“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”

^Emerson is still my favorite.

Confession: I compulsively make lists. Maybe I've said this before, but I have lists of everything, especially of things that are not really all that useful. Two of those lists have become more important to me, at least in an abstract way, than I ever thought they would or really intended them to: Things I Hate (e.g., pet peeves) and Things I Love.

I came to the realization one day that my list of pet peeves is significantly longer than the list of things I love. And that made me a little bit sad. I sat for a moment at my computer trying to think of more things to put on my list, and I just couldn't. Maybe I'm overthinking it (in fact, I probably am), but there's something kind of upsetting about that.

Something I've always liked about myself is that I'm very easily excited. I love the little things, the things that most people tend to pass over. I find pretty much everything interesting. But high school drained me of a good deal of my motivation, and then I moved to Philadelphia, which is basically hipster central. So lately I've gotten caught up in my generation's obsession with irony.

What that means is that it's not okay to like things anymore. People look at me funny when I get excited about some really great sign I saw, or hearing the ice cream truck drive by, or finding out some little unimportant tidbit of information. I even get looks when I get excited about bigger things, like a great movie or an interesting place I've found. I guess I let that get to me, because I started slipping more and more into the easy life of complaining.

It's so easy to be angry. To be unhappy. To be irritated by all those weird little things that are specific to our own individual tastes. It's easy to complain. That's why we have Twitter accounts like "Female Pains" and "Student Pains," dedicated entirely to pointing out all of the things that suck about being a femalestudentmaleTVshowlovercatdogpersoncaralien. We can all relate, because we all love to complain. I got some good laughs out of them for a while, but it got really old. Just stop whining already.

I find the overwhelming irony to be just a little bit lazy, because you don't ever have to look for anything to really like; you can just sit back and make fun of anything that moves. And anything that doesn't. Really just anything.

Don't get me wrong: I love sarcasm. It's great. It's smart. But it's also limited. I don't think you can live your entire life under a veil of sarcasm. It's not healthy. If we can't actually be happy or excited about anything, where will we go? How will we be able to achieve anything if nobody likes anything they're doing?

My question is why? Why must I be considered a weird person for loving things? Why have we given up on being happy? Why have we lost interest in trying to make a genuine mark on the world?

I don't want to be like that. I want to take a step back and remember what being excited is like. Remember what truly loving something is like. I'm getting there, but sometimes I need reminders. Who's with me?

Sip a honeysuckle. Step on some crunchy leaves. Listen to your favorite song (your real favorite song). Eat some ice cream. Listen to a summer night. Learn something new about something you thought you knew inside and out. Hug the sheets just after they've come out of the dryer. Be nostalgic for a moment. Think about the things that old trees have lived through. Write something important to you on physical paper with a physical pen.

Most importantly, enjoy those things.

Make what the amazing Ze Frank calls Your HappyList. Just be real. Hipsters can't last forever. Just like things, for Pete's sake. (No. Not on Facebook. Geez.)

There's a fantastic op-ed piece from the New York Times called "How to Live Without Irony", in which the author, Christy Wampole, talks about why living in such a culture of irony is so dangerous, and offers her take on why my (our?) generation is so intent on living solely ironically. There are too many amazing points to mention here, so go take a look at it. It's definitely worth your time.

Bye!
~Snooty Crumb
P.S. This writing is suuuuuper awkward. Sorry. :(

“Great heroes need great sorrows and burdens, or half their greatness goes unnoticed."

^Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn (I've not read that book, but I just looked it up and I think I want to...)

I think some people like to think that their heroes are perfect, that that's why they're heroes. But I think that the people who are able to open themselves up as real, feeling, flawed human beings are more worthy of being heroes than the people who seem like they're perfect. To know that the person you look up to more than anyone struggles with the same problems you do, to know that yes, he is a human being, too, that yes, she is flawed, too, is more refreshing and wonderful than any thoughts of perfection might have been before. Putting someone on a pedestal may be one kind of admiration, but to truly understand them as human beings is to understand that you are closer to reaching their great heights than you thought. And who doesn't want that?

