Musing on The Institution

(Note: I realize this is a fairly long post, but I'd be really tickled if you guys took the time to read it since it is sort of relevant to our lives as students)

I have started to think that Uni is causing evil to my soul. Being here is also causing undeniable good and positive growth, but I’m cross and buried in homework right now so we can address that reality later. I have been having this thought, I need to be elsewhere, for a long time, born of the universal angsty angst of teenage existence and the sneaking suspicion that I’m being given the runaround in regard to my Future. I shall explain the feeling further. I can cite numerous conversations with fellow students in which we have mused together “what we are getting out of this? Why are we here? What is reality and what is a dream?” I wonder if I’m wasting my time at Uni trying to get good grades and achieve what I’m expected to achieve.

And here is the real question I asked myself tonight: when did doing what I like become a distraction? Sometimes I want to spend my time on other planes of existence than the cycle of school-home-study-sleep, rinse and repeat. I get it—feeling a little bit dreary and dull is nothing particularly special or worth publicly groaning about, especially at this time of year. But underneath the layers of slightly melodramatic complaints, there is some real contemplation which I’d like to think is valid and honest. Being at this school takes away a massive chunk of my free time and replaces it with—what, exactly? an unending stream of tests to pass, assignments to speed through, chunks of reading to skim? It isn’t too hard to get by with decent achievements here, but it means so more time commitment than it does actual interest or creativity.

Sometimes I feel dull at school, zombified, knowing that every fact or fragment of information goes in one ear and out the other. I make a good effort to sleep plenty, since I’m the type of person who handles being alive badly on less than 6 hours of sleep, but it never feels like enough. And I try hard to focus in class, but I’m spacey by nature, and the moment I start to think that understanding or remembering these words is only appealing to me so I can pass an exam and get an acceptable grade so that I can succeed in the way the Uni High has defined success, I get a little queasy. There have been moments—many in fact; they happen daily—when I’m sitting in class realizing that I’m actually being inspired in some legitimate fashion, that I’m doing something I find important and indispensible. But mostly that is not the case. Mostly I’m bored and half-asleep or dreaming.

I’m thinking about all this, and I’m also thinking about the stress associated. Even if those first paragraphs were totally useless to you, I’m sure that word stress makes good sense. I’ve tried many times to divorce myself from the anxieties of school and tests—I know that my value as a human being should not be informed by the grades I get—but it is sort of inescapable. Do you guys ever have dreams that you have a paper due the next day that you forgot to write and you are trapped in a room with a 15 page long math exam and you lost your calculator and if you don’t finish in time a giant spider will burst through the wall and devour your family? I hate that my subconscious is so afraid of school. And I’m sort of tired of hearing about how everyone is going to fail every test they get how it is going to ruin their life because really everyone could just calm down a little and get some perspective.

But these are just my two cents, at this particular moment in life. I don’t mean to apologize anything I’ve said, because I believe it all, but I would like to remind anyone who finds my irritation excessive that I do in fact, possess a grain of affection or two for Uni High. But the system is flawed, and sometimes I wish I had the time to be more than a student, or that the general consensus on success was a little less grade oriented. I wish that being interested in learning about the world was more virtuous than being interested in cramming three hours the night before an exam. I wish there was something more interesting for me to be interested in. But I’ll be out of here soon enough and maybe time and distance will allow me more sentimental appreciation for the place.

Dudes I love The National

I turned on the TV at 2am last night to catch the tail-end of The National playing Austin City Limits. If asked to describe their music--beyond the cursory genre categorization “indie rock”--I think the word that comes to mind is “depressive”. Lead singer Matt Berninger’s stage presence conveys discomfort, even anguish, as he hunches over the microphone, gazing at the floor. They introduce the next song “About Today” off the 2004 EP, Cherry Tree, by advising the audience that this would be a good time to cry. Their music seems invariably dark at times, as if their inspiration is only born of experiencing loneliness and anxiety. They are solemn and awkward, not here to party.

If we are friends then I have probably mentioned to you that The National is one of my very favorite bands. Yet I feel irresponsible saying that the music I love is defined exclusively by sadness, or that I buy into a romanticized vision of depression, because those things are not true. They make beautiful music and that is the why I choose to listen. The last song on the set is followed by an interview with Matt Berninger and another band member, where they addressed their reputation as being a “depressed group of guys”. They talked about the fun and catharsis of writing songs about sadness, about how deeply satisfying it feels. And I agree—there is something entirely excellent about acknowledging and expressing sadness. I have always thought that the discomfort and fear in their music does not eclipse the possibility for poetic expression and wholeness. I guess what I mean is, not everything that talks about sadness is here to make us sad. It can be comforting too.

My most vivid memory of last summer is this: sitting on a train in Germany, insanely jetlagged, watching the forests and countryside roll by, listening to the album Boxer on endless repeat. I love everything they do, but this album has always been my favorite. It has a more acoustic sound than their most recent album, High Violet, and Matt Berninger’s deep voice resonates fantastically. It is slow, quiet music, but at the same time tense and high strung—perfect music for being far from home. It is hard me to describe what about Boxer appeals to me so deeply. I’ve never tried since I’ve always enjoyed my music tastes without question. Boxer makes sense to me. I guess it is equal parts appreciation of their art and relief at seeing a group of people who are not always comfortable and satisfied being terribly human for a living.

I spent more time than I should have staying up late and going for walks that summer, and I was never without my ipod. Sometimes I wasn’t in the mood for it, but mostly The National was exactly what I needed, so I was happy surprised to stumble on their familiar music in that moment of latenight solitude. The television sang, on low volume, "it takes an ocean not to break" over and over again, panning across a rapt audience.