I Can't Get No Satisfaction

There are days...or rather, I suppose saying that there are nights would be closer, as this only happens at night. Alright, let's start over.

There are nights when I feel so unsatisfied. With what, I honestly can't tell. Is it that I'm not satisfied with the day itself? Sometimes I don't feel like I've done enough. I'm suspecting that that has something to do with why I have a tendency to stay up late-- some desire to get something done, something to where I can stretch out and say, "all right, let's call it a day." and turn in. Productivity right? I guess so, but I think it runs deeper than just that.

There satisfied with my life. And then there's satisfied with myself. I can't really say that I possess either. I mean, I'm content, in the sense that I know what I have-- I have a pretty blessed life, and a pretty good self. I mean, Things just come to me, academically at least. The ideas and concepts that people have to struggle for, the depth of analyses that others aren't able to do, I can do quickly and easily. I guess that makes me a little gifted in the academic sense. Then there's my life. Parents that love me, despite a fairly rocky and latchkey childhood, parents that won't push me to do things (most the push is from myself) . I guess I could do worse in America.

But I have this very deep feeling of dissatisfaction, and I can't quite place it. Maybe it's a combination of all three, plus this tendency of mine to not get tired too easily. Then again, I guess that could be because I don't DO very much. Maybe. Alright, how about this Chris, you'll wake up early tomorrow (I'll arrange it) and let's do a lot, and we'll see where it takes you with this dissatisfaction.

Deal?

Deal.

If I lived in Torrance

This is the first time I'm actually thinking of what life might be like if I lived in Torrance. The whole concept of Torrance has been bound up with my family and parents for so long that it's been anathema to me. But I started thinking recently...

What if I could go back to Torrance in the Summers?

The thought is honestly a little disturbing, because the implications run so incredibly deep. I'd be a completely different person, I think, mostly in good ways, although there are some possibly serious drawbacks too. The idea of thinking about it makes me a little nervous, 'cuz if I explore it, I might end up wanting it.

There were all these people in Torrance that were always marginally friends-- people right on the verge of being solid friends but still mostly acquaintances. I kind of had 'friends all over the place,' nothing ever solid, but always drifting. I would've expected to cement those bonds and the kinds of friends I'd have now would have made me really different. I think I'm just going to go this far, and entertain the rest of the possibilities in my mind, because I don't know if I can go any further than that. But just think, I could've been someone else.

To Far Away Times

I'm a main character type of guy. I always have been. There are people, like my brother, who often identify more with the secondary characters, but I've always identified with main characters the most. It's strange, because in all styles, I'm support-- I'm never the front and center. But when it comes to personality and character, I've always identified most with the main. I guess that says something about me that I haven't quite figured out.

I like being in the center, in the spotlight, in the zone, under pressure and under scrutiny.

I like being in charge, in command and looked up to.

Sometimes I wonder and wish that life were like a video game-- I'm extraordinarily good at staying alive, and I could just go off and be a hero in some other world where I had these unusual powers.

But then the quest ends, or the song hits repeat, or the credits close, and I'm back here, in my seat, typing things on a keyboard being the same old non-main character, relatively boring Chris. And I sigh.

Some days I'm so convinced of my superiority it bothers me-- I should have more humility. But when the pride is based on objective observation, it's hard to put on anything more than a veneer of false humility.

But other days I'm scared that I'm not all as unique as I've made myself believe. Those days I feel insignificant, and maybe I should be. Maybe I'm not as smart, not as rare, not as unusual as I've taught myself to believe. Then I feel a bit of motivation to go out and be that person.

But then I always end up dreaming again, to be that main character, that hero in Far Away Times...

After Brown

The more things change, the more I attempt to struggle to keep myself the same. But I can't stay the same, and by the time I realize that I'm struggling to stay the same, I also see the myriad ways in which I, too, like the people and circumstances around me, have failed to remain the same. But it's a strange, hollow and lonely feeling when it seems like someone's passed you by. I want to feel happy, glad; cheer them on in their life's advancement, but at the same time, I too want to change without having to undergo all the work and the pressure that change entails. Maybe that's why I don't like to change-- As a packrat, I don't like to throw things away. But if I'm to change, I have to take inventory and figure out what it is in me that's going to stay with me on the next step. My path is littered with pieces of me that have been thrown away, some at great cost to myself, and others quite carelessly.

I look up and I can see shadows of people dancing among the stars, striving to reach even further and I long to be up there with them; among the stars, among the people who didn't let their own fears or their apprehensions stop them from discarding so much of themselves so they could be light enough to fly up to the heavens. I like myself. Well, most of, well, some of myself. I'm always afraid that the next thing I'll have to discard is something that I've always considered an important part of me, only to realize that it was something so peripheral, so far from what was actually at the core of me. That one day I'll discover that who I thought I was, was someone completely different, made up of pieces of me that I've discarded along the road. That I'll find that my identity has been carelessly strewn here and there, and that this person I now am, is someone strange and unfamiliar to me.

It's a struggle then, to totter along, one laborious step at a time, clutching everything that I think is so important to who I am, or to sit out, and separate what's important from what's not, and leave it all there, on the side of the road. There's a pain in admitting that what I've been, what I've carried for so long isn't a part of myself, but there's a wholly different pain in watching people pass me by. I'm much too competitive, maybe.