------
I found that on my phone the other day. I wrote it months ago with the intent of making it a longer post, but when I found it I thought it worked just the way I left it.
A real post is kind of swirling around in my head right now and has been for about a month, so it might eventually become something. I hope.

"Railway termini are our gates to the glorious and the unknown."

^E.M. Forster
     For class this week (guess which one?), our assignment was to go to a place we'd never been before, leave all of our electronic devices behind, and just take notes. We then had to take our notes and condense them into a 1-2 page Gonzo-journalism-style article (we just watched Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas).
     I went to the 30th Street Amtrak station, which was built in the 1930s in this fantastic Art-Deco style. It was awesome. I loved being there without my phone. It was just me and a place. No infinite connections to the mass of information of the Internet, no quick way to contact other people. Just me and the train station.
     There was a part of me that was disappointed that I couldn't check my Facebook or look things up on Wikipedia. When I sat down that was what my brain expected me to do. But it was wonderful to disconnect for a little while and find myself simply present in the real world.
     I took a huge amount of notes. I would have shared them all with you, but they're far too long for anyone to be interested in (including me, probably). So here instead is my gonzo-style article. Enjoy!

I step off the SEPTA train at 30^th Street and hurry to get to the stairs to escape that horrible squealing that, for whatever reason, every Market-Frankford train makes. 7 steps, then 12. Why not 8 and 12—make it an even 20? More stairs to (thank the Lord) get out of the station. 17 and 17. Seems like a strange number. But that doesn’t matter at all. What does matter is that I’ve made it to the 30^th Street Amtrak station. 

As I step inside, I’m bombarded by the smell of too much food. Dunkin Donuts. Taco Bell. Pizza Hut. Saxby’s. Nathan’s. Ben & Jerry’s. Wendy’s. Auntie Anne’s. Subway. Aw, geez, Subway? One gross Subway smell into another. I wade through this barrage of fast food chains into the main concourse and am overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the place. The columns, the high ceilings, the long lamps, the statue that kind of reminds me of the one in the Central Services building in Brazil and consequently freaks me out just a little bit. It’s just… awesome. 

I pick an empty bench and sit down. I reach for my bag to pull out my pen and notebook, but there  is this part of my brain that expects to be checking my phone, and that’s childishly disappointed that I don’t have it. God, am I that absorbed by my phone? I like to think I’m not, that I’m more connected to the world around me than those other people buried in their technology. It turns out I’m more like them than I thought, and I don’t know whether to feel relieved or indignant about it. 

The sound in this place is fascinating. The size of the room means that you can hear absolutely everything and absolutely nothing at exactly the same time. It turns into this indistinguishable mass of noise, with this weird ambience that sounds like a constant, quietly-mumbling crowd. It always sounds like voices, but you can never make out words. The schedule above the information desk changes occasionally. It’s not digital, which is surprising but also welcome. It makes a nice “flipflipflipflipflip” noise when it changes, and there’s something kind of soothing about it. 

It’s interesting to me that a building whose sole purpose is for funneling people in and out of trains is so extravagantly beautiful. There’s no event here, and that’s precisely why I came. People don’t come here just to come here (except me, I guess). People come here just to leave it again. This is the place people go on the way to their events. The Art-Deco lamps and columns go unnoticed, because the people there didn't go there to see them. 

(Admission: while sitting on my bench writing I came to wonder what the style of the building was. I thought it was Art-Deco, but I wasn’t sure. That techno-hungry part of my brain threw a tantrum when it realized I couldn’t look it up right then and there. It is Art-Deco, it turns out, but I was surprised by my reaction to not having Wikipedia at my fingertips.) 

Anyway. What happened to that interest in making even the places of passing through worth looking at? Grand Central Station, Ellis Island, Musee D’Orsay, none of those were built for anyone to take any particular joy in being in them. They were for people-moving. For transferring people from one place to another. Was the extravagance to make a good first impression or just because the builders felt like it? If we spent so much time on those places, why don’t we also spend the same amount of time on the buildings people have to spend all day working in? 

Maybe I should have found an event to go to. This is supposed to be journalism, after all. But there’s something more interesting to me about the non-events, the things that happen in between actual events. Those non-events get overlooked by people too interested in what’s considered important. But I’m of the opinion that it’s the so-called “boring” things that make us human, and it’s high time that we start reveling in those things, too.

