So let's stalk about my birthday

Long time coming, I promised this ages ago. And here it is. A streaming consciousness type entry (like most of my stuff here) on my day and perhaps the day after.

The day started rather eventlessly. I was up at 12:01am that day... and unfortunately I spent that time taking a dump. Rather disgraceful of me to not have evacuated my bowels earlier in the day, but nevertheless that is what I was doing when  I turned 20. There were already starting to be some Facebook messages, though I was disappointed not to hear my phone go off at all.. not even from my parents.

I've said this before and I'll again, I'm at the age where I don't know what present I want nor do I know what to get others, but I'm also still at that age in which birthdays are one of the most important days of the year. A day when the entire world should stop, stand still, and quite literally anything that happens is because of it being your birthday. (I personally adopt this view most days of my life... I find it makes for a much more interesting experience).

This it was with a heavy heart that I went to bed with. When I awoke, I had 9 messages awaiting me on Facebook. It was about 10pm when I got up. Texted Chris and told him to swing by 11, since that's when he finished classes... Normally he waits until 12, which is when Charlotte finishes classes and we, as a trio, go grab lunch. Charlotte couldn't make it, thus it was me and Chris. This usually works out perfectly, since it gives him and me a good, solid 3 hours to spur and challenge and do other masculinity asserting activities.

Usually this involves chess and Pokemon cards.

The chess games that day were all lost. THOUGH! That first game was pretty much one of the best games I've played in a very long time. There were no stupid moves made by anyone really.. and in fact, Chris won when all he had were pawns and a Queen left. I had rooks, bishops and knights.... I pretty much had no excuse. I learnt my lesson, I had 2-3 opportunities to sacrifice a piece to take his Queen, but I always opted not to. NEVER AGAIN.

But there were numerous rather tactically genius moves for both of us in that game, some whose full ingenuity weren't realises until after the fact, but for the most part we played a good game.

The next game was a little bit more easily skewed in his favour. It's amazing how one foolish move spirals outwards, a plague of stupidity infecting all other subsequent moves. I put up quite an awesome defense, but eventually he cornered me.

Third game we both pretty much made stupid moves throughout. Eventually I had a rook and a queen and had cornered him into a very strong position ... No wait, am I mixing up this game with my first game? Eugh, this is why I hate writing days after the event. Let's assume it's a different game... I was basically moving in to trap Chris, going in a systematic, row-by-row check sequence, forcing him to move his King further towards the edge. I had a rather troublesome pawn  on the edge though, and I could see him navigating his way towards the piece to hide there.

Eventually he's in a situation where he's behind that pawn. My rook no longer can get him, but I still have a Queen to move in for the kill. In a moment I replay over and over, in my mind I could see if I moved my Queen to check him, he'll be able to move out of the trap I set, so I decide not to take that move. This means he's not in check and he then enacts a plan he'd had planned since 6 moves ago, checkmating me. I didn't even see my King was so vulnerable.

I ask him to let me replay that move. Turns out had I moved in my Queen for the check, he'd have to move into a position where I could check made him. Fuck.

Pause for classes.

We come back in the late arvo, I decide to skip tutoring that night and spend it birthdaying instead. Gordon was gonna come over bringing his deck meaning we were going to have an age old Pokemon-fest.

Like Gordon always does, I get a call from him about 5:40pm, 10 minutes after he said he'd be here. "Hey Shanan, I don't think I'll be seeing you tonight." That's how he says it... If it were me, or perhaps anyone else, I'd start with "Hey Shanan, my work just called and I have to work". I mean his approach left me utterly confused. Regardless, turns out his work had changed his shift over without informing him (the cunts) and he wouldn't be able to make it.

Thus Chris and I worked hard to keep ourselves entertained. During our chess matches I call my mother and see what she wants to do and Dad comes up with the brilliant idea that we should go to where Gordon works and spend my birthday there, that way I can see him. Turns out talking on the phone and chessing are not compatible activites. I pretty much checkmate myself :P

Chris leaves so I walk him down from his building. Then I start watching another ep of Deadwood. I get a call from Gordon. he was let out of work because he was deemed too sick and that he'd be here soon. I go down to pick him up and as soon as I walk into my room, my parents call since they're in Canberra now, at my building and ask me to come down.

