Bittersweet Beauty (But it's mostly bitter)

I have an unnatural obsession with beautiful people. Gender is not important; a beautiful person is living art, and should be recognized as such. Hence my infatuation with not only Scarlett Johansson and Halle Berry, but Taylor Lautner and Bradley Cooper. I follow their fashion choices and cosmetic forays with an insatiable fervor, not to mention they're media exploits. However, much like impressionist art, beautiful people are best appreciated from afar, for the closer one gets the more numerous the problems with the concept become.

In the case of impressionist art, one can employ the adage, "good from afar but far from good." An up close investigation of Renoir's Le Moulin de la Gallette would reveal seemingly frozen waves of paint cracking with age, adopting no specific feature of the scene they compose. One consequently loses the significance of the piece by literally failing to see the big picture. Yet one does not face the same dilemma when confronted with the beauties of the world in the flesh. In fact, closeness is most desirable in these circumstances, and a bad angle is hard to find. Why then are these flawless creatures of humanity best regarded at a distance? Jealousy. By being forcibly confronted with the reality of people exponentially more attractive than oneself, a person's self esteem plummets further than the average Pamela Anderson neckline.

"But Daniel!", you say, "People already suffer from low self esteem due to constant bombardment by unrealistic images of scantily clad women and perfectly sculpted men in advertisements and the media. Actually meeting them face to face wouldn't make a difference." I will concede that such is the case, but I would counter on two points. Firstly, these people need to man the fuck up. Anyone whose self esteem can be so severely damaged by television has an unhealthy attachment to it in the first place. Secondly, you are forgetting the disconnect between concept and practice. By actually experiencing that which has only manifested itself in thought and fantasy and knowing that we cannot take part in the tangible facet thereof, we become overwhelmed by jealousy, resentment and sadness.  

Recently, I have found myself in this precise predicament in the New Residence Hall lobby. The culprits are two incredibly attractive young people who are not only gorgeous but in a relationship with each other. One is a short brunette with large rectangular classes (they work, trust me), the other a tall and muscular dirty blond with a very symmetrical face and fantastic bone structure. Every time I see one of them my heart burns with jealousy and I ask myself why the blessing of physical appeal was not bestowed upon me. When I see the two in tandem, I begin to see the merits of a Harrison Bergeron-esque society. I suppose my consolation prize for all of this is a snarky intellect and an unwarranted high opinion of myself.

My English teacher told me that clothes were invented not out of necessity for warmth but because the vast majority of human beings are ugly. While this still holds true, I suppose that being in the presence of genuine beauty isn't all bad. Though burning jealousy wins out, I can't deny that a small part of me smiles inside knowing that the world is still capable of fueling my hobby of stalking the lovelies of the world.

Stand Up Eight

When I left the suburbs of Raleigh for downtown Montreal, I was filled with a sense of boundless opportunity. I would soon be free of the constraints of high school drama (to be replaced with a more potent variety) and the teenagers with whom I had spent the past four years tirelessly working and slacking to get into college. I was nervous, not knowing anyone in Canada, and thrilled, as I knew no one in Canada. I had an opportunity my friends lacked in that I could totally reinvent myself without a constant reminder of the person I used to be walking around in the form of my fellow students. I was the only one of my friends to leave the state, and one of three from a class of over 600 to leave the country. I didn't feel that the world was my oyster, more that it was an endless library with each aisle and tome containing new people and experiences which would have a significant impact on my life to come.

As is so often the case, I found my theory to be correct; yet the impacts of the people and experiences I was to encounter spanned the gamut from wonderful to terrifying. I made friends from every walk of life, countries whose capitals I did not know (which doesn't happen often), and who spoke more languages than could be counted on one hand. It was this time in my life, this time being the incredibly recent past of last semester, that I collided with my largely inelastic limits on alcohol consumption and self motivation.