Have a lovely day!
~Snooty Crumb

"The enemy of art is the absence of limitations."

^Orson Welles

In unrelated news, I bought myself a Canon T4i! Riley made a sort-of cooperative but oh-so-adorable subject.

This is kind of a follow-up on my last post. Or, perhaps more accurately, this is a post about how I've reached the downside of my creativity kick: the feelings of creative inadequacy, the inability to accept anything less than perfection, the crippling self-doubt.

It seems silly for me to be so affected by these things. I mean, geez, it's not even like I have to do any of the things I set out to do. Maybe it's because I have unattainably high expectations for myself, because I expect myself to be great at everything and that I have to know everything right now. Maybe I'm just feeling intimidated by other people's intense and seemingly inherent creativity. I don't know, but I seem to have hit a wall.

I think I'm a creative person, at least in a broad sense. I like to approach everyday situations in unexpected ways, and I like to turn mundane things into strange ones. I've had entire conversations that were built on those very things: I've created a hypothetical world in which vacuuming is far more exciting than vacations and in which we live in a symbiotic relationship with our vacuum cleaners. I once improvised an entire theorem about how the Earth is actually a living dodecahedron coated in reptile scales inside of a universe-bowl. A couple of friends and I rewrote the history of the United States by re-imagining what the names of events meant. So apparently I can come up with interesting things when I'm not thinking about it.

But the moment I say something like, "Hey, I feel like writing a story," or, "I want to make a movie," or even, "Dang, this class is boring; I should doodle until it's over," my brain turns all stony and logical and I end up just staring at the blank page wondering where all of my creativity went and why I can't even think of something to doodle on my notes. Just a stick figure would do, really. A 30-second video. A short story. Something. Anything.

I guess there's some switch in my brain that detects the possibility of failure and shuts everything down. "STOP! You can't do that! It might turn out to be bad! And then you won't be successful at anything in your life ever!" (Things in my brain escalate quickly.)

So then I just become a frustrated non-artist with excellent intentions but nothing to back them up. And then my brain says, "Oh, geez. Now look at you. Can't even doodle. You'll never be successful at anything in your life ever!"

Now, when I have good ideas, they're really good. I'll give myself that. They're just so rare that when I'm in between them I get lost in this spiral. Then I'll watch a Terry Gilliam film or something and think, "Why can't I think like that?" And it's that kind of ridiculous comparison that leads to this very blog post. I mean, really, Courtney. Who else thinks like Terry Gilliam except Terry Gilliam? There is absolutely no point in comparing myself to a creative genius like that.

I think Orson Welles is right, though. Without limitations, everything is straightforward and simple. And art is rarely pure and never simple, to borrow from the incomparable Oscar Wilde (yes, I am aware that he actually wrote that about truth, but that didn't fit. So shush). So many of the most brilliant things come out of not having the funds or the materials or the time needed to do the things that were originally intended.

Maybe this is just my own limitation. I've always had a tendency to quickly get discouraged when I can't do things I feel I should be able to do (as in, well, everything, pretty much). I'll just have to be one of those people who has rare but awesome shining moments, and I guess that's cool, too.

When I started writing I had every intention of waiting to post until I'd thought some more about whether I really want anyone to read this or whether anyone would even care. But I know if I don't post it now I won't, and then I won't have learned anything. This is the kind of thing that usually I would stash in my brain and brood about for a long time until I get tired of it or something else takes its place. But in an effort to actually write something, and being (as usual) unable to think of anything else, I decided it was just as good to just be open for once. So here it is. An honest confession.

Until next time,
~Snooty Crumb

"And if you're paralyzed by a voice in your head
It's the standing still that should be scaring you instead"
~ Ben Folds Five, "Do It Anyway"
This just happened to be playing as I was finishing up and I thought it was appropriate. :)

"Incuriosity is the oddest and most foolish failing there is."

^Stephen Fry. I'm slightly obsessed with Stephen Fry.

