Stirrings of Spring, and Schoolyard Psychology

Today it was bright and sunny, altogether spring-like. Before I went to sleep yesterday night I already heard the birds twittering outside. When I went to the St. Matthäus graveyard in the Großgörschenstraße yesterday, small but very pretty purple crocuses were growing all over, three daisies grew bravely from their flattened leaves, a cluster of white hellebores ("Christrosen") was in full bloom, the drooping branches of a low tree possibly belonging to the cherry family were beaded with pale pink buds, a row of Oregon grape bushes was crowded with fringy yellow blossoms, the birds were singing and a fly buzzing, and a tiny brown shrew was scampering to and fro around one of the graves.

I played the piano, went to the Staatsbibliothek at the Kulturforum and blogged about it, and read the beginning of the Principles of Chemistry (published 1970 but still helpful today (c: ). It was only today that I realized that isotopes, having different numbers of neutrons, must necessarily also have different atomic weights. In my defense, I never took Chemistry in school and my knowledge derives from my Science classes from grades 7 to 10 (we were introduced to the atom in Grade 8, if I remember correctly; Chemistry 11 is where I would have learned the sad truth that an atom does not truly look like a planet with electrons orbiting around it circularly like moons). In the afternoon W. came over, and we ate "Berliner" (jam-filled doughnuts sprinkled with sugar) and drank coffee as well as champagne in honour of Rosenmontag ("Rose Monday," which is a significant day for Catholics but I don't know why).

For the piano lessons, I've tried to develop a new routine. I'll begin with finger exercises, continue with a set of scales (D major and minor today), play a prelude and fugue from the Well-Tempered Clavier, then go on to practice my pieces as intelligently as I can. The day before yesterday I watched delightful lectures by Leonard Bernstein analysing Shostakovich's ninth (?) as well as Beethoven's pastoral symphony, and they gave me a whole new perspective (or more than one) on music. So today I looked at the first movement of Schubert's B major sonata with this approach in mind: I tried isolating different motifs, identifying the key of these motifs as well as the key's relation to the tonic key, and looking for transformations of the motifs. I'm not generally fond of theory, but this, in moderation, proved quite acceptable. Then I worked on technically difficult bits, such as the transition between chords without using the pedal.

But I am generally in a discouraged mood. My life still hasn't changed much from the way it's been for fifteen years -- it's still isolated and not very fruitful. I've been thinking about this isolatedness and the underlying problem, I believe, is this:

Even though I'm not in school any more, I still understand society the way I got to know it there, and it has really gotten in the way of getting to know people around my age -- or any people at all. The unspoken rule, especially for girls, was that an unpopular person should not speak to or in any way approach people higher in the social hierarchy unless he is spoken to first or unless it is absolutely necessary. It is an honour to associate with popular people, and a disgrace (leaving one open to teasing) or at best a necessary evil to associate with unpopular people. The exception to the rule of non-communication: an unpopular person may carefully ask popular people (indirectly, of course) to take him on at least as a second-class friend. If they are receptive, they might still ask him directly or indirectly to change his appearance or behaviour -- e.g. his clothing (as my friends did at my 13th birthday party), the type of music he listens to or the television shows he watches -- in order to have more in common with them. Usually the unpopular person changes these things of his own initiative. I was too inflexible to do this, and I don't think that a friendship on such terms is worth much anyway.

Sometimes I did want to be friends with popular people in school and university; some were really unusually nice, and some were not only nice but also intellectually my superiors. But I was too fearful of being obtrusive to even speak to them. Besides, in school (not in university) it would have been impractical to be friends with a popular classmate because I would have had to fit in with the friendship circle of that classmate. And, to be honest, out of the hundreds of students whom I've known and usually liked in school and university, only a handful really interested and impressed me.

Anyway, this analyzing has probably much reduced the workload for a future psychotherapist, and now I feel that I can move on to a delightful pious nineteenth-century novel. (c: