Geekman's World: Titles are for loosers

I'm a little bit out of myself right now. Sort of in that mood where you see yourself going around an doing all this stuff on autopilot but aren't really feeling it a lot. Especially true when interacting with people I don't know very well or have much in common with: "Oh yes? Really? Interesting. Neat." It's like there's a spool of automated responses that just plays through in such occasions. You wonder when the next "real thing" is gonna happen; good or bad.

Chatting with my lyrics class collaboration project partner has been nice. I forgot how nice it is to meet new people you have stuff in common with. I have this fear that 90% of the culture I consume and the people I meet are going to bore the hell out of me, and it's true. Unfortunately, I react to this by not meeting more new people or seeking out much new culture, which is completely the wrong thing to do. Nadia's approach was always the best: to just drown yourself in new people and culture and then once you've sorted through all the mediocrity you can hopefully have a good collection of the exceptional. Must remember to get out more. It's good for the soul.

Another reason I might be in a bit of a funk this weekend is because of seeing Brokeback Mountain. Now of course, this is one of the best movies of the year. Undoubtedly, it will win the Oscar for best picture (if not for the virtue of it's artistic merit but because Academy has been very good these past few years at patting itself on the back when it comes to empowering minorities). A good movie gets real and powerful emotions across, which my empathic personality absorbs with gusto. Regrettably, movies which encapsulate bleak, lonely, difficult, and ultimately tragic and unsatisfying lives get right to my core, and infect it with pessimism about life. It's why I'm so eager and at the same so hesitant to see movies like Syriana and Munich.

Our new VoIP-based Shaw Digital Phone lets us make long-distance calls around North America with impunity. So I've been trying to get ahold of Nadia in Montreal and Michelle in Victoria. Sadly, they're both very busy right now.

♥ Angela... ♥

It's funny, reading your post I knew exactly how you felt. I think that the funks are going around right now. Where you're frustrated with life I'm just frustrated with Job. Still, I have to agree with your analysis of the meeting people thing, I don't get out enough, I don't meet enough new people whom I share interests with and I spend entirely too much time on the automated response loop for my liking. It's time for a change.

Sure movies like Brokeback Mountain can be a real downer. You are sharing a whole different outlook and experience of life that you haven't had to. It opens your eyes to things you might never have imagined and that is the purpose of the movie or the book. A highly skilled author or director will communicate this and drag you into the scene so that you can share it. But you are also thankful that this is not your experience, that you don't have to live it. It broadens your horizons and makes you realize that there are other ways of living besides the one you have. It makes you appreciate what you have all the more.

Winter blahs... where am I going? What is it all for? How is it possible that it is almost -30 outside? Who's idea was it to live in the arctic? What does a degree- a peice of paper- mean? Why am I wearing 5 layers 3 of which are scrachy wool and have reduced my mobility to that of the michelin tire man?
Yay for movies that stir something up... no matter how "depressing". What gets me down is the feeling of empty mudanity. I just saw "A Doll House" by Ibsen, about victorian marriages and how the wife was often a coddled "doll-woman". Rather than be depressed I can compare this to my life and realise how good I've got it even though I'm in a winter funk... I'm off to crawl under the covers.
oh, ps: as good as it can be to immerse yourself in new things and cultures that I seem to chronically do, there is also something to be said about being able to discover happiness where you are... rarely is it something "out there"...