Not Oscar Wilde

This past semester of college, the first semester of my junior year, was one of the most enjoyable (or, least miserable) I've had. Early in the semester, I found myself often thinking about how there's an inverse relationship between how much I 'think' (in the way that makes me 'depressed', I guess) and my motivation to do well in school. I desperately wanted to be motivated because it would save me a lot of misery when it comes to school. This probably stems from the fact that, ever since I was young, I've had to finish my school work no matter what. Even if I'd procrastinated up until midnight the night before, I'd stay up all night to finish an assignment, or study for a test, if necessary. This probably has a lot to do with how I was raised, and I find it to be a pretty convenient trait to have.

For a Physics student at CSM, the first semester of junior year is a rather foreboding one. So, for the beginning weeks of the semester, I tried my best to avoid in-depth thoughts that caused me to question the value of school (or, perhaps, my own motivation), or really to think much at all about topics outside of my studies. Aside from all of this, I also moved in with a new roommate, who's also in the Physics department; further, I left my gaming consoles, guitar, and other distractions with my parents. This past semester ended up being my most focused, and least miserable, semester at the school so far. This was also probably assisted by the fact that most of my classes were 'actual' Physics classes for the first time, which I enjoyed.

This is a discussion that, in my eyes, does not require much debate over its validity. I do understand, though, that many may disagree with the ideas presented, which is why I have decided to go into a bit of detail on the topic. I have always felt that patriotism is a silly idea. It makes no sense, to me, to consider the abstract boundaries of your 'birthplace' to have any sort of special meaning. Rather than asserting that all 'countries' should be considered equally regardless of birthplace, which seems to be the direction this argument usually takes, it seems more logical to consider the idea that a country is a meaningless abstraction in itself. For this discussion, I shall consider the basic form of a country, which I will describe below.

Note: The details that I use in reaching the basic idea of a country may not be entirely correct, but hopefully they get the point across. Before countries, there were just people. These people began as individuals; then they realized that there were advantages in working with other individuals to form a group; eventually, this leads to nomadic tribes, then settled tribes, and, after awhile, civilizations. Just as tribes interact with other tribes, civilizations will usually interact with other civilizations. In many cases, this will lead to lines being drawn between various civilizations. Some lines will be darker and more pronounced than others, while some are 'grayer' and less strict. In the long run, the darker lines will become the borders of the country.

The point here is that the lines have absolutely no meaning. These lines will often show distinctions in developmental aspects of various areas, and it is likely that one may notice more cultural differences between areas separated by a greater number of these lines. However, these lines should not place any significance on one side or another in terms of 'greatness' or any such abstraction as that. This can also be taken into the ideals of the individual. Often, these lines will have a good deal of influence over the biases of an individual and their decisions. For this reason, the individual should take it upon themself to evaluate their own decisions and morals from a more objective position. While objectivity and humanity are often difficult to concatenate, it should at least be the goal of the individual to consider outside perspectives and attempt to challenge the perspectives formed from living in their civilization. 

The next idea is somewhat analogous to the patriotism idea, and that is that one's family is no more important than any other individual, or group of individuals. The logic is basically the same as with the patriotism idea. In this case, the 'darker lines' contain family members who one may deem to be 'closer' to oneself. It is not the case that one's biological parents must be the 'closest' to them; siblings, grandparents, or even adoptive parents may take this role.

I feel as though there is a subset of people who find the perception that results from forms of 'depression' as a more concrete way of viewing the world. This would be, to them, contrasted with the views caused by 'happiness', which they may deem 'delusional' views while in a depressive state. (This does work the other way around, of course, i.e. people who are happy at a given time may easily view depressive ideas as delusional.)

Note: I'm using 'depression' and 'happiness' somewhat loosely here, each possibly referring merely to a state of sadness or joy at some level (respectively).

This is something that I have experienced in my life. Through the years of high school and my first year of college, mainly, I would see depression as a far less delusional state of mind than that caused by happiness. Depression seemed to be a way of seeing passed the silly illusions that were so accurate during stages of happiness. Happiness was something like a state of naive optimism to me, while depression was more of a realistic state of mind. I feel that my view depression whilst 'happy' illustrates this idea of 'naive optimism' rather well, as there would generally be a lightheartedness toward the depressive idea that happiness was 'silly' in some way, and I would even attempt to ignore such thoughts in an attempt to sustain the joy that I presently felt. I have come, however, to a new view that seems, to me, much more logical. This view is that happiness and depression are merely two versions of the same concept. One experiencing either may view the other as a delusional viewpoint, though each is likely looking through a delusional lens themselves. Further, one may be easily convinced of some sort of locally absolute truth that may be contrary to a feeling they have while in the other state.

