A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Dear Chris,

I think I seek in relationships new ways of looking at the world and passionately prospering in it. I also find the desire to experience many different types of experiences as possbile. Sometimes II find the urge to be able to look aback upon my life and be able to seamlessly interject into any conversation, "Oh, I had a girlfriend who was interested in that." What does this mean? Does it provide a replacement for my own failures to grow and explore. Do I look to new people to lead me in new directions? I find more often than not I am led to do things because other people suggest that I do them. At least in the past, it was very rare that I continue with a pursuit that I myself was interested in. An early interest in Debate in middle school (we only had a high school team) was quickly gobbled up by a zeal for Academic Team (known as Quiz Bowl to the majority of the Union). I was drawn into Wing Chun Kung Fu by my dear friend Rafa. Same for my rush of St. A's, which ended disappointingly and I still look back at with a slight wonder as to whether or not that would have been beneficial to my mind and spirit. My birth into the YPMB was facilitated by the lovely Monica Cowan, and then reinforced and driven home by my then-girlfriend (I find this ironic as the growth I wished to undergo socially led me to believe I should no longer date her, which proved to be a correct choice in hindsight as there was more wrong with our relationship than I realized at the time).

Since then I have become better, pursuing Buddhism (fruitlessly, at the moment), volunteer work (also fruitlessly), biking, Kickboxing, and Yale Student Round Table with little outside impetus (I mean, you suggested YSR and JJJ pushes biking, but I am going to credit myself with the majority of the intiatitve for these things).

I also have noticed that I have a tendency to not invite people to join me in my endeavors. I'm not quite sure what I mean by this, in terms of examples, but it seems I do a very poor job of trying to include friends not in a social circle of mine into that social circle. While I can make up excuses for why I do such things as that I assume my other friends are too busy, I think the real reason why I do it is because it will only result in my other friends stealing the show and claiming what little bit of limelight and fame (these are poor words for what I mean, but the point must be getting across) I have among my friends in said social group. I know, for example, that my roommate George is much more socialable and charismatic than I am, and I would sincerely fear his ability to steal the limelight. This admission reflets on me poorly, I'm sure, but I really don't care (not because I don't care about my spirit and self, but that I don't care about exposing the nastier parts of it to the world, provided that I strive to fix them). I think I'm going to try to embrace your over-arching openess and honesty policy, although I am a bit apprehensive as, for example, while you are on good terms with most,if not all, I am on very poor terms with one or two, as you are probably aware. I do not wish to make things worse with them, but at the same time, I would hope that they can deal.

I have spent the majority of my time in flight reading "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" by James Joyce. I just finished a chapter in which Stephen Dedalus cofesses his sins, and the whole chapter was filled with images of hell and the calm that Dedalus feels when he is forgiven. As much as I scoff at papist visions of damnation (ok, so I really like saying papist, it's just a cool word), I could definitely empathize with the feeling of lightness that comes with doing good.

It's funny, because I can see the benefits of having a religion be the passion by which you live, the passion that we both seek and speak of regularly. It must be the same zeal with which a soldier trains to defend his country, or a lover muses and plans to delight his beloved, an engineer builds his project in his head as he walks, or a poet interrupts whatever he is doing, tearing towards a piece of paper to put the promising poem to print.

I think I would make a very good man of religion, perhaps. Even now I have no problem embracing such irrational thoughts as "everything will work out for the best," or "this is the best of possible worlds." I find that I sacrifice very little with these beliefs, although perhaps I'm just not thinking them through properly enough (and if I'm not, I really don't care to). It's funny, because I can understand inherently what a muck our nation is in, as you cannot rationalize away something that is accepted as faith. This is why such morons opposing homosexuality exist, I feel.

It's intersting when people think of defenses of homosexuality (if you can fathom that such a thing even requires a defense). It seems that the major defense (and I use this word for lack of a better) lies along the inborn nature of one's attraction and sexuality, and since it is not under their control, it is something they can't be judged or penalized for, and therefore should be treated along the same lines as race or gender (which I completley agree with). I find it funny solely because growing up and rationalizing to myself and to others why there was nothing wrong with homosexuality, I took it purely from the point of view of a matter of preference. "I personally hate the color yellow," I would explain, "But that doesn't mean that those who do deserve lesser rights or have something wrong with them." This is a simply logical argument, without any appeals to science, which is multiple times more powerful.

This ends my airplane post.


Love,

Alan