up with some logical narrative to this story, some conclusion of sorts to justify writing this at all. I don't have a good one. I think I just want people to know. I don't need anyone feeling sorry for me or taking precautions (I'm a MAN dammit!), but I have people I love who might read this and learn something about me, something that's somehow easier to express in a public blogpost in a one-on-one conversation. But also, if all this came about from my oversensitivity, wouldn't this be a good place to start? Exposing myself bit by bit so that I might develop a tolerance for what other people think of me? So, in the immortal words of Tag Team and every adolescent white boy trying to seem cool with a dated hip-hop reference:
Whoomp.
There it is.
THIS IS SO LONG I'M SO SORRY MR. MITCHELL I JUST KINDA RAMBLED AFTER A CERTAIN POINT
Thursday, August 31, 2017
Who Murdered Uni's Spirit?
Note: My first post isn't about superheroes
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The Second Continental Congress convene to decide military tactics (1775) |
This next moment, I always picture the man in question standing atop a literal pedestal, light streaming down as a backdrop, the image of something like a military general. But seeing as there were only couches and no heavenly lights as far as I can remember, the man in question, the legendary school president, who had strolled into the gym on the very first day with a suit-and-tied entourage, was probably just standing. The details of the president's speech are foggy but I remember talk of a certain administrator who wasn't exactly a top performer in their eyes and the purpose of the meeting was to talk school on their own terms. I remember deep passion in the way he talked, a genuine craving to change the halls he walked through, even though they wouldn't be his halls in a few months. It may have been the excitement of hanging out with cool older people, or having had one too many sugary snacks, but in that moment, I realized I wanted to change this school. To do something lasting and make a genuine difference. Because I saw these people. And these people cared. They honest-to-god cared.
All but three people in that room no longer attend Uni and the featured officers are long gone, accomplishing who-knows-what at god-knows-where. And gone with them, it seems, is the intense passion and fire that used to run our halls.
In the four years I've been here, I've noticed that former fervor being gradually replaced by cynicism, disdain, and the impatience of a people who want to get out and run and run and run and never ever look back. Almost anything the student body encounters is met with deep contempt. Two furnished hi-tech classrooms are doubted and scorned. The lack of racial and economic diversity is constantly bemoaned by one end of the spectrum while the lack of political diversity is bemoaned by the other (quietly, in a small corner). Any new policies put in place will face equal doses of resistance and sneering. No student likes their class (though funnily enough still often think it's better than the others). Students at a dance pause to think aloud to each other that this is, without a doubt, the worst dance yet (until the next). There is no joy in being here, no sense that the Uni of it all is anything special, just the grind to make it to the end of 8th period.
I realize my speculation about people's thoughts probably isn't sufficient evidence (nor should it be). So take a look at simple numbers: body count. During the audition of the most recent Uni production, my friend texted me frantically to get me (a non-thespian with barely two years of theatre experience) to try out, because of the drastically low numbers of auditionees. I've heard it said that both dramatic and musical participation have been on a gradual decline the past few years. The only club with participation worth a damn is Habitat and one of its primary appeals is getting to leave Uni for a week. Of the two elections I attended last year, one had two candidates unopposed, the other had three unopposed, and both had a one-on-one match besides. And of those who give a damn enough about the school to run and are elected, their heart for the job is underwhelming and yet they too struggle to find any of their peers who want to take part in their projects. This past Open House was surprisingly bare. No one gives a damn about sports matches (I don't) unless they or their close friends are on it. The concept of any mandatory event, even (or especially) a pep rally results in sighs and groans.
It kinda makes sense given the circumstances. In the time I've been here we've had an audit that dramatically reshaped how we conduct our daily lives, become aware of a striking lack of funds, been subject to a consequent task force report suggesting we change, well, everything, and an assortment of iconic and beloved teachers have left. In the face of that, the unseeable monitor giant punishing us time and time again, (for God's sake, they took away our pizza!) often under the pretense of our various faults and shortcomings, it's easy to understand why we might start to believe we suck.
Though I may be a little too Uni-centric in my speculation. It's entirely possible we're not alone in this lethargy phenomenon. Perusing Twitter will reveal several nihilistic memes about praying for the inevitable end to come soon. Millennials are already a desperately pessimistic bunch and most of them weren't bred on the Internet like we were, exposed to the horrors of the world that arouse cynicism in us much earlier than usual. We could very well be experiencing a nationwide phenomenon in which, instead of reacting to the horrors of the world with foolhardy revolution, the youth of America instead turn to the comfort of their beds, wrap themselves up, and wait for it all to be over.
But the idea of a deeply apathetic Uni seems more plausible if you look at the head of the pack, the current senior class. Even to say "head of the pack" feels somewhat ill-fitting. Perhaps a more appropriate metaphor would be the shy 2nd grader chosen to be a reluctant line-leader, not because he asked, but simply because it's his turn. Or the most senior sailor (not the captain or any sort of commanding officer) on a sinking pirate ship, too tired to leap off and instead waiting for the water to reach him before swimming away. Remembering my first senior class, I immediately picture them running through the halls, shrieking about the latest events, which, while likely not their actual day-to-day behavior, is fairly representative of their enthusiasm of the school. It really felt like they ran the place. On the other hand, an underclassmen today probably wouldn't think of any of us as any sort of de facto emperors, with our trademark eye-roll attitude for everything that goes on within these three floors. The students I've talked to about this post have wholeheartedly agreed to the superlative of "Least Participatory Class". Of the classes, I'd bet good money that we have the lowest numbers when it comes to anything, from clothes drives to potlucks. The only thing we take pride in in this school is how much we hate this school.