I had asked them to bring up one of the spare television sets, given the horribly tiny screen I'd been suffering from for a year and a half had grown tiresome. As such it was a Godsend that Gordon was here as well, what with his muscles. We get a shopping trolley, fill it up with good for both me and Gordon (since my entire family pretty much pities Gordon's situation having moved out and concerned he can't feed himself heatlhily ...), a TV, a TV wrack and what I notice to be one huge package I can only assume is my present.

Awkward moments later we're all in my room, having carried all the crap up the stairs to my floor. We wipe down the TV and set it up. I unveil my presents. I get a kickass jacket, upping my proper winter gear to 4 :P I'd pretty much just lived with one or two this year.. but now I had a new thing to wear! I also go a FUCKING CHAIR!

I realise this makes me sound horrible domestic, but my room has no actual chairs. Like I have an office swivel for my desk and I have two stool-like things. But no couch. All my guests had to sit on my squeaky bed. But this chair.. it's like a fold out one.. but it's reclining and incredibly comfortable. In fact, I was testing it out this afternoon and it's perfect for afternoon reading in the sun :D :D :D

Too bad I didn't have this chair earlier, it may have made watching TV on the tiny screen up near the ceiling a lot more amicable, reclining all the way back. Oh well.

Still right now my room is one huge mess. I've got too much clutter now. The TV doesn't take up much space but it just feels a lil' different now and will take getting used to. Oh and Gordon gave my a megoladon tooth, which looks pretty sweet :D

I still've the Wii to hook up to my new TV. As well as my PS2. My PS3 should be arriving any day now, so I'm eagerly awaiting that. There are so many games for Ps3 I'm planning on getting, GTA4, Fallout 3 (thanks to Comit), Eternal Sonata, Valkyria Chronicles as well as a host of other RPGs.

Once I get this philosophical film review due Friday out of the way and properly put together my seminar presentation for social psych on Monday, I have the rest of the term off. Except for a mid-semester exam... But beyond that, I'm gonna fucking buy some games and do some binging.

I also had a great dinner for my birthday. Nothing interesting happened. We had a nice tiramisu cake. I had to sleep early to wake up on time for the 9am class the next morning. FML.

Another Bachian Quote

Wish I could say I had an actual substantive post for you. Unfortunately, as laziness dictates, I do not. Therefore, I resort to my stock-standard: a quote! Again, from Bach, written on his own blog.

The outspoken, self-titled AbsoLute Monarch celebrated his birthday on the 31st. A fellow writer and sculpter to Activeworlds unique personality, its been a pleasure to read his incites and opinions. Activeworlds creates all types of leaders and AbMo definately has his place.



HAPPY BIRTHDAY, my friend. ..stick around, its just getting good.

Isn't it interesting how a well-defined, consistent and strong personality on pretty much exclusively the forums translates into a presence in an online community which is ostentily not in the browser? :P Naturally I begin to wonder about how many people actually see me the same kind of way Bach does ... what with all the huggles not actually being on the forums. I'm wishing more people eventually flock to the forums ... turn it into what it's supposed to be.

But a boy can only dream.

Best wish of the day...

... goes to my friend Bach Zhaa :D He wrote this over on the AW forums and I thought it was a very poignant and sweet lil' message. Will definitely write more extensively on my day later. Right now I gotta sleep ...9am class tomorrow X_x

...a little late in the scheme of things but I have enough trouble living in my own time let alone one thats a day early.. lol


Happy Birthday AbMo!


...from one big mouth to another, isn't it nice to look back on your words and measure the years by your writings and wit, instead of just memories. I hope you journaled your day my friend, and included all the warm wishes and great friends you've made in Activeworlds and in the real world. Life is much too short to let any of these moments go by, so before its tomorrow already, err.. I mean yesterday,
Happy Birthday...

I wonder if he reads my blog :O

Birthday Wishes '09

Because I'm such a geeky fellow who likes to compile stats and whatnot, here's my data for my 20th birthday 2009.