(I apologize in advance for how long this is. Sorry. I'm excited.)
New Year's Resolutions. In February.
I've never really made New Year's Resolutions, because I know myself well enough that I know I'm not going to keep them, so I generally don't even bother. Sometimes I'll have one in my head and think to myself, "It would be kind of nice if I did this," but that doesn't count, mostly because I do that all the time. But this year I made something of a little-r-resolution that happened to be kind of at the beginning of the year. So it's a new year's resolution, but not a New Year's Resolution. (For the record, I did make a capital-R-Resolution to get in shape, but... yeah, no)
Whatever the case, my resolution this year is to start thinking again.
"Wait, what?" (That's probably what you just said to your computer.)
Yeah. I want to start thinking again. I won't go into my very long rant about how little our public school system encourages creativity and free thought, but, in case you're wondering, it's basically not at all.
As I somehow made my way through high school, I found myself running out of creative ideas quickly and getting annoyed when I had to think of something outside the box. By my first year of college it was making me extremely unhappy, only I didn't realize that that was the reason.
I finally came to the realization that I'm happiest when I'm learning about things, and not just learning about them, but thinking about them, and not just thinking about them, but thinking about them in a broader context, how they can fit into other situations, how I can make them look different. I'm that annoying person who's always saying "Did you know that...?" at every possible moment, not because I'm a pedantic arse, but because I'm genuinely interested in whatever irrelevant fact I've just happened to remember.
(By the way, did you know that George Washington was taking his own pulse as he died?)
Last semester I found a podcast called "Stuff You Should Know" from HowStuffWorks.com (which is awesome, if you haven't been there). It's these two guys who talk about pretty much everything you could think of, from autopsies to exoskeletons. That podcast was kind of what got me started on this brain-improvement kick.
This semester I'm in a class called "The Films of Terry Gilliam," which is just as awesome as it sounds. Our homework for the first week was to watch Jabberwocky and make a collage. Last week we watched Federico Fellini's 8 1/2 and Monty Python and the Holy Grail and made a comic based on a poem. This week we have to (read: "get to") watch Time Bandits and make a flipbook.

This is my collage. I was really proud of myself for making actual art with actual meaning.

The point of the class is not just to analyze Terry Gilliam, which is great anyway, but it's also to be creative and use our hands to make things. It's about taking our noses out of our technology (says the chick currently staring at the computer) and going back into the library, picking up markers and glue and scissors, and creating whatever we think is relevant or interesting or beautiful. This class is what really made me want to bring myself back into the world of creativity and creation and start to think more deeply about the things I see around me.

This is my comic, based on Keats's Sonnet XVII. If you can't read the text on the comic (you probably can't; sorry), it's basically a guy who can't decide whether he likes where he lives or not.

So I've started reading again. I took a trip to Barnes & Noble last weekend and used the gift cards I'd been saving for a year, and then that same day I stayed up late finishing one of the books I had bought for the first time in who-knows-how-long (it was The Fault in Our Stars by John Green--holy moly was it amazing. Totally worth being tired the rest of the week. Heck, I would have stayed up for days to read it).
I got some books of poetry from the University library, because I'm tired of not knowing anything about poets.
I've been looking around for German TV shows I can watch on YouTube, because I'm sad that I'm losing my German skills.
I brought my Italian textbook and a Danish Rosetta Stone CD from home because I want to expand my linguistic repertoire, which is a phrase I just made up. It sounds official, right?
And I'm back here, on my blog, where I've been neglecting to post anything, because, despite the fact that very few people actually see it, it's still a chance for me to do something interesting with my brain. And besides, I missed writing. Since my ideas are generally sparse, I guess writing about my weird self is an okay alternative.
There's a commercial for Lumosity.com where this woman talks about how much Lumosity helped her brain get smarter or whatever, and she says something along the lines of, "It was easy to work out my body, but working out my brain was hard!" It always makes me laugh and then feel a little bit weird inside. Maybe I'm just more of a nerd than I realized, but that sentence always seems backwards to me. Is it just me who thinks that push-ups are way harder than puzzles? Why should that be the case?
So this is my encouragement to you: Pick up a book. Find your box of crayons (I know you have one somewhere). Do a jigsaw puzzle. Make a movie. Do something that makes you think, but, more importantly, that makes you happy. It doesn't have to look good. Just distance yourself from the digital for a little bit and see that it's not the only place where you can find happiness. And, above all, be creative.
So long for now!
~ Snooty Crumb