I started my freshman year of college under the mistaken impression that I was my sister. My sister, who I love dearly, likes to have a good time. She's incredibly intelligent and studious, but when she goes out for the night you know it's a party. As I also like to indulge from time to time, I figured that our mutual tendency to be people about town fell in line with our corresponding interests in French and political science. Thus, I figured my college experience would be similar to her's. Party every weekend, leave at midnight, come back at four, and do it all over again the next day. My liver did not take kindly to this idea, and made it quite clear by forcing me to my knees before the porcelain altar on more than one occasion. I soon discovered the joys of a night in, although I became burdened with guilt that I was spurring the opportunities the city afforded me, opportunities that were prime factors in my decision to hop the border.

As the pressure mounted from my course load and I began to drift apart from people on my floor (a matter of differing interests more than confrontation), I soon felt the sinister tendrils of anxiety curling around my psyche. When I was driven to a panic attack during frosh week due to excessive drinking, I assumed it was an isolated incident. However I became doubtful that this was the case as I became increasingly anxious as the term progressed.

It started out with abstaining from weekend outings with the floor. I opted to stay in, preferring not to tempt fate and revisit the day's meals. Having only experienced these flutters of panic in the isolation of my own room, I soon began to associate my room with heightened anxiety. As you can imagine, this made attempting to fall asleep somewhat of a chore to say the least. By mid October I was completely off alcohol, fearing it's panic inducing effects, and my appetite had waned to the point where my daily caloric intake came from a cup of coffee and a croissant.

The week before I was scheduled to see my sister and our mutual friends in Boston was without a doubt the most grueling of my life. By this point severe anxiety was a constant companion, driving me to hyperventilation every waking moment and abolishing my appetite and sense of thirst. I ate nothing and forced myself to drink water, an act that was met with intense waves of nausea which inspired more terror at the prospect of throwing up (an irrational fear to be sure). I did anything I thought would help reduce the level of anxiety that had my life in a death grip, but nothing worked. Depression set in not long after, and I became overcome with sadness and fear. The upside to this was that crying superseded the panic, and every night of that week I would go to my room and pray for a thought tragic enough to force me to tears. In sorrow, anxiety could not touch me, and I found respite in sobbing into my pillow. It got to the point where I fantasized about death because of the lack of anxiety a corpse experiences six feet under (to be clear, I wasn't suicidal, I just thought about death in the philosophical context of the absence of feeling and emotion).

This may seem like an extreme reaction to anxiety, but for those of you unfamiliar with the feelings of a panic attack, allow me to give you a crash course. First, you feel a flutter in your stomach, which I describe as the evil twin of the adrenaline rush one gets on a roller coaster. This is followed by nausea and a loss of control over one's breath. The only thought running through your head is why do I feel this way? You are utterly terrified of this emotion and anything that could amplify it. In short, you feel as if you're going to die. This was my life. I spent hours walking around the neighborhood around my dorm in hopes that the cold would freeze the panic out of me. The one time I forced myself to eat a salad, I became nauseous and subsequently refused to use that particular salad dressing even after my appetite began to return. I moved my furniture in hopes that it would break the association I had between feelings of panic and my dorm room. None of this was effective.

Figuring I had nothing to lose in leaving the country for a weekend, I went ahead with my trip as scheduled. I decided that seeing my sister and friends would be a positive change in my life that could just break the cycle of panic that had engulfed me for the past several weeks. My mini vacation helped significantly, and while I was by no means back to normal I felt almost reborn. I spent my first week back reveling in my ability to eat and not going into fits of terror at the drop of a hat. I decided that the true test of my return to normalcy would be going out Halloween weekend. If I could make a successful trip out with friends and not spiral into a panic, I knew I'd be on the road to recovery. I failed in my endeavor, and a subsequent trip to my favorite club solidified my aversion to both drinking and going out.

While greatly diminished, my anxiety was by no means cured. As I only felt the feelings of panic at night, I soon refused to leave the dorm after dark. I could not stand to talk, hear, or read about alcohol or the act of vomiting, and when I came across these subjects in books I became uncomfortable and pushed to the edge of anxiousness. I found that I could stay in my room only if I had all the lights on and was particularly positioned on my bed. I soon came to the conclusion that the only cure for my condition was the impending month long break I would have without the stress of classes in a familiar setting surrounded by the people I love.

