"I recoil from all my friends..."
I'm coming into this post with nothing to write about. But knowing how I feel right now--depressed and lost--stuff will probably just come pouring out of me like so much water.
Perhaps it's the Ani I'm listening to, or perhaps it's just my own frustration with my own loneliness and thoughts lately that is making me feel so absurdly unhappy. I've been meaning to make music lately (beyond just singing in VUJ, lessons, and Chorale: the mix of these three is hurting my throat unbelievably) but for some reason I'm stopped up. I feel like there's a cork burrowed somewhere deep inside me, keeping in everything that needs to flow but I can't find a corkscrew.
I want to do so many things right now beyond just make music. I want to tell the girl(s) I'm into how I feel. I want to fix my life up, clean up all my impurities and become the man everyone wishes I was, especially people I've left behind and never really returned to. I wish I could take back this whole year and start over at the peak where I perched at the beginning of this year, that precarious point between glory and potential and failure. I don't think I've failed in the big sense, of course. I'm not that melodramatic right now. However, I do feel like I'm spiraling down into places I swore never to go back when I fucked up so badly in high school. That doesn't mean a breakdown or anything: I really will never go back there. It's more that I'm becoming the person I hated in high school. I'm becoming the person that everyone hated in high school. That everyone hates in high school. I'm a stereotype.
What makes all of this worse--what has always made things worse--is that I know I'm in control of what is killing me. Literally and figuratively. I know I can fix things. I know I can force myself to do anything--I quit weed, I quit biting my nails this week which is something I've been doing since I was a tiny kid, like 4 or 5 years old--and it's my own laziness and fear of failure that have forever kept me back. I never can force myself to do homework or to "get in shape"--that amorphous term people like me use to hide the truth and thus never face up to it--or to find myself.
When it comes down to it, I have no clue who I am. I know who I am in context of other people. I'm Steven's brother, and that's wonderful. I love my brother so much, and my sister, and my parents and my dogs and my friends. But I'm not William Walker Levenson. I'm Will, the unidentifiable class clown who is too terrified to be serious.
During my session at the Brandeis-Bardin Institute's singing program T'Hila before my senior year, I spent an hour speaking with the program's director. He made time for me, even though he was ridiculously busy and exhausted. He told me: "Why do you have to be on all the time, Will? Why do you have to be an actor? Instead of telling people what they want to hear from who they think you are, tell them what you want to say. Or don't. You don't need to entertain anyone." Now, I don't fully remember exactly what he said, but that's the gist of it and that's what meant the most to me. I play a character called Will, and--though he may be a popular crowd favourite--he is the character who will be lonely forever because he's untouchable. He's nonsensitive. Not insensitive, but he has no feelings that are important. His loneliness gets in the way of his hilarity, and it's not in the script. People don't like funny characters to be too real. It scares them.
I seek my meaning from TV shows and comic books. I compare my identity to what I wish it would be: John Constantine, GOB Bluth, Jesse Custer, Ender Wiggin, Alex Elder. I want to be epic, but with the way I live I'll end up being the Byronic Hero, the tragic hero. If I don't fix things soon, I might not even reach mediocrity.
So I guess that's all I am going to say right now. There's so much more to say, but I'm definitely not ready. I want to attain glory. I want to live forever. But I hate the idea that to live forever you have to die prematurely. I'm terrified of dying, and I know I'm killing myself with the way I live. I am broken, I am lost, and I am still dried out. I could cry oceans but there's not a tear in this hideous shell of a body I'm in.
I think I'm gonna take a shower. Take off all the makeup that Will wears, remove his costume and return to the costume I was born in.
I am the son of Louisa and David Levenson, the brother of Steven and Liza, the father of untold ideas and unknown stories. I am a human being, I am an alien. I am a drama queen and I am never a leading man. I am a sidekick, I am a supporting character, I am an emo star and a starless knight. I am Will. No matter what choices I make, I still have to deal with that. Perhaps because of the choices I make, I have to face it. I'm Will. I love Will, I really do.
