Eleven Years Ago Today
Eleven years ago today I was at my Admit Weekend and the best party of my life. There was a live band that played GNR's "Patience," and I danced to it with a shirtless wrestling team, and back then I was so impressed with their muscles that I didn't care how short they were, and at the end of the night there was spontaneous nekkid-ass-naked streaking out into the streets (by everyone but me and the shirtless wrestling team). It was glorious. I thought, Stanford is the coolest place in the world!
...and thus began my great duping.
The eleven years since then were in some ways be a fruitless attempt to rediscover such a night. I would have thought, given how angry I am now, that I would begrudge my 18-year-old self that innocence that made it possible to be so enthralled with a good time. I was surprised to realize I don't. It warms me to have that happy memory, and to know there was a time when I could experience perfect joy. I know I couldn't have that now, but it has everything to do with how I have changed inside, and nothing to do with how the world has changed. That too makes me happy, because it makes me think of how much wealthier I am now in experience, though at a dear cost. I couldn't know the kinds of magnitude of beauty and intelligence and integrity and truth that I know now, because back then I hadn't experienced disappointment and hatred and pain.
And so I cosy up to the old memories of a bygone happy self, while I spend my day hacking up a phlegm-addled lung, watching Capital Market lectures on video to make up for my delinquent mediocrity, and printing, organizing, tabbing my hundreds of pages of reading, most of which consist of meaningless SEC filings.
Postscript: Then I went to Walmart and tried to buy some industrial-strength shoe glue. The cashier wouldn't let me because I had left my ID in my car, and he wasn't convinced that I wasn't a glue-huffing teenager. Ha! How little I've progressed, and yet how far I've fallen.
...and thus began my great duping.
The eleven years since then were in some ways be a fruitless attempt to rediscover such a night. I would have thought, given how angry I am now, that I would begrudge my 18-year-old self that innocence that made it possible to be so enthralled with a good time. I was surprised to realize I don't. It warms me to have that happy memory, and to know there was a time when I could experience perfect joy. I know I couldn't have that now, but it has everything to do with how I have changed inside, and nothing to do with how the world has changed. That too makes me happy, because it makes me think of how much wealthier I am now in experience, though at a dear cost. I couldn't know the kinds of magnitude of beauty and intelligence and integrity and truth that I know now, because back then I hadn't experienced disappointment and hatred and pain.
And so I cosy up to the old memories of a bygone happy self, while I spend my day hacking up a phlegm-addled lung, watching Capital Market lectures on video to make up for my delinquent mediocrity, and printing, organizing, tabbing my hundreds of pages of reading, most of which consist of meaningless SEC filings.
Postscript: Then I went to Walmart and tried to buy some industrial-strength shoe glue. The cashier wouldn't let me because I had left my ID in my car, and he wasn't convinced that I wasn't a glue-huffing teenager. Ha! How little I've progressed, and yet how far I've fallen.
posted by Rex at 8:53 PM
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