A description of a dream I had last night:

It started with my friend and I sitting in a place where quite a few people were walking around. The building sort of looked like a wide open, above-ground parking garage, except that it was a bit taller than a normal one (but not by much), and somewhat less dark and dank.

The first thing I noticed was that I was wearing something that reminded me of the uniform I had to wear when I worked at the movie theater in my hometown during the last year or so of high school. I also noticed that my lips felt gross, like I’d done some sort of physical work and hadn’t drunk any water since then.

And then, a cliché happened. A girl came up to me, rather hastily, and said ‘Kiss me, right now.’ It was like she needed to make someone else think that she was with somebody, e.g. me. My first response was something like ‘Uh, my lips are pretty gross right now,’ not because I didn’t want to kiss her, but as a warning. She said ‘It doesn’t matter,’ obviously wanting to fool whoever the other person was. So we kissed, and that happened for a few seconds. My lips felt progressively less ‘gross’ as we kissed. And just as soon as she had come up, she left.

I’ll stop here to say that I would describe the girl as ‘cute’, but not overly attractive. She had blonde hair that was shorter than shoulder-length, dark rimmed glasses (but not hipster-thick), and I think a long-sleeved, red (possible fuzzy-ish?) shirt.

Then, I was suddenly in a classroom (the parking garage may have been something like the campus of a school, or an actual school, from which the classroom was accessible). The girl was in the classroom as well. While I think our positions in the classroom moved around a bit throughout this part of the dream, let’s say that we were both two or three rows back, and she was sitting in the desk to the left of me.

The teacher was talking about something that I think was interesting, and there was even a class discussion about it. I wish I could remember the conversation that took place at this point. I don’t remember much of what happened in the classroom, except for a bit involving the girl. Somehow, the question of ‘are we going to be together/get to know each other’ came up, though I’m not sure how that idea followed from our first interaction.

Anyway, at some point in this portion of the dream, the kid sitting behind her (I say ‘kid’ because he seemed to be a bit younger than us) asked her if she wanted to go out with him, or something similar. She said no, but in a way that made us, the girl and me, laugh with each other at the situation. For some reason, it was then immediately clear to me that my chances of getting to ‘go’ with her, as Donnie Darko would say, were much greater. I could see a sort of meter in my head that measured the chance I’d go out with her, and it was ~80/90% full. Even in the dream, I stopped at this point and thought ‘Wait…why is it so obvious to me that I have such a high chance with her based on what just happened?...’.

Then I had a thought. This thought is very similar to the types of thoughts I have in real life regarding these types of situations. The thought was along the lines of: ‘I can’t/don’t want to be with anyone, because my worldview makes me too miserable and incompatible to the point where I don’t feel like that would ever work well with a girl.’ However, I decided to just give this a chance, if there was one.

So then I was walking out of the ‘school’, by myself. While walking out, I was wondering where the girl was, uncertain as to whether or not she had beaten me out of the building. I made my way to the top of this vehicle analogous to a bus, though with a few distinct differences: it was white, not yellow, and had three levels; the top level was uncovered, i.e. open to the outside, while the bottom two were ‘inside’ of the vehicle; the bus operated over this dark ravine, which was a seemingly never-ending darkness.

I made my way to the top level of the bus. I looked down to the ground, not seeing her at first, just as the bus had started to leave (traveling slowly but surely). Then, I saw her running for the bus. She was looking up, smiling, and we made eye contact. I smiled back, I think. In the direction she was running, there was a broken set of stairs that led into the darkness below. The fifth or so step was broken, and under that was just blackness. She wasn’t paying attention to where she was going, and she didn’t stop.

As she fell, I could picture her surprised and frightened reaction. It was as though I could see her face long after she'd already fallen. Three or so girls from the class ran up to the stairs after she had fallen, sort of freaking out about their fallen adversary.

And, for the rest of the dream, I simultaneously felt emotion and indifference. When she first fell, I felt myself reaching out for her; I also felt myself just standing there. Then, I couldn’t tell if I was crying, or just looking into the darkness. I went down onto the second level of the bus. Overall, I didn’t feel too ‘beat up’ about it. But, on some level, I felt I was.