Early wishes

• Charlotte: Facebook chat
• Beau: MSN + reply to my Facebook status

On the day (Midnight to 2am - before I slept)

• Ryan: MSN + Facebook chat AND Facebook wall (the freak must be like in love with me)
• Alex: Facebook wall
• Jessica (cousin): Facebook wall
• Tart Sugar: reply to my Facebook status #1
• Cody: Facebook wall
• Sukhpreet: Facebook wall
• James M: Facebook wall + Twitter
• QRM: AW Forums

On the day (10am - after I woke)

• Kimberley: Facebook wall
• Jeanne: Facebook wall
• Jack St: Facebook wall
• Lev: Facebook wall
• Samantha S: Facebook wall
• SW Comit: MSN
• Josh K: reply to my Facebook status #1 (Or so I've chosen to believe)
• Andrew P: Facebook wall
• Digi: AW Forums
• Sevens: AW Forums (WTF ANOTHER RAMBO PICTURE? >_
• Seiya: AW Forums
• Jay: MSN
• SW Chris: AW Forums
• Legolas: AW Forums
• Chris: in person
• Mother: phone
• Father: phone
• Kiet: Facebook wall
• Aunt On Yee: Facebook message
• Ryan: Facebook chat
• Krystle: Facebook wall
• Jack T: Facebook wall
• Phil H: Facebook wall
• Ian: Facebook chat
• Hayley: Facebook wall
• Sian: Facebook wall
• Alex K: Facebook wall
• Sam VDP: Facebook wall
• Bede: Facebook wall
• Sandy: txt
• Henry: txt
• Alistair: Facebook wall
• Brett: reply to Facebook status #1
• Melissa: Facebook wall
• AlexTheMartian: Facebook wall
• Steph DR: Facebook wall
• Josh Cv: Facebook wall
• Elle: Facebook wall (FINALLY)
• Jay: Facebook wall as well
• Alastair: Facebook wall

Late (after 12am September 1; either incredibly rude or are Americans):

• Nick: Facebook wall
• Tom A: Facebook chat
• Connor: in person
• Gobinder: in person
  

1 (or 0, I forgot to keep count) Days to 20 - Shanan's Countdown

Let me make something clear, I'm not ready to stop being a teen. If I had it my way no one would ever stop being a teen. There is so much to being a teen that anyone who is not a teen cannot possibly realise, and this isn't just some angsty comment. It's one of those things only a few very wise people feel ... Stephen Fry is one of them. JM Barrie based Peter Pan off that basic notion.

It's funny how adults, how those "mature" people will always look down on the teenage naivety. Disdain at the foolish invincibility ... the "unrealistic" dreams ... believing in things that don't exist in the real world (the one statement that I loathe so much). Adults all think that's the pinnacle of their experience and see fit to encumber our hopes, our dreams with their "experience". When it's clear to everyone to whom they attempt to fetter their "experience" all of it is just self-justifying their own position in life. Every teen sees life is a series of possibilities, where every- and anything is possible. There's no such thing as "unrealistic". And yet, almost oddly enough, they almost always lose this sensibility and embrace the notion that they have to start being worldly, taking on responsibilities and being an adult. But all it is is that they've failed to achieve what they thought they would in their life, so they've had to change their whole cognitive framework so they retain some shread of integrity.

They place so much stock in what is possible and probable. They forget the nobility and beauty and grandeur and majesty of the impossible and the improbable.

Can I claim I will never feel this way? I suppose being a teen, by my own very definition, I have every right to say I will never fall prey to such sensibilities, even if it were inevitable.

It's always much better to hate one's future. I find if you're preoccupied with hating your future-self, you don't spend it on your past, you don't have regrets.

There's a letter I wrote awhile back, addressed to my future-self. Will I ever receive it? I dunno, it was one of those exercises and a teacher took it. If they should find us and deliver the letters, then I shall be interested in reading it. The basic jist of the letter was a statement of all I thought and felt at the time. And if I should even have the most niggardly inclination to dislike or disagree with my point, to feel at any moment contempt for the arrogance/naivety/stupidity of my past-sefl, I will affirm everything on the letter. If, by the time I read that letter, I've become an adult, then I have betrayed everything I stood for then and everything I stand for now.

That's what being a teen is for me. That's what being human is to me. The quintessential qualia that separates us as a species and us as individuals is our infinite capacities. We are, from surface to core, irrational beings. Our efforts are not encumbered or weighted by the experience of our own or others. This is the precise lesson I learnt most vividly from Guren Lagann Tengen Toppa.

Thus teenagerism is the acme of humanism. Tomorrow I am twenty. I officially lose the title of teen. Perhaps I can call myself twenteen, delude myself into thinking I haven't crossed that thresh-hold into banality and adulthood. Sure it's only a symbolic transition and in terms of mentality and mode of thought I remain a teenager, but it's nice to know that reality and my essence are in sync.

Tomorrow everything changes.

