Zach

I am a pretty quiet person. I am painfully shy, and that probably makes me seem sort of distant. I try to be a caring person. I love people. I am just intimidated by most of them.

I recently transferred to Western Washington University from North Idaho College. I am an English major studying literature and film. I am fascinated by culture, text, and language. I want to someday teach literature and critical and cultural theory at the college/university level. There are so many areas that I am interested in. They include: postmodernism, folklore, art history, classical studies, linguistics, theology, philosophy, astrophysics, economics. I love learning, and I am always finding interests in new areas. If I had my way, I would be in school forever. I wish that i could afford it. I am not sure how i will afford it now.

I am gay. I hate saying that because I feel like the moment that I do, people start defining me by that one aspect of myself. I would like to think that I am so much more. I only mention that because it seems to be a big issue with a lot of people.

I have incredible friends. They are what keep me going. I love to go out with friends and laugh, talk, drink, dance, listen to music. I love being me and experiencing other people.

My nights are spent writing in my livejournal , having conversations with myself, reading, listening to music, watching movies, dancing in my apartment, and doing other stuff.

I am single, and for the first time in my life, I dont have all that much trouble accepting it. Relationships take a lot of time. Still, I always have several crushes...some that dont even make sense. I really enjoy spending time with my friends. I think that I am getting to a point where I realize that as long as I have wonderful friends, I can live without having a boyfriend. It would be nice to have someone to cuddle with, though.

Here is one of my favorite prose poems:

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant, they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love, for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is perennial as the grass.

Take kindly to the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.

Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

In addition to "Desiderata," I think that Mary Schmich's "Everybody's Free to Wear Sunscreen" gives some great advice.

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I love this quote:

"You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing, and dance, and write poems, and suffer, and understand, for all that is life." - Krishnamurti

I try to remember that, but it can be hard sometimes

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I employ both of these views on life

"There are two ways to look at life.

Actually, that's not accurate; I suppose there are thousands of ways to look at life. But I tend to dwell on two of them. The first view is that nothing stays the same and that nothing is inherently connected, and that the only driving force in anyone's life is entropy. The second is that everything pretty much stays the same (more or less) and that everything is completely connected, even if we don't realize it.

There are many mornings when I feel certain that the first perspective is irrefutably true: I wake up, I feel the inescapable oppression of the sunlight pouring through my bedroom window, and I am struck by the fact that I am alone. And that everyone is alone. And that everything I understood seven hours ago has already changed, and that I have to learn everything again.

I guess I am not a morning person.

However, that feeling always passes. In fact, it's usually completely gone before lunch. Every new minute of every new day seems to vaguely improve. And I suspect that's because the alternative view - that everything is ultimately like something else and that nothing and no one is autonomous - is probably the greater truth. The math does check out; the numbers do add up. The connections might not be hard-wired into the superstructure of the universe, but it feels like they are whenever I put money into a jukebox and everybody in the bar suddenly seems to be having the same conversation. And in that last moment before I fall asleep each night, I understand Everything. The world is one interlocked machine, throbbing and pulsing as a flawless organism.

This is why I will always hate falling asleep."

- - Chuck Klosterman, Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs

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“I hope it is true that a man can die and yet not only live in others but give them life, and not only life, but that great consciousness of life.”

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"Do I contradict myself?
Very well then...I contradict myself;
I am large...I contain multitudes."
-Walt Whitman from Song of Myself