P.S. I'M GOING TO LONDON THIS SUMMER!!!!!! Temple has a Study Abroad program that's just for School of Media & Communications students, so I won't just be in London, I'll be in London learning about the things that will eventually (hopefully) be my job! So if I don't keep my little-r-resolution to post more often this semester, I can at least guarantee that I'll be posting something while I'm there. But lots of things are going on right now, so at least one more post will be coming soon. Details will probably be there. :)

I've been thinking...

Before I write anything else, some disclaimers. First, I never, ever, ever, ever want to give the impression that I think I am perfect or know anything more than anyone else. Far from it. What I have to say is my opinion. That's it. I don't expect you to agree; it's just the way I see things. Second, the things I'm saying don't apply to everyone. Because, of course, generalizing about people is basically impossible. What I'm talking about just applies to the very vocal minorities with whom I happen to disagree. A lot.
Anyway.
I grew up Christian, and even though my family pretty much stopped going to church by the time I got to high school, I still mostly have maintained my Christian beliefs and values. But lately I haven't been seeing as much of what I always thought Christianity was about, and since I got to college I've been having a hard time believing what I always thought I believed in.
Our country is so unbelievably divided. Not just politically, but religiously, too. It's not just the Liberals vs. the Conservatives; it's the Christians vs. the Muslims vs. the Jews vs. the Atheists. It's "Us" vs. "Them" on all accounts. Maybe it's because of our individualistic culture, but whatever the reason, it's a battle of ideologies in which no one is willing to move an inch. It doesn't even seem to be about beliefs anymore. It's about titles. It's about doctrines. And I just don't think that's how it should work. Church leaders battling about which particular doctrine is better seems to be an utter mockery of what Christ must have envisioned for his people.
I have no intention of being at all judgmental. That would be profoundly hypocritical. But I honestly don't understand how Christians can call themselves true, loving followers of Christ when they pit themselves so pugnaciously against non-Christians and against Christians of other denominations. There is no way to be a loving neighbor when you see the world as us vs. them instead of simply a universal we.
The fundamental basis of essentially every religion is love of all people. Not "love of all people unless they're different from me." Or "love of all people unless I disagree with them." Love of ALL people. And it's hard to love someone when you're too concerned about shouting them into compliance with your beliefs. Part of being a loving Christian (or simply a loving human being) is being understanding and accommodating of other people's beliefs, lifestyles, and worldviews. Differences aren't sins. They're human.
I want to throw out a "controversial" statement: believing in God and believing in science are not mutually exclusive terms. Whoa. I know. But why can't it be that God made science? Why do those have to be separate entities? The Bible was written 2000+ years ago, when we didn't understand germs or the shape of the Earth, let a lone the structure of the universe or the way the human brain works. It's not that I doubt that the events happened. I just think that, in context, scientific discoveries can be a wonderful supplement to what's written in the Bible. The writers needed a way to explain the world around them, in much the same way as the Greeks and Romans did when they wrote their mythology. Albert Einstein (who was Jewish) always claimed that the reason he wanted to study science was so that he could better understand God. That seems to me like a wonderfully logical reason for inquiry. The fact that we've come so far in our scientific understanding should be a sign that we further understand our God and the world He created. And isn't that a wonderful thing?
The Dalai Lama says, "If scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims." If the Dalai Lama can say this about Buddhism, what's stopping us from saying it about Christianity? It's a futile struggle to try and ignore things proven to be true just to avoid admitting being wrong. It doesn't make anything better. It just makes everyone frustrated.
Look at our view of the universe. We've (almost) universally accepted the fact that the Earth is a sphere, not flat. We've accepted the fact that disease is caused by germs, not by demons. We've accepted the fact that the Sun is the center of the solar system, not the Earth. There was a time when saying those things would warrant excommunication or even execution. Now it seems silly to think otherwise. Where would we be if we denied basic scientific evidence for the sake of preserving something that wasn't intended to be preserved? We wouldn't be exploring Mars, our lifespans would be half as long, and you probably wouldn't be reading this on the Internet. We would be living at such a miniscule portion of our potential, and I'm sure that would sadden God far more than saying that the material of which the Earth is made came from stars. Anything that doesn't accept change is condemning itself to death. Languages, religions, empires, species of animals (humans included), all subject to crumble into nothing if they are unable or unwilling to account for natural changes. Our view of the universe has already changed. It doesn't seem right to stop changing it now, when scientific discovery is growing more rapidly than it ever has before.
Take these words from the Buddha: "Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it."
In short, just think. Think about what something means. Think about where it came from. Think about the context in which it was conceived. Think about where you heard it. Don't agree? Then don't agree. There's no reason to contort your brain around something that doesn't fit with your beliefs. I know I'm talking about Christianity and using examples from Buddhism, but that's not what's important. What's important is the sentiment.
Neither of my sisters consider themselves Christian. And yet, they both lead such beautiful, kind-hearted lives that any Christian would be hard-pressed to condemn them. I can't see how any God would condemn them, either. I'm hard-pressed to follow a religion that says that, because my sisters don't call themselves Christians, they don't get to heaven, even though they lead far more "Christian" lives than so many others who feel benefitted by the title. So my question is this: why is it all about the titles when it should be about the way we live and love others? This isn't Republican or Democrat or Christian or Atheist. This is human.

