Love of Lights

I always have this small but sturdy notion within me that, at core, I'm a boring person. That fundamentally I am boring and it's a true fact about me; that this can only be masked and diversions can be created, but eventually I will be found out. This state of mind is certainly not helped when girls who seemed into you suddenly and abruptly are not anymore. But that's beside the point. Admittedly, I face a bit of difficulty. Whenever I can't engage in conversation for long  or entertain an interlocutor, I imagine this as my boringness seeping out. My faltering in conversation in turn reinforces my belief that in reality I'm a boring man. It's occurred to me just now, however, that I might have it backwards. What if it's my belief that I'm boring that causes my failings in conversation, as opposed to my failings in conversation evidencing the fact that I'm boring? This might be untrue or a stretch, but either way, it might be helpful to conceive o...

I think a really good way of thinking about misfortune is this: once you do any action, you're signing a little contract and purchasing all of its potential consequences, good and bad. Most of the consequences will remain "potential", but they are still there written into the contract, and the uniformed men who do Fortune's bidding could come at any time and inform you that the worst is going to happen. Naturally it's on you to pick the actions the actual consequences of which you think are most desirable, but that's not my point here. My point here is that you should always latently accept potential consequences too, because you sign that contract when you do that action. If you don't want to accept any of those potential consequences: simple, just don't do the action. For example, if you sleep with someone and it's weird forever, that's a demon you have to battle yourself -- but don't regret it, because you signed up for that possibility....

         "its easy to lie to yourself that u r working as hard as u can. if u want somthing, dont lie to yourslef that it will just happen. Get to work" - Steven Roggenbuck, IF U DONT LOVE THE MOON YOUR AN ASSHOLE There are a few things I need to work on next semester that I want to note here. I need to keep up with Italian Lit. Over the holidays, I want to have finished Calvino, and by the 3rd week I want to have read a decent amount of secondary literature and have an essay (perhaps) planned out. In the 3rd week I want to start reading Leopardi, so I've read whatever is necessary by the time we start him in 5th week. I want to spend much, much more time in the library working on Italian. I'll try to utilise the 2am close far more than I have been doing. Generally spend far more time working on Italian grammar. Write more notes on it! Separate my Italian Lit and Italian grammar/vocabulary notes, have one notebook for each. Keep up with...

I've had two sexual experiences in my life. The first was around April of 2012; it involved immoderate amounts of alcohol and teenage sex-drives. It was a party, a dark room, fumbles and confusions. I was a virgin and drunk and, needless to say, no "real" action occurred (where real refers to successful penetration). The second was around late May or early June of this year, 2013. I invited the girl I was going around with to my empty flat for a cider-party, just the two of us.We drank a lot of cider and listened to good music. Again, no real action occurred, but sexual things did. There are many unanswered questions raised by that paragraph. Why did no real action occur in both cases? Why is successful penetration considered 'real' sex, while foreplay and other kinds of sensual interaction not? These are questions that do not fall within the scope of this post. No, instead this post is about marking patterns. I 'entered the sexual scene', if I may, in...

I just learnt that I failed a test worth 7.5% of my overall grade in Italian. So much as I can remember, I’ve never out-and-out failed anything academically before. I’ve done more poorly than I expected and I’ve faced disappointment, but to legitimately fail, to attain a score below the pass boundary – to me this is a novel experience.  My reaction has been to be shaken. My confidence is shaken: confidence in my own ability and, more perniciously, confidence in whether I should be doing Italian at all. Should I give up? Should I relinquish the possibility for an opportunity to live abroad for a year because clearly I’m not fit to study the subject? Should I stick to Philosophy – something I am at least decent at?  There are many metaphors and illustrations to use that describe how I feel right now. I feel like a junior sporting champion who, despite coming first in all local competitions with ease and flourish, finds himself in last place when he competes in t...