The Promised Land

Perhaps this apartment is not the best place to be after all. It was conducive to my reflective hermitage, but that little sabbatical is winding down anyway. Now, due to budget constraints, I am actually considering moving in with someone who needs a roommate. Obviously, I have to weigh the cheaper rent against the costs of moving as well as the resulting loss of my deposit at Stonewood Apartments, but I’m not about to go number-crunching on my blog.

On the other hand, by the time I settle into a new apartment, I could be without a job. We’ve caught up with the Sprint team, so we spend an average of at least a couple hours every week just waiting around for a new batch of files. They might discover they don’t need me after this project, or they might need to double the size of our team for the next project. Who knows. I just don’t want to lose a second deposit if I have to move in and out again, all before spring.

Hm. This spring. Which brings me to another point, a point that got me up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. This spring, for better or worse, there will be occasion for me to visit Kirksville and Bowling Green. By then, what will I have to show for my almost-year of certified professionalism?

If I visit those places for friends, I am bound—perhaps destined?—to encounter those who would make me feel like my life is a waste (those people are called professors).

I discovered this week that I am haunted by old inequities (and yes, I know the difference between inequity and iniquity). That is not to say that I am hung up on the resentment of, say, last year… because I am not controlled anymore. I am in control. The old villains have only the power I give them.

No, what bothers me is the paradox of my goals. As my friend Aaron Marx put it, I want the best of both worlds. I want peers, and I want them in an environment in which we have opportunities to achieve things, to accomplish things. I want to be productive with other people, to have performances and recordings. I want to have a tight-knit group of peers to go celebrate with after a good concert. That is the best of the academic world. But… I also want the best of the free world: to be removed from strife and stress and psychological warfare (not to mention everyone’s music theory superiority complex). So I want the best of both worlds.

I was always easily tired by the intellectual puffing of the chest, the subtext of every conversation with my peers being one of arrogant rivalry. I hate people who do that. I hate when they keep you on your guard at all times that way. The slightest admission of a shortcoming can be used as ammunition against you. It’s all about image, and I got so sick of that after seven years of college. I bring this up because it is part of the paradox about having peers: can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em. Can’t weed out the bad ones, I should say.

I was talking to a friend who is an undergrad at BGSU, and she was complaining about another girl in her studio always slipping in some subtly self-aggrandizing comment to every situation. I suppose that’s one thing about hermitage I will always want to come back to: you don’t have to talk to anyone who rubs you the wrong way. Obviously, I can’t stay here forever, but I certainly don’t look forward to returning to a situation in which I have to deal with difficult people all the time. People suck.

Much anger in him…

I guess that’s what this fall was for: resting before continuing the cyclical intellectual struggles. I am not by any measure a proud man, but this stuff grates on me, and I get edgy. Sometimes I get baited and pulled in.

I guess, when you get right down to it, I have something to prove among some of my so-called colleagues. For that, I blame the institution.

But at least I feel useful when I have something to fight for… perhaps the epilogue after a long journey is not as pleasant after the initial jubilation wears off. The honeymoon’s over? It’s been four years to the day since Weathertop, and the wound has never fully healed. Perhaps I’m impossible to please. Perhaps I have contracted a mutation of cabin fever that makes me want to return to the intellectual battleground.

The path you walk on has no end… every step you take is paved in the corpses of your enemies…

One thing I learned from Truman is that self-deprecating humor can bite you in the ass. I learned it, but… eh… I guess I didn’t learn from it. In the pompous, manipulative battle of the images, it really works against you. In time, I get more and more defensive, to the point of belligerence during master class seminars. I do have a copyrighted glower…

I feel, once again, as though I am painting an ugly self-portrait, misrepresenting myself. The word I’m looking for is… regression. Yes. I’m just frustrated by the fact that I “need” some of the things I wanted to badly to escape from. And maybe I’m just thinking too much about what unexpected confrontations might arise when I visit Ohio (I should be prepared for that eventuality). And, perhaps, I’m slightly guilty of a dormant desire for revenge… and the best revenge is living well. Every sour past influence on my life can spring up out of nowhere—some of these people have added me on Facebook, so there really is no escape.

The darkness will never really leave you. You will carry it with you for the rest of your life. Every day is a personal struggle to keep the Dark Side in check. Once you’ve stepped into the shadows, it will be ever harder to stay in the light…

At any rate, I need to keep on truckin’. I said in an earlier post: “I had better figure it out over the winter, though.” Well guess what, winter is upon us. A change of seasons, a season of changes? This whole job/apartment/ thing needs to be fixed before I can worry about a glorious return to the old stomping grounds. Maybe I can find a place to call home… at least for a while. I thought I did that, but my bank account says otherwise.

There is no one place called the Promised Land. That is what I believe. No no, it does exist… the Promised Land is not a place, but something you find in your heart.

This post has gone in circles, I see. How unfulfilling for me. Well, there’s my avowal. I found it necessary to post this, but I am not looking forward to the comments…

And don’t tell me to “just let it go”… because I did let it go. I let it go, found peace and quiet… and “it” caught up with me while I was resting on the side of the road. During a period of conflict, you struggle endlessly for the final victory, but when it comes, after a while you realize that without conflict, there can be no further victories. You atrophy in a state of jejune tranquility… which, I suppose, is a contradiction.

I hate this blog. Have I ever said that before? I can already hear Dan laughing at the revelation… how typical of me to say.