A month at home was precisely what I needed. I spent every day watching TV from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to bed, and I loved every single minute of it. I never got bored, and I felt that rather than wasting my time I was detoxing and healing the deep mental wounds of the past two months. After discovering that I had lost 20 pounds out of stress (an unhealthy occurrence in someone who's 6' 4" and only weighed 160 pounds to begin with) , I dedicated myself to restoring my appetite and original body weight. The day before I left to return to Montreal, I felt renewed.

Since my return from winter break, I have slowly undergone the arduous process of mentally desensitizing myself to the triggers I had developed the previous semester. I began to gradually force myself out after dark, and I even went out my first weekend back. I had gone from contemplating death to returning to my former life of occasional partying. While I'm still not completely back to normal, I take solace in the Japanese proverb that says, "Fall seven times, stand up eight." I am in the process of picking myself up from my seventh fall, and I'm too smart and too dedicated to let anything keep me from standing at full height, ready to wander the shelves of this library of a world and delve into its endless volumes of people and all that comes with them. 

I am seriously concerned about my recent lack of motivation in the field of creative writing. Rarely do I find myself at a loss for words, and when I am faced with a predicament such as this I can't help but wonder what existential force is powerful enough to stay my hand at the keyboard. It's not that I believe my thought process to be so overwhelmingly ingenious that it is immune to obstacles of boredom. On the contrary, someone who always has something to say is rarely a person worth listening to. It's simply that I'm always thinking, deluding myself into believing that my opinions and observations are worthy of praise. The only thing in which I truly take pride is not my powers of perception but my ability to convey what I see and think in a manner that is eloquent, spell binding and at times humorous. In short, I seek to captivate people's interest in what would be in the hands of a lesser writer a truly mundane subject.

Thus I'm terribly worried that my stymied creative flow is foreshadowing a devolution in my intellectual prowess. By all accounts I am not an attractive man, I am not physically fit in the slightest and I have the stage presence of a four year old. Ergo, I rely on what I perceive to be my one true talent, writing. Am I intelligent? I would say yes, but my grasp of world affairs, the French language and the American political system is something that could easily be taught to someone with a greater work ethic and less acidic tongue than myself. I chalk this up to constantly being surrounded by people far more motivated, dedicated and linguistically well versed than I, and consequently I feel greatly disheartened living down the hall from a girl who speaks three languages and is the founder of a multi-national charity.

Where do I turn for inspiration? Should I address the shimmering coat of snow that blankets the uneven field on campus, the dangerously poised frozen stalactites keeping guard at the windows of every house? Of course not, such imagery would be hideously cliche. I am truly at a loss. There are a million things on which I would love to give my opinion, but I have neither the credibility nor following to merit a detailed explanation as to why a combination of Keynesian economic theory and tax increases are the cure to the current fiscal crisis facing the United States. Even among the things we pass; time, gas, and judgment, I have found no witty critique blossoming in my temporal lobe.

What does a writer do to fill his empty mind? Oscar Wilde liked absinthe, Tom Wolfe his white suits. What I need is a defining characteristic that generates both recognition and mystique. I'm much more partial to bourbon, and a student budget is not conducive to purchasing suits. An ideal solution would be a complete change of venue, a trip to a foreign yet developed locale such as Barcelona or Lyon. I could make broad generalizations in concise paragraphs about cultures enriched by millenia of history, and given the widespread ignorance of young people they would hang on my every word. Montreal is nice, but it lacks that prestige that comes with flying transatlantic.

Thus, my course of action is clear. Finding the means to achieve the ends is another matter entirely, but practitioners of the arts are not to be burdened with such trifles as logic or reality. People who apply themselves to the physical and mathematical sciences are bound by the constraints of facts, and facts are so unimaginative. They may be interesting conversation pieces, or lead to breakthroughs in medicine and feats of engineering, but why bother to take the time to try and find them? Research is like an elaborate game of hide and seek, where the course is set with stringent guidelines. Writing is a process of creation where gravity doesn't matter, significant digits don't count and lobsters may have the power of judicial review.