“Why can't somebody give us a list of things that everybody thinks and nobody says, and another list of things that everybody says and nobody thinks.”

^Oliver Wendell Holmes

It's been a very long time since I've posted anything, generally because I haven't felt that I've done anything worth a blog post. And that's no fun. SO. I'm changing it up a little bit today!
I don't know if you know, but I love, love, love lists. Sometimes I make them compulsively. I have so many pointless lists of things that, for whatever reason, I decided that I desperately needed.
My current favorite list requires a little bit of explanation. You see, my brain gets bored sometimes when I'm doing everyday things like eating breakfast or brushing my teeth (or sitting in class.....), so I just start thinking about random, random things. Usually they're super mundane things that I suddenly realize are unbelievably strange. This has been happening quite a lot recently, so I've taken to keeping a list. So without further ado, here are some things that are totally normal and yet so, so weird.

1. Jack-in-the-boxes  Really. Who decided that this was a fun idea? "I know, let's put a scary clown into a box, then put a fun crank on it and play a catchy song, and then SCARE THE CHILDREN WITH THE CLOWN." I just don't understand.
2. Peanut butter and jelly  I love PB&J. Love it. But who thought it would be yummy to put those two things together?
3. Crying  I know it's kind of unfair to call this weird, but think about it. It's almost like laughing, except that water comes out of your face and your nose gets all stuffy.
4. Parades  These have existed for thousands of years. But I wonder who made it into this kind of institution. The basic idea makes sense, but regularly scheduled ones where people come out of their houses to watch other people who may or may not be famous walk/drive slowly down a street is a little bit weird. And then sometimes they throw things at you.
5. Museums  Again, I really like museums. But kind of along the same vein as parades: who thought to get a bunch of other people's stuff and put it into a huge labyrinth of rooms for people to pay to come look at?
6. Holiday meals  Who made it kind of a requirement that everyone eats turkey on Thanksgiving and ham on Easter, but Christmas is kind of a meat free-for-all?
7. If English muffins are just called "muffins" in England, what do they call muffins?  This isn't really weird, I just wondered.

These are the kinds of things I use to fill in thoughtless spaces. So if you ever wonder what goes on in my head... This is it.
I would love to continue my tradition of posting about good movies I've seen recently, but I sadly have not watched any new movies in the last couple months. Sorry. :(
Have a lovely day!
~ Snootycrumb

P.S. On this day last year, I posted this on Facebook (from another list):  "'Sort of a guys' night out. A G-N-O, if you will. A gno. Actually, it's more of a guys' afternoon in: a G-A-I. A gai. No. No. It's, uh, not gay, it's uh, it's a... it's a bridal shower for guys! A guy shower. An hour-long shower with guys.' ~ Michael Scott"