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= F.U.C.K. - Fucked Up College Kids - Born Jan. 24th, 1993 - F.U.C.K. =
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Emotional census and a glass of self
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Is the glass half-empty or half-full? Nothing feels worse than having a
tired cliché as that sum up a feeling or sentiment. Still, sometimes we
fight the urge within ourselves to find the perfect and eloquent way to
express something when a tired rhetorical or metaphor fits all too well.
Sometimes, the reason these cliches have become so is because they are the
essence of how things are, already perfectly pre-worded.
The empty/full rationale, in this case, in an emotional one. I think it is
a common human condition to look within us, to see if everything is as it
should be, or at least running parallel to how we think it should be. To
find out if our successes are what we had in mind, if our quality of life
meets the demands we set months and years ago, and if our hearts are
fulfilled as they need to be in order to make life itself an enjoyable,
worthwhile, and livable endeavor. I've been polling myself of late, and
have found, empty or full, I am half of what I have known myself to be and
short of what I want to be.
Career, goals, and successes are all approximate to what I've had in mind
at various points in my life. All are "full enough", for all intents and
purposes. I have a home, friends, and can feel the warmth of my parents
love for me, even this far away from them, as if I still clung to chest
with a hand no larger than quail^Òs egg. But what of the heart? It is far
from full. I know so, because I can clearly recall the feeling of it being
so.
With that in mind, I wondered if that were in fact true, why was I still
happy? If I were "half a man", so to speak, I should not be content with
life as I am. So that raised the next obvious question: do we necessarily
need to be "full". Our hearts crave substance, and abhor emptiness. We
lament and feel the perceived fullness of the hearts around us as way of
applying emotional spackle to our vacancies. We find ourselves renting
romantic comedies or even finding human depth and fulfillment in Hallmark
commercials in some depraved effort to consume empty calories of a
heart-warmed meal of surrogate love.
I used to sustain myself thus, and ache more at that need to do so than the
times of unfulfillment themselves. At the same time, I can think of times
that there was a "full". When every cache and crevasse was filled to
bursting with friends, lovers, and loved ones. They sit before me like
those yellow and black monochrome photographs from the turn of the century
- somehow seeming clearer and crisper than the vibrant Kodachrome we have
available to us today. Why do we keep photographs? The moments within
them are clearly gone, escaped from us due to the passing of time. We keep
them, whether available, displayed, or on our person, because they are
moments worth keeping and cherishing. Emotion, feeling, and even the ache
of feelings gone by should be perceived no differently.
But I digress. So I am neither empty nor full is that a concern? What
I've found poignant is not the empty/fullness, but rather the lack of
concern about it, one way or the other. As I've said, I can remember
fullness, and touch times of emptiness if I feel so compelled to stand
emotionally naked before myself. But do I crave it? Do I *need* it as I
think I do, or should for that matter? I say nay. Like old photographs, I
don't look at them to conjure up the urge to crawl within that moment. To
crave the past is to express, without admitting so, that we are emptier
than we can possibly face that we've allowed things to fall so far from
grace, when we obviously had right at some previous point in time.
Another digression, my apologies. They seem as controllable as the ability
to fly when we fall in a dream.
As I said, I have come to wonder if it is basically important to be full.
I will not advocate the benefits of being emotionally empty. I will say one
needs to traverse there (and generally we all do, and rarely by our own
design) in order to know the capacity of ourselves how vacant we can be in
order to better see how much is required to become full.
One thing I have come to appreciate about "halfness" (poetic license, not
poor grammar, rest assured) is that it brings us something that fullness
lacks. It creates a fire of passion within us, with the ache of vacancy as
a fuel. Never are we hungrier than when we are without. One could agree
that that emptiness, by virtue of being more vacant, would have more fuel,
and would thus burn hotter and stronger. I disagree as many may already
have, that this is generally not true. Emptiness contains nothing, and as
a result, has nothing to consume. It is only when we need to fend off the
abyss, and at the same time, obtain our desires, that we have enough
character to stoke with a poker of motivation and not desperation.
When we are full, we become complacent. Some are wise and perceptive
enough to appreciate these moments and give them their due. But for the
most of us, we can recall too many occasions that our complacency made our
passions lapse and become lazy and as a result, we allowed the fires to
dwindle far past the point to save, no matter the amount desperate
rekindling. Almost all of us have lost in this manner.
Still, we mustn't shun these times. We must also embrace these as we do
the emptiness. We must let these times or the loss of them become the
piss and vinegar burning in our hungry stomachs. We must allow them to be
become an obtainable beacon, even if they be only the empty allure of the
green light seen from Gatsby's dock. I think of the example of the tales
of knights and chivalry. I didn't realize until late in life until the
fables had been too often told that they generally did not end up with
their lady faire. They did everything for them, and selflessly in their
name, without sex, without a kiss, and sometimes, without a touch at all.
Instead, it was the gesture that was their foremost goal, and they filled
their "manly" needs with handmaidens and whores. But when it came to the
heart, it was fulfilled in spirit alone.
With all this in mind, tangents both included and aside, I have come to
appreciate the "halfness". I come to appreciate what I have so easily
neglected and forgotten in times past. When we are unmotivated, nothing
propels our ambition like hunger. I think trying to tack this hunger upon
someone in an effort fill it, as would some ambitious landlord to an empty
space, is poorly crafted logic. There are not many times in our lives that
we are passionate and not passionate in the traditional sense that we
often think of when involved with another. I'm talking about a raw,
unfocused, passion. I'm talking about the passion for words, for company,
for expression, and for self. I'm talking about enjoying the nuances of
thought, be it another's or ours. To hone and whet that sensation is to
appreciate wielding it. The better tempered it is, the stronger it becomes.
I do not crave a lifetime of "halfness", and I think that goes without
saying. While there is value in longing, well applied, there is no benefit
to denial for the sake of some composed nobility via emotional martyrdom.
Instead, I'm just saying that I will no longer call these times as being
"without". There is so much of one's self to fill that space with, and not
with the wispy smoke of want and desire. Instead, it can be filled with
all the parts of ourselves we never know until we are alone: the
aforementioned passion, the strength, and the strength to admit the
frailties we discover along the way. When the time comes, this is the part
we bring to another honestly, openly, and willingly with more than enough
to spare.
And, just for the sake of not leaving anything uncrossed or undotted: if
the glass has something in it, it's full enough.
- capone
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