"Mental" Notes: Nothing's Happened to You Yet!!

"Mental" Notes is a bimillenial column that features specific ideas I've had that can't be fleshed out into a full short story/short film/blog post. On certain posts, it's almost meant to be a public brainstorming forum. This post was originally thought up as a continuation to the Now What? series.

I wanted to continue Now What? as a way to update all of you on my life as it was happening and as it was going so far. But as I started writing this post, I found that I had a very angsty/bitchy tone to what I originally thought was insightful. In fact, even the opening I was intending to use now seems very pretentious in hindsight. Although halfway through it, I acknowledged my dismissive atttitude and made fun of it in the end, I thought the post itself was too short and that it needed more depth before I was willing to post it. As it turned out, however, during the summer I wrote this, I accomplished many, many things which make this post, for me at least, very outdated. As I looked over this again to revise as a "Mental" Note, I also realized that I misquoted Louis CK's joke about 20 year olds, and that nearly derailed the entire point of the post. I'm finally posting this, exactly as I typed it almost a year ago, so that I can finally put it to rest and focus on other things...hint, hint. Questions/comments are always welcome!  

 

I am twenty years old, a fourth of the way to the promised land. This has been the most profound statement I've made this year. I have recently completed my second year in college and am now a junior.

Becoming 20 years old should feel like a profound moment filled with truth and responsibility but that should exemplify as to how naive I am if I think becoming older is equivalent to gaining life experience.

I constantly feel imprisoned in "my" own home, and I always think that life continues going on repeat; every day my man-boobs become more developed, my eyeballs more agile due to constant stimulation from the internet.

But every time I come up with complaints about how life is going, the words of Louis CK emanate in my brain, "Nothing's happened to you!" 

Louis CK: Live at Carnegie Hall (20 Year Olds)

Yes, nothing has happened to me. In fact, at this point, life has never been so fucking pleasant. There is very little conflict between all of my family members due to my parents' separation, my brother is doing well in school, I am fulfilling my parents' dream of going to college, getting an education, getting a job, retiring comfortably, and rotting in the ground.

I am a terrible example of Louis CK's very poignant statement regarding the young, how we seem to entitle ourselves beyond everyone else and can only be satisfied with our own lives if our goals have been met. If any complaint I make can be easily solved by effort, I have no reason to complain ever again. But if my brother beats me in another Mario Party session, I will fucking kill everything. Because life sucks. Man.

Thanks for reaching the bottom. I have both a YouTube channel and a Vimeo channel. I'm also on Twitter and Tumblr. If you like being continuously annoyed by extremely obvious hints about future posts, join the RS Facebook group for updates and info on my projects. Take care, everyone!

The Twentithird One

Ladies and gentleman of the jury, I may or may not be losing my fucking mind right now. At this point, I have no evidence to confirm either diagnosis, but I'm pretty sure I'm losing it. My back aches right now, the pain is mostly around the right shoulder blade, due to the amount of crap I lugged around yesterday for some goddamn reason. And I'm swearing a lot, another thing to check-mark. Why is this relevant, ladies and gentleman? Where's the connection with losing my mind and having back pain? As it turns out, I have also been shaking uncontrollably for the past hour and a half. Now this may have something to do with the window being open, but most likely, my thoughts have been racing incredibly fast, and my body has to compensate for it. As each thought makes its way across my body, I can feel each thought blazing right through.

I apologize in advance for this post. As you can tell, it's more disorganized than my posts usually are. I've had several conversations with some close friends and each of them, whether they were a sophomore, or a senior in college, convinced me that my life in college was only an illusion, and that I'm only taking on a separate personality. It's fair to say that, if you're someone who studies more often than you sleep, and if all of your classes are terrible and complete wastes of time, but for some reason, I never thought of college this way. I've enjoyed the 2 months I've spent in college so far, and yes, they have been a difficult two months, but at no expense to myself as a human being. Maybe I was wrong. When I realize the things I've had to give up in order to turn in a certain assignment in on time, it's really depressing. Most of the time I spend on weekdays is in my room or at the library studying. Is that a fair reason to complain about not having a life? I think my real problem is that I'm gullible, superficially gullible. I've never considered the negative aspects of a person, and when I hear them for the first time, it's always a shock. Why? It's true. So-and-so instead of being this, is actually this. We all have the skeletons in our closet about disturbing things that wouldn't be acceptable in polite society. I'm afraid of having sex. Deathly afraid. Why? I've been having an identity crisis for quite some time, between my adult self, the crazy, swearing, cynical 18 year old, and my past self, the crazy, sweet, intelligent 10 year old, and when I think of myself in a bedroom with someone, I'll hesitate because of the 10 year old self. It's the same reason I'm always shaving, and trying to stop swearing. It's just so damn confusing. One more thing, it took me years to break my habit of not saying "so", since I thought saying "so" would make me sound stupider; well, I don't have to sound like a brilliant person every day, especially when formulating the thoughts precisely enough to make sense of it is complicated and frustrating enough as it is.

Is there any reason to be complaining right now? Is my life, at this point in time, better than it has been before? Of course it is, and yet, there's still something wrong. I woke up this morning, thinking about someone's request of no longer asking invasive questions, and I don't know what to do about it. I've asked a lot of unusual questions before, but how can anyone react politely with that kind or request? You'll only be spurred into asking more "invasive" questions, such as "What kind of questions wouldn't be invasive?" Frankly, I feel terrible that I made them feel this way, and I imagine they've felt this way for a long time, and finally had the courage to ask that question. Should I feel insulted by the fact that they asked it? Personally, I've always asked questions like that, so being asked not to do that is an attack to my personality. Maybe I'm reacting childishly about it; I'll admit I had a tantrum just a few minutes ago, and yesterday when I was at the park. Maybe the reason I'm asking all of these questions is only because of their request. If asking invasive questions isn't an appropriate way to develop a friendship, then what is, and if it's supposed to be really obvious, why can't I understand that?

Life can be complicated, sometimes. All the time.