What am I doing, pt. 1

Going to paste a thing from another place that I don't have to cite b/c I'm plagiarizing myself lol but I can't find the post at the moment so I will edit this post-midnight IT COUNTS.

Edit: here is the actual thing:

I haven’t taken a proper English class since May. I’m in a “humanities” class right now, which is basically a survey of historical times through literature and other arts. It’s okay, but it’s just not cutting it. What I like about next semester is that it’s an ENGLISH class taught by an ENGLISH professors with mostly/only ENGLISH majors. What that means is that I get to really experience the fullness of my love for literature. Which can be a scary thing. Either I’ll love it, do amazingly, and get pumped for getting my degree in English, or I’ll hate it, do poorly and be not as smart as everyone else, and want to switch majors, it seems. I’m really hoping it’s the former but it’s up in the air. I’ve never really studied literature that in-depth at a hardcore college-level writing class, since AP only goes so far.

The point of all this is that I feel like I’ve been really really really displeased/worried about the person I’ve been becoming/being for the past couple of, I guess months. I dunno. I’ve been fairly social; things have been going well in most aspects of my life; I’m experiencing the wonder of living in a city. What’s wrong?

But somehow, in the end these abstract, powerful, true negatives seem to outweigh the positives by sheer force of reasoning and verity, and it’s confusing.

I’ve narrowed it down to two distinct possibilities, neither of which is that comforting:

1. I could be right, and the world could just be crappy and I could be crappy (or ridiculously sane and intelligent among a sea of delusion), and there’s nothing I can do about it but kind of live through it like a shadow.
2. Or I could be totally wrong (fortunately much more likely) and things are good and whole in the world on a large scale and I could be just stupid to not see the beauty of the bowl of oranges and worrying needlessly over nothing.

What does this have to do with English?

Well since literature is something I’m passionate about, and something that incidentally deals strongly with people and virtue and life and stuff, I’m kind of hoping that getting through the class will help me decide which end of the spectrum suits me.

I haven’t been regularly reading leisurely since probably august, and then only for a few weeks. I’m ashamed of this; I need to read a lot more.

It’s not just because reading is essential to my studies and I need to keep in-touch with my literary analysis and criticism abilities, but more that I need books sometimes, intrinsically. Literature is, well, for a large and probably sad part, how I understand life. Like, I am bad with pop culture, and less so but still significantly poor with “good” music. People tell me, often much to my surprise and secret/unspoken-but-resonant disappointment/sadness, that I’m bad with “people” and just social interaction in general, I guess. I’m also, slightly relatedly, confused or perplexed when it comes to cultural things that seem to be true for everyone but me, and things that seem to be just culturally mandated and expected of me. So literature, the stories and philosophies and depictions of varied times and people and ideas, is how I make up for this. It is what I excel in without limit, and honestly, it’s not that hard to gain wisdom and knowledge and perception etc. from literature. But I can do it, it is something I like doing, and I can use that to have my own set of values and beliefs and ideas and skills and stuff, aside from what I or anyone can gather from their own thoughts and reasoning, and it feels good, so good, like nothing I can describe, the pleasure in reading and what comes with it. I can deal with people because I know what people are mostly made of; I can identify with and accept and even enjoy cultures/cultural things because I know what the extent and significance and meaning etc. of a culture and group of people and ~things~ can be; I can even have my own list of things I accept and reject and think and stuff, like a subculture whose sole member is me.

I hope that makes sense, because what it means is that — oh god as I think it in my head I can hear a mocking voice yelling cliche and exaggerated — without books I am nothing, lost, confused, hopeless, dark. I don’t think there’s any more to say. I just hope EN220 will fire me up with love and passion and all that is good in the world, and mend me in a way I can’t do myself but have to rely on something else, like books, for.

Anyway, it’s not so much a big deal that one-by-one my taut strings are snapping, as much as it is that I don’t know why or how or what any of anything means, and would like to solve that.

I hope this is not too dumb or abstract or insane or in-need-of-serious-and-immediate-professional-help or whatever bullet you can throw at it.

So yes. I feel that it was if not well enough written at least long enough to be worth featuring here until I continue this "thought" tomorrow.