I will concede that imagination is fueled by our perceptions of the tangible universe. It is the spark that ignites the creative flame, but consider this passage from T.S Eliot's The Wasteland.

“April is the cruelest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.”

 

Here we see lilacs, vivid shoots of color, new life and aesthetic pleasure arise from the unresponsive, lifeless expanse of dead earth, combining with man's most important thought processes. Lilacs are the great canons of literature, formed from a body that holds no whimsical content, facts. While facts can inspire in their own right by driving people to action, it is the human psyche that is the true source of creativity in this world. 

At The Level Of A Gun

I recently stated that the true enemy of hatred is public discourse. I stand by that, but when civility takes a back seat to impassioned attacks on others, the forum of discussion becomes a breeding ground for contempt and violence. Well intentioned debate walks a fine line between productive compromise and useless mudslinging, and if we ignore the former and cross over to the latter the problems we set out to solve only intensify.

It is at this point that I am obligated to address the recent tragedy in Tuscon. While I do not believe that the incendiary rhetoric of Sarah Palin or Sharon Angle inspired the murder of six people and attempted assassination of Representative Giffords, calling for "second amendment solutions" to problems in government certainly does not carry the connotation of peaceful cooperation and bipartisan compromise. There have been an overwhelming number of pieces in the media recently calling for an end to hostile speech in politics and on the home front, but they all simply repeat each other. Each one ends with the prediction that such politesse is only temporary, and sooner or later we will revert to the old tone of hostility.

I'm not advocating changing the tone of the debate. As much as I oppose hate speech on principle, it's important that it plays a role in society precisely so we can understand how futile it is to employ it. While a well penned essay can certainly sway opinions and inspire acts of both good and violence, the place where we must truly focus our energy is in cutting off the resources that enable people to carry out such acts of carnage. There is absolutely no credible reason to own an assault rifle in the United States, except perhaps for investment purposes. The threat of an oppressive government in the United States requiring deposition by armed insurrection is not only remote, but were such an instance to occur the fact that people believe they could go toe to toe with the world's only military super power armed with an assault rifle and high capacity magazines is laughable.

Even those who advocate that gun ownership is effective for personal and home defense are woefully mistaken. More people are killed or injured by their own gowns than are those against whom they would intend to use them. In fact, gun violence in the 20th century claimed more lives than World Wars I, II, the Korean War, The Vietnam War and the Gulf War combined. Yet for some inexplicable reason the NRA and Congress seem to have it in their heads (or rather their pockets) that more people owning lethal weapons makes the country a safer place. I have absolutely no idea how this is logical. I have never heard of an instance in my lifetime where a deranged gunman was stopped from committing murder by an armed civilian. Had I heard such a story, my immediate reaction would have been relief that such a person was stopped quickly followed by terror that there seems to be a large number of people with concealed weapons walking the streets. Even a man located near the scene of Representative Giffords' assassination carrying a concealed weapon admitted to having almost shot an innocent bystander after he tackled the alleged shooter to the ground, mistaking him for the perpetrator rather than the victim.

If we want to make this country a safer place, the answer is not to tone down the volume. Nobody every won a battle by sitting quietly. An argument certainly, but silence in the heat of conflict is tantamount to acceptance of defeat. Disabling the systems that enable true terror is the only foolproof way to ensure that we can resume the work of dismantling hatred and bigotry without the looming threat of violent solutions formed at the level of a gun.

I am a horrendously indecisive person. You might not think so by the way I write, but that's only because writing is the alternate universe in which I am a confident, witty, commanding person (actually, I'm fairly witty in the real world too, but here my humor is honed and edited to my exacting standards. Speaking is so unpolished; everything you say is a first draft). Every time I go shopping, whether it be for clothes, groceries or home appliances, I am entrenched in a constant battle with myself as to whether or not a) I genuinely need to purchase this item b) this item is too expensive or c) there is a cheaper alternative of comparable quality. I can spend hours browsing a minimal selection of socks, forcibly differentiating between the subtleties of midnight blue with cream toes and black with white accents (for the record, the latter option is preferable).

Perhaps the most challenging thing on which I must render a decision is the title of my entries. Too often I find the titles that drift to the forefront of my cerebral cortex are insanely hokey and have the ring of teen lit mediocrity. "Wisdom in Sandwiches" still haunts me to this day, and it's precisely that kind of Ibsen quality sludge that causes me to so frequently abstain from naming my publications. However there is one title with which I'm still wrestling, and it happens to be the title of this blog.

When I broke the promise to myself that I would never start blogging, I had to prove that I was the exception. I wouldn't try to pretend I was unique, I wouldn't profess to have unimaginable terrors in my life that my parents couldn't possibly understand, and above all I would never make arrogant claims to omniscience. A personal mantra that all young people should take to heart is one of my favorite quotes from Irish playwright Oscar Wilde, who penned, "I am not young enough to know everything". I must remain steadfast in the knowledge that the world has not yet sufficiently kicked my ass enough times for me to claim credibility.

In order to show that I was no ordinary blogger, I fashioned a name for my page that I was sure was neither cliche nor predictable (pretentious is another matter). I would not be "Just Another Nobody", or "Confessions of a 19 Year Old Kid". Such titles are for adolescents who count themselves alone in the number of people who believe them to be crafty and prodigiously skilled writers. In fact, those of you who read my first introductory post (which I have since deleted as I realized in retrospect that it wasn't worthy of publication in USA Today, let alone on my blog) know that the origins of "Tortured Letters From A Sidewalk Cafe" is neither depressing nor an attempt at invoking emotional depth. I actually chose it from a line in a David Sedaris novel, a comedic piece whose imagery struck me as both intriguing and darkly whimsical.

However, as my indecisiveness rears its ugly head, I'm forced to acknowledge that out of context, the name of this blog looks like the title of a poem from a misguided yet average youth whose parents have recently gone through a routine albeit slightly complicated divorce. If I ever post a poem on this blog, do not read any further. Ever since the death of T.S Eliot, poetry is a sure indicator that a human being is in decline. Take heart and know that no matter how much the contents of my works may stand at odds with the title of the electronic anthology that binds them together, I will never torture you with a letter from a sidewalk cafe.    

I Judge (and so do you!)

For some inexplicable reason, theme parks seem to be haven for the poorly dressed. No, I take that back; if they were havens the poorly dressed people who frequent them would stay there, giving my eyes a much needed respite. Such was the visual torture to which I was subjected on my recent vacation to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Long seen by my sister and I as a sacred pilgrimage, my Hajj for Harry was punctuated all too frequently by visions of a barrage of bros, plaid shorts fused disgustingly with striped shirts to form an ensemble so heinous I can hardly recount it here without forcibly suppressing my gag reflex.

This must be some twisted joke, I told myself as I strolled along the faux cobbled streets of not Hogsmeade. Maybe they used up all their good clothes for holiday parties and haven't had time to wash them. Maybe it's a consort of students from the local school for the blind. Perhaps they're foreign guests unfamiliar with our customs. Sadly only the latter part of my self delusional musing turned out to be true. It's remarkable, but the last place one would expect to find a global cultural exchange seems to be its ironic epicenter. Every few steps I caught snatches of a different language, French, Spanish, Chinese and something that sounded disturbingly like a gargling Italian opera singer.

But this can't be; I thought indignantly. How could these Europeans be so hideously dressed? I had seen first hand back at school that everyone but me owns a Burberry scarf, and as Montreal is one of North America's more European cities, with a large number of McGill students hailing  from the continent, I was wrought with confusion at seeing these unfortunately clad tourists.

On the bright side, I told myself, at least I'm a shoo in for best dressed. My new found stylistic superiority did wonders to improve my mood, and I fell back on my favorite pastime, judging people. Now before you close your browser window, let me explain my abrasive frankness when it comes to critiquing. Everyone, without exception, makes judgments. Hundreds of judgments on a daily, perhaps hourly basis. You may not be conscious of it, but each time you make a choice, you are judging that the choice you make is the superior option to the alternative. When you think to yourself, my goodness he/she is gorgeous! You are judging a person's appearance, albeit in a positive manner. So I ask those of you who take issue with my criticisms, what harm is there in acknowledging a universal human characteristic?