But something needs to change.
Perhaps it's the Ani I'm listening to, or perhaps it's just my own frustration with my own loneliness and thoughts lately that is making me feel so absurdly unhappy. I've been meaning to make music lately (beyond just singing in VUJ, lessons, and Chorale: the mix of these three is hurting my throat unbelievably) but for some reason I'm stopped up. I feel like there's a cork burrowed somewhere deep inside me, keeping in everything that needs to flow but I can't find a corkscrew.
I want to do so many things right now beyond just make music. I want to tell the girl(s) I'm into how I feel. I want to fix my life up, clean up all my impurities and become the man everyone wishes I was, especially people I've left behind and never really returned to. I wish I could take back this whole year and start over at the peak where I perched at the beginning of this year, that precarious point between glory and potential and failure. I don't think I've failed in the big sense, of course. I'm not that melodramatic right now. However, I do feel like I'm spiraling down into places I swore never to go back when I fucked up so badly in high school. That doesn't mean a breakdown or anything: I really will never go back there. It's more that I'm becoming the person I hated in high school. I'm becoming the person that everyone hated in high school. That everyone hates in high school. I'm a stereotype.
What makes all of this worse--what has always made things worse--is that I know I'm in control of what is killing me. Literally and figuratively. I know I can fix things. I know I can force myself to do anything--I quit weed, I quit biting my nails this week which is something I've been doing since I was a tiny kid, like 4 or 5 years old--and it's my own laziness and fear of failure that have forever kept me back. I never can force myself to do homework or to "get in shape"--that amorphous term people like me use to hide the truth and thus never face up to it--or to find myself.
When it comes down to it, I have no clue who I am. I know who I am in context of other people. I'm Steven's brother, and that's wonderful. I love my brother so much, and my sister, and my parents and my dogs and my friends. But I'm not William Walker Levenson. I'm Will, the unidentifiable class clown who is too terrified to be serious.
During my session at the Brandeis-Bardin Institute's singing program T'Hila before my senior year, I spent an hour speaking with the program's director. He made time for me, even though he was ridiculously busy and exhausted. He told me: "Why do you have to be on all the time, Will? Why do you have to be an actor? Instead of telling people what they want to hear from who they think you are, tell them what you want to say. Or don't. You don't need to entertain anyone." Now, I don't fully remember exactly what he said, but that's the gist of it and that's what meant the most to me. I play a character called Will, and--though he may be a popular crowd favourite--he is the character who will be lonely forever because he's untouchable. He's nonsensitive. Not insensitive, but he has no feelings that are important. His loneliness gets in the way of his hilarity, and it's not in the script. People don't like funny characters to be too real. It scares them.
I seek my meaning from TV shows and comic books. I compare my identity to what I wish it would be: John Constantine, GOB Bluth, Jesse Custer, Ender Wiggin, Alex Elder. I want to be epic, but with the way I live I'll end up being the Byronic Hero, the tragic hero. If I don't fix things soon, I might not even reach mediocrity.
So I guess that's all I am going to say right now. There's so much more to say, but I'm definitely not ready. I want to attain glory. I want to live forever. But I hate the idea that to live forever you have to die prematurely. I'm terrified of dying, and I know I'm killing myself with the way I live. I am broken, I am lost, and I am still dried out. I could cry oceans but there's not a tear in this hideous shell of a body I'm in.
I think I'm gonna take a shower. Take off all the makeup that Will wears, remove his costume and return to the costume I was born in.
I am the son of Louisa and David Levenson, the brother of Steven and Liza, the father of untold ideas and unknown stories. I am a human being, I am an alien. I am a drama queen and I am never a leading man. I am a sidekick, I am a supporting character, I am an emo star and a starless knight. I am Will. No matter what choices I make, I still have to deal with that. Perhaps because of the choices I make, I have to face it. I'm Will. I love Will, I really do.
But something needs to change.
