quelling

Tonight my roommate and I walked to the drug store, after an extended back-and-forth whinealog about needing toilet paper and sandwich bags, and who should go get them. We agreed to slog through the muggy early evening together, and appease each other with frozen custard on the way back.

The custard stand occupies a corner storefront on Belmont Avenue, and summer evenings find it air conditioned ice cold and crammed with sticky bodies. The side of the building runs back up the street perpendicular to Belmont and a few benches and trash cans line the sidewalk surrounding a small red-awning-clad walk-up window. Thinking ourselves to have outsmarted the crowd stuck in the winding and awkward line indoors, we sallied up behind a father waiting to order his kids a treat.

The younger of his two boys, curly-brown wisps of hair framing his gleaming face, was excitedly tapping his hands on his father’s thigh as the attendant placed the previous customer’s confections on the sill. Chocolate custard with brownie bits and gummy worms, vanilla custard with cookie dough, a junior hot fudge shake – the small child’s tongue curled uncontrollably around one side of his lower lip as his face turned upward.

His feet began to tap. I watched the child’s face as his father ordered a cup of chocolate custard, and the way his expression changed from general ice cream excitement to the realization that his dreams of sweet cold creamy bliss would be realized – that chocolate cup was for him! His weight shifted from one foot to the other at a quickening pace, and he shook his hands in the air, mimicking the idle shake one might employ to dry the hands after washing. His tongue was still out and his face fixed on the light emanating from the window, as his entire body betrayed his excitement.

At that moment, it occurred to me that I felt the very same way. I felt exactly the same about the chocolate custard that I was on the verge of having for my own. I could not wait! It was going to taste so good!

But no hand-flip-flopping-tongue-lolling ice cream dance for me. I quelled this feeling and stood and smiled. I pointed him out to my roommate and we laughed. He was so sincere and unaware; we knew he had been thinking about that ice cream for a good long time.

Throughout our meandering lives, we negotiate our instinctual reactions to every sort of new event and personal experience, learning to recognize that our emotions – from pure ice cream joy to kicking-screaming tantrums of angry frustration (another scene I witnessed this week at Starbucks) – are something that we are able to, and must, allay. Grace is emotional maturity. It is a rare possession.

Most recently, I have grown aware of my capricious tendency to chase lofty goals, considering only vaguely the practicality of my choices, then changing my mind altogether a few months later. I look back on a career path that seems most closely to resemble, metaphorically of course, that of a curious dog: following one “scent” so intently, only to pick up on another one, alter his course completely, and earnestly follow his nose until the next thing strikes his fancy.

I want to think there is something that ties together all my disordered yet earnest wandering (the dog does, ultimately, make it around the block, right?) I feel I may be on the verge of finding it, and I know part of that has to do with quelling.

A few days ago, my excited brain picked up on something. Why not, I asked myself, pursue a career in asylum law and join the Free Tibet movement and work with refugees and publish articles and tour the country and save the world and learn the Tibetan language and start practicing Buddhism and be the one to finally, personally, give China the big old boot? And right away this time, there was another part of me that sighed and rolled her eyes. There are many reasons that, although it would be a very noble path, it is not the one for me.

It is the hot fudge brownie sundae with sprinkles. It sounds so good. But I know I would rather treat myself, gracefully, to something else.

in with the old

There is a thought I have been mulling over and around, something I have wanted to explore but haven't been sure the proper format or style with which to meditate on the issue. But just now I was reading about these "new cities" - Shenzhen and Dubai - and they struck me as emblematic.

For years I have wondered when this generation's fascination with all things 'retro' would subside. Being an unavoidable member of said generation, I will certainly admit to being of the same mind. Old cowboy boots, vintage dresses, antique boudoir, retro-print hand towels: I got 'em. I am only now, however, beginning to understand, perhaps, why I like them so much.

Think of Europe - the way the folks there harken back to better times, the way Americans tour around and gasp and wish we had that kind of living history at our fingertips, and are convinced that the Renaissance architects and painters and writers really knew how to live. Then we come back home and put on an old Dylan record, and lace up our Chucks, and walk down to the dive bar with the orange and brown upholstered chairs and Schlitz beer (it's back!). Maybe we even bring along a pair of big aviators for the walk over. Or just for style.

But what style? The style of our parents. The style of our grandparents. Quaint and appealing, yes. But why? What happened to The Present?

