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When Quentin Compson sinks by his own doing to the bottom of a local river, he stands forever victorious over his life’s relentless antagonist.

Whether we realize it or not, most of us are perpetual life optimists. Think about it. Why, at the very least, do we wake up and press forward day after day?

Simple. It beats the alternative.

Accordingly, the social truism “time heals what reason cannot” is customarily perceived as comforting. It reminds us that soul-bruises (or in some cases, lacerations) are metaphoric replications of those inflicted upon our bodies. But the positive overtones of the message rely on the assumption that pain is intrinsically bad.

This is, biologically at least, false. Though unpleasant, it is the primary means by which we gain awareness of physiological irregularities. It is the messenger that indicates and gives legitimacy to internal wrong. Pain reminds us that our feelings have concrete foundations.

It is for this reason that Compson, if given the opportunity, would probably re-write the adage as follows: time dulls what reason cannot. The change sounds slight, but the difference is monumental.

Compson believes fully in the authenticity of his feelings regarding his sister, Caddy. If he didn’t, his anguish would have been merely for vanity’s sake. Realizing that duration, the great emotional equalizer, would one day strip him of his conviction—he would call it lucidity—he plays the only superior card in his hand and takes his own life. By doing so, he wins a battle within a war that has been waged since the world’s inception.

Quentin Compson stopped time.

Sadly or fortunately, most of us are not as courageous as Faulkner’s troubled protagonist. Truth is second only to survival. And as a survivor, I offer up this wholly academic and dispassionate lamentation for a cause, a person, in which I once believed. A cause that just yesterday bore the weight of tomorrow.

It’s true, things are easier now. The fire is out, the grass regrown. Life is, by all definitions, good. But the sadness remains, made sadder yet by my inability to feel it.

And the part of me that understands intellectually what has happened, what was lost, futilely wishes it wanted to cry.

Buried at Bobst

I've lately become quite a recluse. I can count on one hand the trips I've taken out of my Carnegie Hill neighborhood in the last month, and those were all out of necessity. I have seen friends, but typically for lunch and always on my turf.

The short of the long is that I've been busy. Damned busy, actually. Though my not-for-certain graduate school enrollment is still a year away, the GRE, and more specifically the literature subject test, is not.

The exam, if you're not familiar with it, is an extraordinary pain in the ass. There is no reading list. Passages can be taken, literally, from any surviving English or American text and any world text that post-dates 1925. There are unofficial guides--such as this one--that organize data from a handful of previous exams. The problem, however, is that they are all vastly different with the exception of the comparatively major titles.

It's true, many of the test questions relate directly to the passage provided. But in just as many cases they ask the victim to identify from 6 lines of text an author, time period and genre.

So I've been reading. Furiously. Will be for awhile. Please direct helpful offerings to me by e-mail, particularly if you're well-versed (har har) in classical poetry.

Eleanor

"Suddenly I turned around and she was standin' there
With silver bracelets on her wrists and flowers in her hair.
She walked up to me so gracefully and took my crown of thorns.
"Come in," she said,
"I'll give you shelter from the storm."-dylan

It's hard to know the right path when you're not sure it exists. The world is filled with uphill scraps, and noble are those--the career soldiers--who meet them with Sisyphean resolve.

I've always considered myself a supporter of causes, guardian of principle, fighter of the good fight, so forth. But I'm no martyr; not these days, anyway. While far from weak and worried, a weekend warrior I've become.

I came to New York to change the world, and I'll leave it knowing life is more important.

Thank you for your words.

Cold Feet

I've been sort of a mess lately, I won't lie. The real world has been coming unusually hard and I just haven't been prepared for it. As you might have gathered from my last post, a big part of the problem is my location, and corresponding job, hunt. I'd like to shift today's focus to something else though. An even bigger marker on the highway to adulthood.

Precisely a month from today, my best friend since the sixth grade is tying the knot with his college sweetheart. I will be there, beside him, as a groomsman. And I'm sort of up in the air about the whole thing.

Don't get me wrong, I couldn't be happier for them. From the start, they were one of those indestructible couples that everyone hates for having settled forever at such a young age. The two of them couldn't be more right. They have jobs, an apartment, a dog. I'm sure they'll have beautiful kids too. But something still troubles me. No, troubles is too soft a word; let's go with terrifies. Something still terrifies me. And I guess that feeling boils down to the following.

Are we really this freaking old?

How is it even possible that we went from shooting bottle rockets at each other to grown-up in just over a year? Shouldn't there be some kind of transition period?

Spookier yet, I'm a tiny bit jealous. Not to the point of being ready to settle down--as if there were even blips on the radar--but jealous enough to worry. I mean, I'm the guy who honestly thought marriage was something best left in the post-thirty range. Why am I suddenly so amiable toward it?

Sometimes I feel like life is living me. So long as it leads me to happiness, I guess I'm ok with that. Also, it's probably good that I'm having my mini-crisis a month before the wedding - I'd sure hate to, you know, pass out during the ceremony. I should be well-braced by August.

Not to mention, I'll have the best date a guy could ask for on my arm. She's another one, a friend, who has touched the last decade of my life more than she will probably ever know. We've met a handful of life's big transitions together already, and I'm genuinely thankful she's still at my side.

So again, here's to tomorrow.

Always Moving, Hopefully Forward

After nearly a month away, I landed at New York's LaGuardia airport just over a week ago. Those who have at some point made the same trip are likely to remember their sweaty-palmed armrest adherence as they skimmed just meters over the water on their flight's final approach. This effect seemed equally potent regardless even of advanced knowledge gained through experience as the banks of the East River appeared every time to edge closer and closer to the landing strip.

Until last week, that is. And call me dramatic, but it sounded to me like the perfect--albeit imperfect--metaphorical support for my decision to leave the city.

There are a lot of intangibles that weigh heavily into New York's unmistakable allure. Listing them would be not only impossible, but also unnecessary. Suffice it to say, the elements react chemically when concocted yielding what I can only describe as life itself - scary, exciting, but usually both. It's the only place I've ever been that would lose nothing in the way of appeal were it to be mysteriously rid of human life.

Unfortunately, the local economy is well aware of this and ensures that it remains the most expensive metropolitan in the world. Does the value justify the cost? I think so with the aforementioned utility considered. But what when the glow starts to fade?

Well, it's a pretty bad buy to say the least.

Additionally, the city was always more of a fad for me than anything else. Ten to twenty years from now, I don't want to be riding the subway to work and raising my kids in a two-bedroom apartment. I want a house with a yard, a grill, maybe even a pool.

Not to say that I'm yet ready to settle into that phase of my life either. But I feel that, having just finished school, I've reached the optimal point at which to align myself with tomorrow.

I'll keep you posted.