17 Days to 20 - Shanan's Best Friend

(Let us just assume that this post isn't two days late, shall we? or that I even forgot about posting altogether yesterday, reneaging on my promise to blog each day this month and write 20 posts for the 20 days to 20. I'll use my bloggical powers to make it seem like it actually happened, with this one paragraph here the only evidence to the contrary. So please don't read this if you don't want the illusion destroyed.)

In this 20 day retrospective on my life, I knew I would eventually have to evaluate my status and position on the front of friends. One of the few things that do concern me about how other people view me is to do with the number of friends I have. I have a lot of friends and most people find me amiable and easy to get along with. I am not some loner boy that is forced to spend entire weekends hauled up in his apartment. I am just a boy who chooses to spend his weekends that way and my friends are good enough to accomodate to my whims and not to place strenuous demands on my behaviour.

Read what you want into that, but I felt compelled to preface this blog post with that caveat.

Anyway, while I had known I would have to write about friends, I had no idea that one minor thing that happened at tutoring would send into a week long musing/depressive cycle about it. Just one small non-action. One non-act of acknowledgement could give me two newly perspicuous epiphanies.

One, perhaps the most salient with the inaction: That many of the people I had held in my hand of close friends not only are no longer close friends, but they virtually don't count as friends any more. And that the majority of them have made it quite clear that anything more than acquaintenceship with me is unwanted. It isn't just the one downgrade, but it's two.

And what depresses me about the situation isn't so much that they aren't friends of mine anymore (as depressing as it is) but it's that I didn't realise it myself sooner. Given that the change in status quo prolly happened months, if not a year ago, and I've just foolishly mentally considered them still friends, despite having not have any (or maybe just a little) communicative communication with them.

This oversight mostly stems from my standard of friendship not being one of needing to have constant social interaction. That is the quality of the friendship does not fade with time without social interaction. I find such conceptions of friendships to be most fickle and misleading. Naturally I hold none of my friendships to this definition, and rather, I can go for years without a single interaction with someone and would still call them a friend.

But at the same time, that doesn't mean friendships can't change. Some will fade, some will end. This isn't due to non-interaction. It just happens. And it had happened to so many of my friendships and I've totally not realised.

My second epiphany is a lil' more abstract and that is pretty much that I have no best friends. I mean, Jay asked me when he and I first started talking, "Who's your bestie" and I could answer him. Of course he and Cody make their best-friendship known most loudly on any Facebook medium (status, wall, comments, photos, notes), and I know him through Cody, so I guess it's only naturally that he'd ask me that question as a get-to-know-you.

Someone else asked me that today (two days after this post is up ;)) and I wasn't able to answer them either. In fact, while my reply to Jay was quite non-chalant, the one I gave today was hurried and awkward, purely because I had realised I have no best friends and was caught off guard in that momentary intersection between the outside world and that of my mind.

There's probably one or two people who are or will be reading this who will be surprised/shocked, having thought me to be best friends with them, and if so, you're a moron for not making that clearer to me at the time of writing this.

That's not to say I don't have close friends. Of those I have plenty. And they're not just friends. I follow conventional heirarchies, strangers -> acquaintencnes -> friends -> close friends -> best friends etc. So while I have a nice handful of close friends (a population that was recently culled, as I explained above), I have zero best friends.

Perhaps it's useful here to give my conception of best friend. The way I see it, it's basically a romantic partner but without the sexual component/overtones. Someone to whom you feel connected, who gets you and who you get. It's more to do with understanding more than anything else. You'll note that I specifically avoided saying "someone you can confide secrets in with" because I don't consider that best friend material at all, I don't even consider it a friend matter. (Who you divulge your secrets to shouldn't be a matter of information control. You tell them to whoever needs to know them, by whatever criteria you wish to hold them do at the time.)

And the more I think about it, I can't help but think that maybe I've never had a best friend. That people like Wally, Jan, Alastair, Nawaaz, Will, Sandy, Chris, Gordon ... all these people were just really close friends. I'm not categorically saying that, so if you're one of those don't get offended yet. My point is that's just how I'm feeling and the rest of this post is assuming my feeling is correct, which may not be the case at all and will be categorically stated in a later entry once I give it more thought.

Like all good Shanans, I am now faced with the question of why. Why is it that I lack best friends? For that I have several theories.

Perhaps the best one, or at least the one that is most self-serving, is that people realise I don't live by the same rules as them, and so, out of respect for me, they don't try to force me to live by their definitions. They may feel that I don't want a best friend and therefore are content with just close friend.

Alternatively it may just be that I'm being ridiculously picky with my standards of best friend, something that is either objectively impossible or impossible given other Shananian factors. That maybe my close friends fit the bill and I shouldn't question it further.

Perhaps (another rather ego-stroking theory) is that people are interested in me because I present an enigma (for whatever aspect of life) (or maybe I am just so abnormal that I fascinate). Over time the enigma gets stale and therefore interest wanes. Alternatively I may peel away too many layers until they eventually solve the riddle, concluding that I wasn't worth the time, that the real Shanan is boring and uninteresting and disinteresting (see what I did there?? ;))

Or maybe I just haven't found my best friend yet. It could just be that simple. Either way, for a birthday restrospective, both epiphanies I came to today are both ridiculously depressing. And I'm sure my future self will blame that on why I haven't managed to finish Spiral yet, despite promising Colby that it would occured over the weekend.

18 Days to 20 - Gift Wrapped Shanan

Personally, I'm quite enjoying writing these. As well as thinking about them. All the issues that could come up concerning a birthday, I'm sure towards the 10 day mark I'll run out of things to say. Until that day comes however, I have many issus I wish to discuss with you lovelies.

The Present, with a majuscule P.

Last year it took me a long time to think up something... It was a piano. Slash electric piano slash keyboard. I'm not even sure I know what the differences between them are. In the end, it never happened since none of us knew where to look or indeed how to look.

So what am I wanting this year? No idea. I still have the slight yearn for the piano, but not the same passionate urge I had last year. I'm not brimming with the same confidence that I can conquer that system, reaping its musical rewards for myself, under my own tutlege.

From a functional utilitarian perspective, having a piano and actually self-teaching some musical talent for myself can only come in handy. What with me being such a big musical boy 'n' all. I have songs I want to write ... I have musicals I want to write... I have soundtracks I'm going to end up wanting to compose. None of that, unfortunately, can start without a piano. However I am not certain that I would be able to do it, even though it'd be kickass if I could.

I can't imagine what it must be for my parents. I mean I've reached the stage in my life that parents worldwide dread, that age where material goods just doesn't seem enough. And I can completely empathise, I've reached the age where I don't feel material goods are good enough for my parents.

My solution? Perspicuous lack of Mother's or Father's day gifts :P Sorry, Mum, who I am sure will be reading this in a few months time, many days after my birthday has passed.

My Grandma turns 80 years old this coming weekend. I tried to sort out a collective gift from her grandchildren... but it's in 2 days time and it totally doesn't seem likely. I guess it's just a matter of disorganisation and lack of communicative skills, which is unfortunate.

That and we couldn't come up with any ideas for her. Luckily I can write this with impunity for I know she will never read this. Possibly because she doesn't know this website exists. Or what a website is. Or can't read English. Take your pick. Ergonomic pillow? Warm doona? Day spa pass? Photo frame? Photo album? Cosmetic goods? Gift voucher?

I'm not sure what's going to happen right now. I'll let you know the moment I do :P

.... Did I just spent a whole bunch of time talking about someone else but me? This will not do!

Shanan's present.

You know, it's a little saddening that I've reached a point in my life where I only expect a present from my parents. None of that silly party nonsense, none of tha obtuse friends shenanigans - this is where 20 years culminates. It is a tad disappointing, but not at all as depressing as one might assume.

But honestly, what am I expecting? What do I want? What do others think I want?

For one of the first times in my life those questions really have no answers.

19 Days to 20 - Triumvirate of Shanan

I've decided that I'm going to title each of these posts with a 'Shanan' in them. It's clear to anyone reading this that to give such credence to my birthday is woefully self-indulgent ... why try to hide it? ;)

5 months ago I wrote a post talking about how to describe me in three words. It's funny because all this time I've been using them as a way of describing me to others, yet in that post I lament how they're not the words. Yet they've become rather near and dear to me...

Philosopher. Clown. Raconteur.

To make others think. To make others laugh. To make others feel.

And the more I use that to describe myself, the more I see it being applicable to all aspects of my life. For instance, I now know that my three idols nicely fit into each of those categories. I got to thinking that maybe having a trio of idols isn't necessarily a bad thing, and if anything, I would want to try to maintain that balance of one idol per each title. So I've labelled Stephen Fry the Philosopher, Shaun Micallef the Clown and Oscar Wilde the Raconteur.

Primarily, each title isn't exactly what the word in the english language means. Philosopher in my sense is far more than just questioning the metaphysics of our universe and pondering ethics and morality. It's about a kind of sensibility, an ascerbic self-awareness, to be meta-cognitive, but most importantly able to inspire others to think. It is, in my case, an inherently social act. It's also about being able to think original, new, unthought of thoughts. So while Stephen Fry is also a very funny person and is also blessed with a most joyous command of the language, I classify him in this rank, purely for his intelligence and ability to captivate the thought of others.

A Clown is much more than dressing up in floppy shoes and a red nose. It's about a perpetual levity, indifference and irreverence. Appreciating a good joke, a good insult, even if directed at oneself or someone one cares about, even if that someone has just recently passed. It's about charisma, charm, to be able to improvise any situation into some sort of humour. Not being afraid of making yourself the centre of a joke, to be laughed at. Knowing that being laughed at doesn't matter, so long as they're laughing. To laugh at oneself, to laugh at others, to make others laugh at you and to make others laugh at others. I don't think I need to justify Shaun Micallef's role in this. As a comedian I've admired him ever since Micallef Tonight, and I've never seen something he's done that I'ven't considered genius.

The Raconteur is not just a storyteller. Rather I latch onto the most important element of a good story, and that is is that it makes us feel. I don't just mean the stereotypical write a sad soppy love story and you'll get 'em feeling and therefore loving type feel. There are so many emotions in our human spectrum that a person may be able to use... Most importantly there's that of beauty. The Raconteur is as much about creating beauty as it is about seeing it when it presents itself and inspiring others with it. Oscar Wilde fits here, not only for his poetry, and his plays, but for his artful concoctions from the english language. Often the medium that he uses isn't the meaning of the words, but the actual words themselves, the cadences, the juxtaposition of differing words.

In many ways, how I've come to realise these three aspects of my life all came in epiphanies... The visceral power of the beautiful in year 9 when I caught a glimpse of Love and Death on Long Island that has stayed with me since. I can't remember the precise moment I started wondering about beauty and all that, but I had a convo with Sainty in Oct '07 (or maybe '06? :\) about it, so it would've been around that time when I really started thinking about it. The epiphany of philosopher came to me when I started taking philosophy at uni. Not so much that I learnt it.. but when I realsied all the things I'd thought of were not of my own, that most people had to be taught it, that I had investigated it all on my own in my youth. This made me realise it was something special and of great import to me. And clown came quite literally when I decided I wanted to be a clown. Cirque de Soleil, Dralion, 2008. Saw the show, knew that's what I had to do with my life.

And really, all three of these things I've really been doing my entire life. Since St Pat's I was always the smart one, the different one, the one who had crazy theories and love to discuss and debate with others, to make them think too. I did it at Grammar. Some people see it as pretentious arrogance, I prefer to see it as pedagogy.

Similarly I've always been a clown. It is what I've always striven to do ... my first instinct in any given situation is to get a laugh. Could be via wit, it could be physical comedy. It's always something. I don't always get a laugh, but that's hardly the point. It was this realisation that perhaps moved me the most. Not only did I realise I'd dedicated my entire youth to it, but that it could and would be of great import and would be something I would carry with me.

The raconteuring one is perhaps a little less clear. But I've always appreciated a fantastic story, especially through the medium of video games. FFX, Kingdom Hearts, these two in particular changed the way I saw the genre. Naruto and the Haku story in the first major arc, that forever changed me. I've always appreciated beauty, and when I've written, it would always focus on getting a feeling.

All my favourite things in life feature around these three circles. Then again, I'm sure that's the case for most people, I mean, 'smart', 'beautiful' and 'funny' things are sort of quite broad topics.

Moreover, these three will be endeavours I will have in my future, whatever my profession. I'm earning a doctorate in psychology, despite not wanting to be a psychologist nor use the degree for any future jobs. The degree sits solely as a mark of my third of learning and knowledge. Right now? I still want to be a clown in the Cirque. It's just a matter of getting there without violating my philosophical integrity.

In many ways, these three occupations describe who I have been, who I am, and who I will be.

The Philosopher. The Clown. The Raconteur.

So looking back on the past 20 years, this is what my life has become. That's a little less than a 3rd of my life (by the average life span), and this is what I have to show for it.

Now to use the rest of it to change the world.

20 Days to 20 - Shanan's Celebration

Decided earlier today that I would do another Birthday Retrospective. I did it last year for my 19th birthday, which was also the start of my 20th year, except I think I only wrote for the 7 days leading up to it. What I'm planning to do this year is to write a post for each of the 20 days leading to my 20th birthday, or the start of my 21st year. I had a whole piece on the importance of why we should be measuring birthdays by the the numbered year it begins, rather than looking at the year it ended last year, and I shan't go into it here. But I found the experience refreshing, a welcome diversion from my usual sporadic ramblings; this centralises and thematicises my thoughts onto the most important day of the year: my birthday.

The idea of this series is to lay bare some of my thoughts on the three temporal me's: who I am, who I was and who I can be. Or, failing that, to satisfy my egregiously transparent vainglorious narcissim.

There'll be a few things I want to talk about... My 'Manifesto of Dreams' that I wrote last year, as a list of the things I would have liked to have accomplished. Note that it's not a list of things that I use to declare, in a utilitarian sense, whether or not my year was productive. It is merely a guide to see how many of those boons God has been so capriciously gracious to grant. Some of them were realistic, some were not, some were worldly things, some were more philosophical in nature... Err... don't want to stray into that tonight.

Also: thinking of cross-posting all these onto Facebook as well. So if you're reading this on Facebook, then I can only profusely apologise. There has been little to no thought put into this, there won't be any intrinsic structure and it'll be a higgledy-piggledy mess of thoughts... A stream of consciousness (has so cleverly denoted by the prolific ellipses).

One of the things almost everyone's asked when I've idly (and rather cleverly) inserted a birthday reference into conversation is "are you having a party" or "how are you celebrating." To each of them I've always replied "I dunno," a true enough statement. I mean, look at my 18th birthday ... a nice dinner with parents, went to the casino, that was it. My 19th? A dinner. Inductively speaking, it means I won't even get to eat for my 20th...

The point I wish to raise, in my own rather perambulated way, is that I've never cared for the traditional celebrations. I care not for conventional anything, most of the time and I guess I feel specific emphasis should be placed on a non-traditional birthday (which, ironically enough, is a feeling based on a conventional belief that birthdays are important). Sure, back in Kindergarden to ... must've been year 5-6, I had one massive birthday where all my classmates were invited. But they were never really traditional because most people don't invite the entire grade (else if they did I may've been invited to more parties ;)).

A drunken rackus in Civic/Kingston or trashing some house? Pft. (And I should probably remind everyone here how much I hate being lumped together with those prudes who think they are too good for drinking or whatever. I have quite a lot of respect, both social and philosophical,  for getting pissed and all that. But the appeal has never been there for me.)

Going to some special event to commemorate? Pft.

Spending it with a special someone with some special time? Pft. (And I say 'Pft' purely for the fact that such a special person doesn't, hasn't and probably won't exist in time for the birthday).

Neither of those sound... for lack of a better word, Shananian enough. One who aims to be different, to be special, to be he for whom the rules do not apply, cannot be satisfied with such pedestrian celebrations.

Naturally the question to ask now is what is Shananian enough for Shanan? Is there something out there that's good enough, that will make me feel individual enough?

I mean, the very act of blogging 20 days leading up to my 20th, and being so frank about how special I want it to be is, in and of itself, an act espousing my latent desires.

It's the same philosophy that prevents me from settling for just 'any job' for the money. It has to be a job that either no one expects me to have (because I'm too good for it, because I'm not good enough for it, because no one would want it, because everyone would want it ... etc, you get my drift) or is a job that I'd do even without the pay. These jobs are ostensibly difficult to come by (despite Colby's best efforts for me to try renting out his ski wear :P).

It's all about trying to be interesting and to be interested; to not be boring and to not be bored.

But what is it I want to do for a celebration? I shan't go down the path of "rebelling against rebelling" (Frasier reference, anyone??) and therefore to have a timid and placcid dinner ... again. Not that that was my thinking, it was mostly a matter of convenience. Where the fuck do I get off trying to plan a night of inebriated chicanery and hijinxes? Wouldn't have the first clue.

This shall be a question, which, like the question of what present I want, shall plague me in my dreams until I find a satisfactory answer.

Perhaps the answer lies is doing work. In doing what I love? Just a thought ;)