It's gotta be the fear and the laziness; that I'm too afraid of who I'll become, and that it'll be so difficult, that it'll cost me so dear that I'll look back and say that it wasn't worth it. But I've caught glimpses of who I want to become, I've seen the shadow of the person I want to be, and I long for it. I know what kind of person's waiting for me up there, so why am I so scared? So afriad?

Probably because I'll have to take the parts of me that delineate my comfort zone, and then dismantle them, leaving them on the side of the road. My comfort zone's been with me a long time, and I've gotten rather used to having it around. But I think this is where I have to stop, and remove that from me. I've gotten a little too big for that particular thing, and who knows? Maybe it'll serve someone else better than it's served me.

I'll just leave it on the side of the road,

right

here.

In full view of the road.

Goodbye.

In Context

I would've liked my first post to be something jovial, something light, or something kinda cool about myself. Something that showcases my awesomeness and greatness. But ironically, this is none of those things, and yet it probably showcases what I'm like better than either of those kinds of posts would have.

I've always had this weird identity problem, and it might be common but if it is, it bothers me more than it does most others. Who I am depends on the context I'm in. If I'm around some of the younger 'kouhais' of mine who know me as a somewhat wisecracking advice-giver that seems to know everything, sarcasm is the mayonnaise I liberally apply to most of my comments. I poke fun at just about everything, and everything will always, in the end, be all right. On the other hand, with my college peers, I'm a bit different-- in class, I'm probably the dude who knows all the answers; or in the case of my major, the guy who sounds like he has all the answers. If it's not classmates, then it's friends, and then I'm the one who misconstrues everything on purpose, often to comedic effect, with the multiple personalities, a flimsy determination to take over the world and an unhealthy interest in violence and weapons. None of these personalities are mutually exclusive, and there seem to be shades of each personality in every other expression of my personality. So far, so good-- there isn't any real cause for concern, I think. I have to imagine that this kind of 'split' is common is not completely ordinary.

What bothers me most is the programming that goes into the personalities. It sounds almost like something from an anime, or from TV to say that I program reflexes, but I have to admit that it's true. Back when emotions were to cumbersome to deal with, I got used to not expressing them because on a large scale, I failed to feel them. But the world, and society at large doesn't really feel comfortable dealing with robotic people who are dead inside. I think it unnerves them that the robotic domination of the world threat isn't coming directly from the machines, it's coming from the people who have become like machines. Anyways, I didn't really want to cause a stir or weird people out too much, so I started faking the emotions. In text, this isn't at all very hard, and it's only a few skips and a hop to applying that to everyday life. Out of a weird tendency I have, I've trained myself not to be startled, or rather, not to react to being startled. As a result, I have only the smallest reaction to things suddenly popping, making loud noises or people popping out. Enough to fool most people anyways, and I could insert my own desires "reflex" into that slot. Soon I became able to insert programmed reflexes into any kind of situation, creating a kind of 'unconscious personality' that was completely artificial. I could, surprised at a snide comment a friend made, or at a sudden revelation, literally fall out of my chair and no one doubted the veracity of that reaction. The personas began to emerge out of the reflexes and probably something subconscious; nice guy most of all. It came to the point where I would unconsciously perform my programmed reflexes, and the line between conscious programming and true reflex began to blur.

This is where I am now. There are things I say that only in hindsight I can recognize as a preprogrammed reflex; some are new, some are old. It's as if I'm some kind of cyborg; part human, part machine; the only problem is that I can't tell you which is which.

Years later, I sometimes find myself shifting back to previously established and long-abandoned personae; taking up the masks and mantles that I had discarded for better, more mature ones. Ones that I had painstakingly wrought so that I could distinguish the metal in the man, and remove the metal to reveal the man. The old clothes don't quite fit just right, and it's a bit different now, but the clothes stay on. On enough to convince anyways. It's so awkward because I'm not really that person. I mean I am. was. But I'm not anymore. Shouldn't be. But I am all the same. At what point in its metamorphosis does the butterfly cease to be the caterpillar? Is it a changed being? Is it still the same being? Does the change in name imply somehow that it is in no way the same? It's a step, one step. In the same way, the person I was, am, I never cease to be. I can never cease to be that Chris-Kun that used to chat all the time on the internet. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't stop. I never stopped being Chris-Kun, or Chris-Dono for that matter. But I'm also not either of them anymore.

I'm not as intensely agonized over who I am anymore; I'm not so irrevocably convinced that I'm intrinsically more evil than any other person on the planet. But like I told someone else; if my life is a book, a lot of my struggles are the themes in it. They've been there, they are there, and they'll continue to be there throughout the narrative. Their resolution only means that they're replaced by other issues, or that they've been absorbed into some kind of Hegelian Thesis for the next level of synthesis.

For the moment, who I am is far too difficult a question for me to address directly: Who I am is determined by the present company, time and circumstances. It shifts ever so slightly with each addition and subtraction of every element in the present context. But eventually I hope to be just one: someone who is always the same in the context of a single circumstance; my life. Who I am will be the solid bedrock on which I build my empire.

To take over the world.