Damage, Inc.

Old Metallica is like a balm for the soul.

"Orion" is my nonverbal mantra.

kore wa, muzukashii desu.

For as long as I can remember, people have told me how great college was. Someone would be over for a family dinner, and eventually the subject would arise, and all of the adults at the table would get the same misty-eyed look and begin to mumble vague stories and chuckle. Over time, the university developed into a semi-mythical place in my mind, a golden Elysium of opportunity and joy, where every wild desire could be met and tamed. And so, in that context, I keep wondering, what the fuck were they talking about?

Had their lives reached such a pinnacle of mundanity that, in retrospect, these years seemed like fun? Was it just the fog of nostalgia, ascribing to these times a sense of wild purpose which they did not, indeed, possess.

Or am I some kind of aberration? Should I be having the time of my life right now? Is it by my own obstinacy or some other flaw of character that I'm not enjoying myself? I've been here for a year and 2/3rds now, and I've met maybe three people I've connected with. I hold a strange, leering contempt for the vast majority of my peers. The next time I hear some Abercrombie-vested girl at the gym talking about how she "tried a keg stand and vomited but it was still soooo fun and oh shit, are you going to Zack's on Wednesday?" I'm going to jump off of a fucking balcony.

But that's really not the whole of it. More than anything it's this feeling of a profound lack of purpose that I can’t' shake. I feel like I’m just floating here in the Bellingham miasma, serving some kind of allotted purgatory before I can go out and actually be in the world.

Is it really just me? Empirically, the answer seems to be no. Most of my friends who I still see in Seattle are just as miserable as I am. Ironically, all they seem to want to do is get out of Seattle, and all I want to do is get back.