Tales from the Hall of Mirrors

This morning I woke up fairly late, and soon went off to do the grocery-shopping. For lunch we had tomato slices with mozzarella and basil, feta cheese (terribly salty, but delicious) baked over with paprika (mozzarella too, but since that turned out a nondescript puddle that swiftly became rubbery as it cooled, I don't really count it as part of the meal), bread, figs and baklava. Uncle Pu came over; soon he and I went to a café as usual, he smoking a Guantanamera cigar and both of us sipping a café latte. We talked about contemporary politics and history and group dynamics (he and his wife have run programmes for groups of jobless people, in which they had to deal with much gossiping and backbiting). It was sunny but not too warm, and the walk was agreeable. The flowering horse chestnuts and leafy trees in general really do a lot for the appearance of the streets hereabouts.

When we came back, most of us tried an intensely dark, pleasantly pungent Spanish organic red wine, and talked more. Then Uncle Pu, Papa and I played Haydn Trios in C, D and G major; it went quite well, and my timing was better than usual because I wasn't flustered and I did try to tap the time with my foot. Things go so much better in "zombie mode" (i.e. when I'm concentrated, and just let my fingers and motor-parts-of-the-brain take over). None of us had, I think, played these pieces for months, but one couldn't really tell that. Then Papa and Uncle Pu played Stamitz duos -- a nice set, not too serious; in one piece Pudel went off, as usual, into an elaborate cadence with a satirical flair, which this time involved much intentional squeaking on the E string.

Yesterday I stayed up until it was light watching America's Next Top Model and reading Westerns. I've been revolving the idea of spending at least a month without any sort of entertainment other than reading literary classics, studying the sciences and philosophy, and reading the newspapers all the way through. I've always detested the idea of being fluff-brained, and feeding the mind on a sugary and insubstantial diet of girly television and other things, but my mind has been going to seed for so long that my vague plans of intellectual asceticism are a rank impossibility.

I'm going to blame my empty-brainedness on my underwhelming school experience, though normal teenage brain chemistry probably played a large role as well. Perhaps, for example, it's all due to my traumatic year in a German school, where the Hindenburg-sized balloon that was my self-confidence was pricked and never quite recovered. Since then I've mostly been a sad, supine specimen of humanity; I'm too afraid of being hurt to befriend people (my friends are all from before Grade 6) or even to interact with anyone naturally, and too afraid of being obnoxious and show-offish to participate much in my classes. During the annus horribilis (one of three, really; Grade 8 and Grade 11 being the others) my classmates were not that cruel, but it was an absolute nightmare for me because my previous schools left me rather vulnerable and soft, and because I had such a high opinion of myself going in. And it's at least partly due to when, in Grade 8, I began to feel that I was learning less and less each year, and that only a fraction of what I learned on my own would ever come up in school. Besides, my aim was to learn things, not to finish homework; in some classes both aims were answered, and in others they weren't, so I decided that since most teachers would only approve of me if I did things that seemed nonsense to me, it wasn't worthwhile to try to gain their approval any more. So by this point I was thrown back on my un-self-confident self (and on delightful French classes after school) to learn things properly; but I spent most of my time outside of school trying to numb my mind (with television, for instance), in order to forget my school day and to forget my homework.

Anyway, these, as far as I can tell, are the reasons why I spent last night watching girls my age bickering and putting on make-up and posing for photos and weeping, instead of spending the night sleeping sweetly and dreaming of Plato's Republic or the Kyoto Protocol or the theory of relativity. As for the Western novels, I think I might have read them even if I were more intellectual; it's corking stuff, even if it describes sordid events (a gruesome murder, for instance).

But I do believe that we are "the artificers of our own fortunes," so I don't mean to say that I am not to blame for my present sad state of affairs as far as a job, university, social life, and pastimes go.