29 XII 2001 - 22:47 - vita17

Docs gotten, multiple Indigo Girls albums bought (for jaw-droppingly low prices- I love you Amoeba!), and my sister just told me she wants to have a Talk with me.

This is never good.

Because these are the talks where I get told that I am a worthless ungrateful son who has a major Attitude Problem. Which I suppose I do. And then I get told that I should be more grateful to my parents and that my behavior is inexcusable and that she knows that she's not the best example but at least she knows now what she didn't then. And then what I like the least about all of this happens: I go to bed, and the next day finds me more or less unchanged.

And I know I'll feel like something the cat we don't have dragged in as a "gift." And maybe, just maybe, I'll make an effort to be a better person for a couple of months, and sometimes it will actually work - I'll practice, I'll be focused, I'll write something that turns out to be more than drivel, there will be no lies, and I will be the model of a respectful child.

Yeah, you caught "for a couple of months," too. Because then it's back, and I don't know how to make the good stay, and I hate that I'm not perfect like this and I hate that, quite honestly, I have no desire to try harder to keep it all up. And so I slide back into (easily) being an asshole to my friends and being even worse to those I honestly don't care about and being contrary to my parents and, you know, just being.

But it doesn't end the guilt at any of it and it doesn't make that little voice in the back of my head shut up when the little voice says I should be trying harder. Perhaps I'm a case for the insane asylum several times over by now, but I don't know. It seems like I'm more in love with the idea of trying to do the right thing than I'm actually trying to do the right thing, and that's a bitter pill to swallow. I mean, look at me - here I am on Diaryland again, searching for reassurance that I'm not a bad person from people who have never met me and haven't had time to study my character flaws.

I talked to my cello teacher today about my plans in life, mentioned that I might want to enter the Foreign Service or become a cellist or something... he was sort of helpful. But the fact that he brought college up, and what I want to do in college, sort of brings home the fact that it's not quite as far away as I thought it was. And despite everything everyone has been telling me, I still feel some sort of obligation to myself to have hammered out what I want to do with myself by then. It doesn't have to be what I do for the rest of my life, just a Five-Year Plan sort of like the ones Nehru was so fond of, but not, because I'm not India, and I don't really have all that much of an economy to run. But in terms of choosing where I want to go, it would be really helpful to have that figured out. And it's weird - he told me I was about three years late with the whole "shit, I can't keep all of these activities AND school up at the same time" deal - and it's true, I'm almost at breaking point. I could still be a good orchestral player if I tried. If I dropped everything else right now, I might even have a chance at a solo career. Not that I'd want one and not that I mean to be trumpeting my own abilities or agonizing here. (But then again, that's what I always do here, isn't it? I mean, agonize. Although there is some trumpeting going on. Must... whip... self... for... pride... and the sad thing is, part of me isn't joking.)

And I want a clarity, and I suppose that the yearning for clarity brings with it a sort of desperation that can only cloud matters further. "I want to be a better person" is a bit of a general New Year's resolution, but it's been one of mine for at least three years now (yes, I know, that isn't a long time, shush), and I see myself getting maybe worse. Either that, or I'm just getting better at being critical of myself, at finding old wounds.

And this is when, just for a moment, I wish my sisters would leave - when the euphoria of their arrival has worn off a bit and I see myself as I see myself for the rest of the year, just through another set of eyes. And I can't put off the Talk any longer, really, and I know it will make me feel worse, and there is no escaping it and there is, in the end, no escaping myself.

And I feel that I am so much more talk than action, and that when it comes down to it, phrases that might seem pretty for a while lose their luster when no action follows. And I make talk of being a better person, of being more productive, and I sit on my ass and whip myself instead. And I wonder that I can see all this and still do nothing about it.

Any of you who are older? Have you been here? Can you tell me how to get out of this loop?

Because quite frankly, I'm sick of this all; I will prove myself to be just as impatient as anyone else and demand some small improvement in my character before not too much time has passed. But the thing is, it's pain of two different sorts when I excoriate my own faults and when I set about correcting those faults, and although the latter might make me feel better, I prove myself a creature of habit when I retreat to the older, more familiar pain. And I laugh at people who tell me I'm mature and precocious because I'm not. I'm not, and as I write this it strikes me as amusing how this entry is turning out rather like Isaac Asimov's representation of the course of a pure dystopian novel: "Isn't it awful-awful-awful."

This entry is getting long and pointless. So I think I'll end it. I'm glad you updated, Adam, and to everyone else whose diaries I read (and whose guestbooks I sign), I should offer apologies, because I haven't been doing much of anything recently and so haven't been reading your diaries. I'm almost caught up, though.

I'm so damned sick of this and so fond of my little rut that I won't stretch just a bit to change my course a bit. How stupid is it that I realize this and still fail to do anything?

Grr. Arrgh. *kicks at things*

Oh, and Merry Christmas, y'all. I hope you have a happier New Year than I seem to be bound to have. (Yeah, that was awkward - my brain doesn't feel much like stretching.)

rota, rotae f. wheel