This may very well be a simple case of thin skin on my part. Four years of being constantly met with biting criticism of my Student Council ventures may have rendered me a sobbing infant, insisting that the bullies need to stop attacking the school, when in fact it's my own shortcomings.
And admittedly, I could be wrong altogether. Maybe after being here for 4 years and now being the one looking back instead of ahead makes the once vivid colors of the school run together into murky dull brown. Maybe it's always been like this and I'm just now starting to feel it.
Or maybe it doesn't matter.
In the four years I've been here, I've noticed that former fervor being gradually replaced by cynicism, disdain, and the impatience of a people who want to get out and run and run and run and never ever look back. Almost anything the student body encounters is met with deep contempt. Two furnished hi-tech classrooms are doubted and scorned. The lack of racial and economic diversity is constantly bemoaned by one end of the spectrum while the lack of political diversity is bemoaned by the other (quietly, in a small corner). Any new policies put in place will face equal doses of resistance and sneering. No student likes their class (though funnily enough still often think it's better than the others). Students at a dance pause to think aloud to each other that this is, without a doubt, the worst dance yet (until the next). There is no joy in being here, no sense that the Uni of it all is anything special, just the grind to make it to the end of 8th period.
I realize my speculation about people's thoughts probably isn't sufficient evidence (nor should it be). So take a look at simple numbers: body count. During the audition of the most recent Uni production, my friend texted me frantically to get me (a non-thespian with barely two years of theatre experience) to try out, because of the drastically low numbers of auditionees. I've heard it said that both dramatic and musical participation have been on a gradual decline the past few years. The only club with participation worth a damn is Habitat and one of its primary appeals is getting to leave Uni for a week. Of the two elections I attended last year, one had two candidates unopposed, the other had three unopposed, and both had a one-on-one match besides. And of those who give a damn enough about the school to run and are elected, their heart for the job is underwhelming and yet they too struggle to find any of their peers who want to take part in their projects. This past Open House was surprisingly bare. No one gives a damn about sports matches (I don't) unless they or their close friends are on it. The concept of any mandatory event, even (or especially) a pep rally results in sighs and groans.
It kinda makes sense given the circumstances. In the time I've been here we've had an audit that dramatically reshaped how we conduct our daily lives, become aware of a striking lack of funds, been subject to a consequent task force report suggesting we change, well, everything, and an assortment of iconic and beloved teachers have left. In the face of that, the unseeable monitor giant punishing us time and time again, (for God's sake, they took away our pizza!) often under the pretense of our various faults and shortcomings, it's easy to understand why we might start to believe we suck.
Though I may be a little too Uni-centric in my speculation. It's entirely possible we're not alone in this lethargy phenomenon. Perusing Twitter will reveal several nihilistic memes about praying for the inevitable end to come soon. Millennials are already a desperately pessimistic bunch and most of them weren't bred on the Internet like we were, exposed to the horrors of the world that arouse cynicism in us much earlier than usual. We could very well be experiencing a nationwide phenomenon in which, instead of reacting to the horrors of the world with foolhardy revolution, the youth of America instead turn to the comfort of their beds, wrap themselves up, and wait for it all to be over.
But the idea of a deeply apathetic Uni seems more plausible if you look at the head of the pack, the current senior class. Even to say "head of the pack" feels somewhat ill-fitting. Perhaps a more appropriate metaphor would be the shy 2nd grader chosen to be a reluctant line-leader, not because he asked, but simply because it's his turn. Or the most senior sailor (not the captain or any sort of commanding officer) on a sinking pirate ship, too tired to leap off and instead waiting for the water to reach him before swimming away. Remembering my first senior class, I immediately picture them running through the halls, shrieking about the latest events, which, while likely not their actual day-to-day behavior, is fairly representative of their enthusiasm of the school. It really felt like they ran the place. On the other hand, an underclassmen today probably wouldn't think of any of us as any sort of de facto emperors, with our trademark eye-roll attitude for everything that goes on within these three floors. The students I've talked to about this post have wholeheartedly agreed to the superlative of "Least Participatory Class". Of the classes, I'd bet good money that we have the lowest numbers when it comes to anything, from clothes drives to potlucks. The only thing we take pride in in this school is how much we hate this school.
This may very well be a simple case of thin skin on my part. Four years of being constantly met with biting criticism of my Student Council ventures may have rendered me a sobbing infant, insisting that the bullies need to stop attacking the school, when in fact it's my own shortcomings.
And admittedly, I could be wrong altogether. Maybe after being here for 4 years and now being the one looking back instead of ahead makes the once vivid colors of the school run together into murky dull brown. Maybe it's always been like this and I'm just now starting to feel it.
Or maybe it doesn't matter.
Because as I'm writing this I'm in the lounge watching a group of my classmates gathered around, laughing, enjoying each other. Why ask for change? We're happy with each other, because of each other, so why am I insisting they do more?
Maybe school spirit need not be an active thing. Maybe a feeling or a sense of it is sufficient, instead of the yelling, fancy attire, and events of years past. Maybe, even, this "reformed" school spirit is in some way superior. Perhaps the fact that this spirit is more passive signals less superficiality. We don't need to yell or dress up or show up because we know we love the school and we don't need other people to know that. But I can already hear classmates objecting, "No, no, I definitely hate this school." None of it really matters that much though. I'll be out of here anytime soon.
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(I TALK ABOUT TRUMP IN THIS POST) Modern Postmodernism
This post isn't strictly about Libra, more about this course in general (but it'll tie back to Libra eventually probably somehow.) ...
