learning is for chumps

i too was approached to coalesce my 2008 experiences into a tell-all "list" of "what i learned." i've put it off for a while because, honestly, i was a bit frightened of putting this year in review. it was simultaneously fantastic and fucking terrible (though nowhere near as terrible as 2007. fuck 2007). i traveled the world then got a knee-buckling slap in the face by the utter failure that was the past 4 months of my life. 2008 was a pendulum, and if there was one thing i learned, it was anything we learn we can unlearn in an instant. all it takes is a catalyst.

but after reading jeff ze pen's treatise on what makes us human i finally felt ready to spill my own beans, if only in vague response to some of his generalizations that i don't necessarily agree with. mostly about love, because that's what i spend most of my waking (and unwaking, now that i think about it) time concerned with.

i feel that brevity will heighten the impact of most of these "facts" i've collected, so i'll keep them short unless elaboration is necessary for clarity's sake.

- learning to write with your non-dominant hand is one of the most difficult brain puzzles one can engage in.

- cats are just as good as people when you're alone.

- (this one's important) love is not sex and sex is not love.

i need to pause here. it seems obvious, or cliche, or perhaps just stupid and sappily romantic, but i cannot stress how true this is. and in relation to jeffrey's hypothesis on the so-called "genuineness" of human relationships, this can either prove him right or prove him wrong. we are hardly the only monogamous creatures in the animal kingdom, and our dance of destiny looking for "true love" is our evolved version of the mating dance, no longer externalized and silly (or is it?), but now metaphysical, emotional, subtle to the oxymoronic point of aggrandizement. love is now so ethereal that it's the Platonic ideal, non-existant except in literature and our own brainwaves. "no one can tell you you're in love, you just know it. through and through. balls to bones."

but back to the point, the mating rituals of animals (arguably) only fulfill that titular purpose, i.e. mating. what i'm arguing is that we may not be the only monogamous creatures in the animal kingdom, but we are one of the few (bonobos and select porpoises aside) that mate not for the literal sense of mating but for the sake of mating, the pleasure of it. and hence my point. sex is not love. love is not sex. the two are not inextricable, but we often seem to think they have to be. all kidding and philosophizing aside though, when they are inextricable (and they can be), it's pretty heavenly. which leads me to the next point on the list:

- love is real.

and to quote The Verve, love is noise, love is pain, love is these [sic] blues that i'm singing again. end quote. but love is good too, most of the time. this one is sort of up for debate, but this is what i learned this year.

-art: i've learned a lot about creativity and i still have nothing to show for it.

that's the title of my memoirs.

- learning is for chumps.

i suppose i should address my title. after spending a good 5 months abroad, i discovered something (and i coin a phrase from that movie that nearly ruined us all): learning's the problem. experiencing, now that's the solution. if you set out to learn something, odds are you'll be disappointed. sure, it's a matter of semantics, a minor adjustment of one's mind-set, but it makes all the difference in the world. i think we all knew this already, or i at least get that sense sometimes that we put too much emphasis on one thing, when we really should be focusing on this other, similar, but completely separate thing. it's kind of stupid, but i had to travel half-way around the world for it to be true to me.

- the world is in a constant state of flux, from the macro-sense to the micro-sense to the meta-sense.

one last pause for explanation. stasis is impossible. never strive for stasis, for status quo, for sterility. there is no end point, no center of the maze. we all fear this but in truth, the fear is what makes us accept it. without fear there is no change. keep searching, fellow maze-wanderers. we'll all find Nowhere together.

i suppose this could be considered Part One. i don't think i've even really touched on what i actually wanted to say when i finally did sit down and cope with what i experienced in the past 12 months. it's possible that i'll come back for Part Two. then again, i may just move on. hello 2009.