"Well, my mother told me if you don't have anything nice to say don't say it at all!" you reply in a breathy, confrontational tone. Your mother is a kindhearted fool. Undoubtedly she means well and is a sweet lady (as most mothers are), but she fails to grasp the long term harm that is inflicted by withholding judgment. When emotions and thoughts are stored away, forcibly detained by our oral musculature and good manners, they fester. Like an anaerobic bacterium, these thoughts multiply and infect your psyche, breeding contempt and distorting your original discomfort into genuine hatred. The best way to avoid this is to vent your frustrations as soon as possible and in a constructive way. "But Daniel!" you triumphantly exclaim, "Your harsh critiques are anything but constructive. Look at your degrading syntax!" Au contraire confused reader. What my syntax lacks in politesse it makes up for in originality. Constructive criticism does not, by definition, have to be kind, and by my count venting one's feelings through creative writing is an activity in the construction of detailed observation. By starting a conservation or expressing your opinions to what I certainly hope in my case is an attentive audience, one removes the veil that shields hatred from it's true arena of defeat, public discourse.

In fact, now that I think about it, a theme park is the perfect vehicle for public discourse. It's a veritable display of dysfunctional families, overwhelming joy, crushing defeat and vomiting. What's more universal than that? Perhaps we could resolve controversial issues with greater ease if we were to turn what is now a circus of catcalling and hyper-partisanship into a thrilling thematic venue of the human character. After all, who wants an exit wound from bitter infighting when you can exit through the gift shop?

Ever since people have discovered the crushing nonexistence of Santa Claus, they feel that they must take it upon themselves to personally and unequivocally kill the notion of an obese senior citizen slipping down chimneys to deliver presents to billions of children the world over in the span of roughly eight hours.

As an atheist who was raised in a Jewish household whose patriarch is a professor of psychology, I feel that this behavior is a petty form of self validation and schadenfreude in order to compensate for the crushing sadness that engulfed these newly converted infidels when they were children. There had to be some way to justify the sheer idiocy of sitting next to a fire pit with milk and cookies, waiting for a knick knack bearing home invader to appear. Ergo, many self proclaimed hilariously ingenious people both young and old have done a 180 and now mock the lunacy of the idea of Santa Claus in order to save face and scrounge a few laughs.

These arguments start out logically enough. How is it even possible, assuming that one manages to amass a team of flying reindeer, to fly all over the world and deliver presents in less than 24 hours? Of course, that's simply ridiculous. Even further, the idea that one man alone could do it is insane, it would require a team of at least 600! Oh absolutely, a veritable army of Santas. And then to think that a person of such girth could conceivably squeeze himself down the standard dimensions of a chimney, and the fact that millions of people don't have chimneys! Yes, the global housing spectrum is quite wide. Plus how would there be enough room in the sled for billions of presents, varying in size and shape? It does seem inconsistent with the laws of physics.

All of these assertions creep into yule time conversations, and what's remarkable is that each person who makes these arguments believes himself to be the first. It's painful really, seeing the bright eyed and expectant looks that appear on the visages of these would be comedians, anxiously waiting for a laugh, a congratulatory "I've never heard that one before! That's brilliant!" Of course I begrudgingly oblige, giving them an amused chuckle so as to let them save face but at the same time convey my impatience and annoyance with their banal holiday tidbits. It's astonishing that people view these supposedly comical tirades as necessary. Convincing people that Santa Claus is a figment of our imagination reinforced by scheming holiday card companies is much like trying to convince the public that Meryl Streep is a phenomenal actress. Yes, we know.

Therefore, I am instituting a reflexive moratorium on denunciations of Santa Claus. No longer shall I be subjected to unfunny and cliched rants from people desperate for an admiring audience. Instead, let's encourage people to put their persuasive skills to good use and convince people of the nonexistence of more important things, like Creationism. Not only is the idea of a world less than 6,000 years old laughable, but efforts put towards converting the philistines who profess such bullshit are far more appreciated this holiday season than denouncing Kris Kringle.