So along come China and India, building their new cities around all the little old towns and settlements (kind of like we did in the U.S.). Constructing the shiniest, tallest, and most different-looking architecture you've ever seen. "They want to make everything new" because they are the future of economic and cultural hegemony and they know it.

Could it be that Americans are finally letting go? We'll just bask in our memories of the good days - the infant days of Rock 'n' Roll - when we had it going on, we think. We're the new Europe. We brought a lot to the world for a few centuries, and now it's someone else's turn. Is that it?

taken out of context

I think it is necessary to spend some time with your self every so often, to know one's self... if that is ever possible. Just as soon as I think I've learned something about who I am, I tend to prove myself wrong. And it usually has to do with context. Here is the thing -

Last night I went to a party with some old friends. Friends from my old job, I should say - the Big Four job. And they are all doing well... in the monetary sense. Yes, there are a few who are finishing up law school and business school and thus are not technically "in the money", but are on a certain and well-laid-out plan to arrive at "the money". I am not concerned for their well-being, let's just say.

So here I was. Sans made-up face, sans elaborate strappy heels, sans well-fitted jeans. I did have with me: some groceries from Trader Joe's, my piano music in a beat-up messenger bag, and a new haircut (although it needed a wash). And as I described "what I've been doing" to various old acquaintances, and tried not to talk about money - I have a tendency to exclaim about things that cost far more than they should, and brag when I've snagged a bargain - my mind began to wander. I thought about their nice lifestyle, and how I could actually get back on that track and be in their shiny pointy shoes if I wanted. And for a moment, I did want it, which was strange.

What is it about the mentality of a group, the phenomenon of being surrounded by people who are all somewhat alike, that makes you decide you want to be like them, too? It is frustrating for me to look back on various moments in my life when I made decisions based almost entirely on what the people around me were doing. And here I was in that situation yet again.

I wonder this: do we truly choose our friends and make our own choices? Or, in some ways, do our friends and our choices find us? And is there ever a way to truly be an individual, or are our actions forever governed by the strongest personalities in our nearest vicinity? I don't necessarily think there is a right or wrong in this realm, but I do find it fascinating.

That I actually, quite seriously, considered applying to law school last night.

get scared

I like this. I like when "new studies" uphold my you-have-to-do-the-thing-that-scares-you philosophy.

I must say, however, that I don't like that it falls under the 'business' section in the Times, or the fact that the expert on this issue is an "executive change consultant". That phrase makes me gag. I don't think I could say it out loud without literally choking.

Consultants and business-people like to state the obvious. So maybe, by that logic, everyone must already know that it's healthy to try new things and stimulate your brain every once in a while. It would be nice if everyone already knew that. Would render this post - and, indeed, this entire site - quite superfluous.

stand back

This week I was reading about the history of Western thought and then I was looking at nytimes.com (which, certainly, plays its own small role in the history of Western thought) and something intrigued me about their "most blogged" list of articles. Not about the list itself, but about the fact that it exists and how I was sure there was a very telling sociological / anthropological study in there somewhere - about the type of people who read the New York Times online and the particular articles they are interested in. For example, the "most blogged" story today was about high gas prices, which could be interpreted to mean that most online readers either own cars or rely heavily on crude oil... or are environmentalists encouraging their readers to be independent of oil, or... Whatever it means, I was bemused by the way my brain instantly tried to make sense of the data presented. It was how I was trained in college - look at all the facts and information and numbers, and make it make sense!

I thought about how when we are young, there is a point at which the world becomes overwhelming. When we travel for the first time, for example, we begin to understand ourselves as part of a larger world, and we realize how very much we do not know about who we are. So we try to make sense of it all. I used to think it was funny, in college, the way we existed in our removed little microchasm - discussing our lives in theoretical terms that ended in "-ization", spending hours on a math problem without writing down a single number. My roommate once said, we all have our own models for understanding the world, and everything we see, hear, experience, has to fit into that model somewhere. We choose a mode of interpretation - our college major, supposedly - and this is how we process the overwhelming amount of information to which we are exposed.

Lately, I have begun to question this codification in favor of a new philosophy: observation and acceptance. I simply find the world fascinating as it is. Perhaps it is because I have not been able to fully commit my mind to any one methodology; and springtime and a recent bit of good fortune have inspired me to see everything as beautiful and unique and worthwhile. If I could step to the podium for a moment, I would say this: it is time to step back. Stop trying to force things to make sense, just listen, watch, absorb. It takes concentration and effort, but I believe it will bring peace to this Western world.