Monday, April 30, 2007

Tell me that a word like "unity" is not just ink spilled on the page

The thing about high school is that it is all bullshit. Every second of every day is complete and total bull. The stuff you learn in classes is not what will help you, and we all know that. I know that there are more important things for me to be doing than trigonometry or AP Chemistry. I know that even though I have had a bad teacher experience this year, writing and reading is what I live for. I get so lonely, and the people created on pages always seem to get it. I take that for granted a lot. Holden Caulfield from The Catcher In The Rye and the person Charles Bukowski creates himself to be are essentially the type of person I think of myself as. Aside from their actions though, the thoughts and emotions I see so clearly and feel connected to. I can count the number of people who I have understood and they have understood me on a half a hand. This whole Chuck Palahniuk thing is sort of over my head. I'm not sure if he is just hyped up too much, or if I just don't like his style. That tears me apart every time I pick up Diary. I wish I had a neutral opinion on the guy, but I don't, and it's a crappy thought that I might be missing out. This whole Perks thing needs to be put to rest as well. I loved that book with 50000% of my heart, and then I read Catcher. I think Perks is just written as an updated version, with drugs and language to make it more relatable. Catcher has stood the test of generations and generations, and I still feel the same way Holden does. I do have to admit that Chbotsky probably wrote better than Salinger, but it still doesn't balance anything out. Charles Bukowski as always resides as an alter ego. I find comfort in the fact that although he had success as a writer and had plenty of sex and women in and out of his life, he was real. He was raw and blunt and didn't really care how politically correct he was. His tombstone reads "don't try" and he often speaks about how lazy he is. However, he left his phone number listed in the phone book. Getting fan calls to your house doesn't sound that great of a deal, but he was lonely to the point where he needed interaction. I think that makes him so more real and I completely understand that. I like people with the same warped logic as I and I easily find it in Bukowski. The same with Sylvia Plath. The Bell Jar just proves the fact that she thought it was completely logical to put her head in an oven.
I think through prose we can see a person for who they really are. You can see the vulnerabilities and subconscious thoughts. You can see them reflected through their fiction and you can see the fiction and shame reflected through their truth. I think I'd like to make people understand who I am. I'd like them to understand what I stand for, why, and how I will enforce it. I would like to be able to convey myself on a page and have someone pick it up and know the same feeling. That is the best feeling for me. Feeling so alone until someone writes something that you're convinced is about you. And maybe there are kids out there like me who just need to get out of the confines of their high schools and out of the structure and pressure Americans put on each other to work cubicle jobs and wear a suit to work. I'm sorry, but an accountant is not going to leave a mark on the world. However, a writer could.