Non serviam

Well, another exciting day at my parents' home in California. And by exciting day, I mean a day of uploading my mom's CDs to iTunes on her new iMac, and setting up the new printer, and just generally performing various IT-related tasks. I fear this is going to become a regular occurrence, even when I am not around, since my dad-- the usual household IT person-- doesn't know anything about Macs. Alas.

I alluded to this in an earlier blog post, but its reality seems to become particularly underscored whenever I am home: I *really* don't like being told what to do. And I pretty much try to order my life around figuring out ways to just "do my thing." Lately, for a variety of reasons, I have had cause to notice that everywhere one goes, it seems like someone-- who may or may not have the authority to do so-- is trying to tell everyone else what to do, how to think, how to act. Everything from at the personal level with my parents, to the macro level of, now legislatures want to start imposing a "fat" tax on "unhealthy" food. Seriously? Are you kidding me? It seems all one ever runs into are opinions-- as the saying goes, like assholes, everyone has one. But more than just opinions. People want to make their opinions, their own conception of "right and "wrong," laws-- as if they know others better than those people know themselves, and must make everyone follow what they think is right. That they know how to and must "save" people from themselves. A: it's not anyone else's job, responsibility, or really, ability, to save anyone else from themselves. I call bullshit. If someone needs saving, it needs to come from within, ultimately. And the essence of freedom, is the ability to make choices-- both bad and good-- and live with the consequences. Take away choice, even if just "bad" choices, and you take away freedom. I don't know-- maybe people don't value individualism or freedom anymore; it does seem like we are living in a more "collectivist" mindset society (which is also bullshit). But I value freedom, I value my ability to live and let live. I can't even think about it too much, because then I just get really pissed off. I start feeling more and more like a fricking hamster in a cage, with nothing but the wheel going round and round, unable to escape from unending meddling, unwanted "advice." Sometimes, I just want to scream. It just ain't living. And yet there is no escape, save for maybe getting on a plane to Vanuatu. Perhaps I am one of the last bastions of thought that puts a premium on the individual over the collective, perhaps I am part of a dying breed. Perhaps no one will agree with me. But seriously, where can anyone go anymore to truly be free?

I guess my whole life philosophy can be summed up in two words: non serviam. For those of you not familiar with Latin and/or Milton, its basic translation is "I will not serve." Which incidentally basically sums up why I don't follow any religion. But that is a very hard philosophy to follow in this day and age. Maybe it always was. Maybe for all the Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment talk about freedom, rights, and the individual-- maybe it really was all pipe dreams, maybe it really was a type of lie, or at least wishful thinking. Maybe true freedom never existed, and can never exist. Well, now I am starting to sound like Eugene O'Neill. Oh well. At any rate, I still want "non serviam" as an epitaph (and no, again this is not a veiled threat. I am just one of those weird people who thinks about things like this).

Or maybe I am just broody because in a lot of ways, I am not content with where I am right now, in life. I was flipping through a catalogue today called Great Courses, which is literally a catalogue of a term's worth of college lectures on a myriad of different subjects. Being the geek I am, I found like, 5 courses at least that I would want to order, just because they sounded interesting. I could learn cools things just for the joy of learning, without having to worry about tests or grades or any of that bullshit. Learning for the sake of knowing more, learning for the sake of curiosity, not as the means to some calculated career end. And then it hit me: yes, I really should have gone into academia. Not as a professor, but as a researcher, or a curator, or something involved in just learning, of gathering and keeping information. At heart, I am a bookish nerd. I like to study things, and I like to do it just to do it, and I am tired of it all being compromised by the other considerations of grades, class rank, etc.

In other life news, I got my summer job assignment. Sounds like it should be interesting; I got my first choice of division, and one can do worse than chilling in NYC for the summer. But what happens after? Still no more interviews, no job offers. Am beginning to lose hope. I really don't know what I want or need any more. I am very envious of those people who always knew what they wanted to be when they grew up. I was never one of them, I don't think. I also know now why I like history so much: my own life bores me to tears, I like learning about people who seemed to have interesting lives (it's why we know about them now), or thinking about societies long ago and far away, that seemed much more interesting than the one in which I now currently live.

I guess this post is a little depressing tonight, so I will end it. I guess I am in a broody, philosophical mood tonight. One of the "Great Courses" I wanted to take was on Existentialism, lol. I think being broody is an occupational hazard of being introspective, which I have always been.

As a parting shot, however, I came across this quote from Emily Dickinson. Although not at all really related to tonight's subject matter, it struck me as very personally relatable. So I thought I would share it with you all. Enjoy, and have a good night.

One need not be a chamber to be haunted;

One need not be a house;

The brain has corridors surpassing

Material place