I am myself, and there's nothing I can do about it...but why would I?

There are many nights of your life that are the most important, the nights where it doesn't matter if everything goes wrong or if everything goes right. Sure, those nights can change your life, for good or ill, but the important part is that it doesn't matter, they're nights where you can live without the fear of recompense, a night that's easily forgotten, yet can create the person you become. My problem has always been with who I am and what I've become, so this night was important to me.

Tonight was my senior prom.

Now, dances aren't my thing. The last dance (the homecoming dance of my freshman year) I was at, I literally was on my phone the whole time. In my defense, the girl I'd asked to it brought her boyfriend along. Go figure. Even then, when it comes to a girl I truly love enough to have romantic affection for, I will shut down, unable to utter a single word in her presence unless I were to know she felt the same way about me. Meanwhile, every other girl, because of my controlled sociopathism (is that a word?), I find myself easily able to talk to because I have no romantic affection for them. So asking a girl out to prom is kinda hard, because there's the matter of who I'm able to ask and who I want to ask. I asked a girl in my friend group out to prom (spoilers: she said no) because she's the highest on the scale of romantic affection before it gets towards deprecating my social function (all the other girls are cool, but romantically I don't care for them).

good luck trying to figure out how that scale works. I'm pretty sure I don't entirely know, and I made it up!

Luckily, one of my best female friends had another female friend to be my unofficial "date" for the evening. She was alright, albeit a bit awkward towards me, but that was to be expected, as I'd only just met her. She asked me as she drove me home why I didn't just ask a girl I thought was pretty, and to be honest, I actually had to think a moment. Why didn't I? Why didn't I just go with a random girl who was lower on the romantic attraction spectrum (well, I did, but I don't usually make a habit of it)?

It's because...I wanted it to be more genuine than the usual, superficial model of dating. It's like a joke about pussy, I never get it. The idea of asking out a girl I truly love has always been my one and only goal, rather than just asking someone out. It's like I'm playing a game, and I immediately switch to the hardest difficulty, even though I've barely survived the tutorial. I've wanted to conquer my greatest challenge long before I was ready, and that's prevented me from enjoying the game.

There are two main aspects to this blog post: the romantic aspect, which I'll continue on later, and the social aspect, which affected me equally as much.

Tonight I gained so much self-confidence, which seems impossible at one's senior prom unless they get really lucky.

My friends and I first went to a restaurant right next door to have dinner, where my date and my female friend went to go do something, as well as our other friend, leaving me alone with my gay friend, J. To be honest, I thought it was their attempt at being wingmen, but apparently not. Instead, the conversation drifted towards me and how much of a cool person I was. I'd never believed it before, whenever anyone told me how awesome I was, not even by my idol, Lukas, but tonight, it crashed down on me, and I was able to realize how much I was. A great conversationalist, an interesting person, good hair (I always agreed with that one, though). I still had my anxious habit of disbelieving any compliment I had been given (aside from the hair), but it was like that didn't matter. I was me, and I was proud of me, whether I wanted to be or not.

I suddenly felt myself able and willing to be who I am. I wasn't just me, I was me, if that makes any sense at all. There are days when you feel 10% yourself and days you feel 90%, but this was the night, and I felt like 100% myself. There was no emphasis as there always is as to who I should've been or who I could be, tonight was just a night of letting my inner me shine. Everyone else knew that, too. Tonight was just a night where we could be ourselves without the competitive instinct that comes with being a member of society.

Bonus points if anyone can guess which song I've put on my blog this is from without cheating

The entire night, I felt like I had a purpose, and it was to be. Everywhere I went, I didn't feel awkward, I didn't feel the need to be on my phone, I felt like everywhere I was, I was meant to be there. It was the most amazing I'd ever felt socially in a long, long while. More importantly, I knew everyone, and they knew me. So many people said hi to me with a smile on their faces that communicated such genuine appreciation (with the sad exception of Lukas, who left before I could say hello to him. Imagine the best case scenario version of yourself went to your school and was nowhere near the amount of "friend" you wanted him to be. That's Lukas to me, and this is me saying hello to him and that I feel as awesome as he is all the time) and my newfound belief from J's motivational statement was solidified. I was amazing, and I still am.

Back to my romantic aspect of this blog post, I left one of the necklaces my (ex) girlfriend gave me for Christmas at my dad's apartment, and instead decided to focus on myself. It was given to me because she thought of me when she looked at it, and I'd worn it through all that, a constant reminder of who I was in her eyes, and like with many bad relationships, I'd spent so much time thinking of her that I'd forgotten to even consider myself. She broke up with me to think of herself, and that selfish act I'd been annoyed at for so long, no matter how much I'd understood it.

There comes a time when you must finally dispel your negative feelings for the girl that rejected or dumped you. You can forget her, you can ignore her, you can mutter "that bitch" under your breath when she walks by, but she will always be a part of you, no matter how much you run from her. My old crush will always occupy a space in my heart, and it aches slightly whenever I see her happy, but there comes a time when you move on. I moved on with my girlfriend, and my feelings for my old crush were muffled, giving me a new thing to focus on which I now have to move on from in turn.

Tonight was the night I solidified myself, and the night that I forgave her, not a trace of pride or anger in my bandaged heart.

It sucks being dumped. It really does. You've spent so much time relying on someone else and now you're forced to rely on yourself only. Tonight I was forced into the mold of the person I've always wanted to be, and when my unofficial date kissed me goodnight, (my first actual kiss, awkwardly enough) I realized I was comfortable with moving on, even if I still held a candle for her should she return (not with my prom date, she has a boyfriend).

Yeah, shit's good right now. I feel whole. Tonight created me, and though people say they'll forget their senior prom, I never will.

You never forget what...or when made you who you are.

Is this who I have become? Or is it who I have been this whole time?

This is my third time attempting to write a blog post. I've noticed I've been skimming on them lately, mostly in favor of other people or my own paper notebook. It's like once I write something down, I consider myself done with it, even if I don't publish it. Well, here I go again, and I don't know how I feel.

I'm so inconsistent. Some days I'll be obsessed with Star Wars, others I'll look up William Shatner's reddit history for kicks. For some reason, that's also true for blog posts. For some reason, I just can't keep writing, I have to end, maybe because I'm used to writing long updates for you guys to read. I'm the kind of guy who either writes a huge story in my head or dismisses it without a second thought, in short, I go big or go home.

Needless to say, I go home a lot.

I think the worst part about me is my ability to not care. It's not that I don't care during an event in my life, but I can easily turn it off, become someone separate from all of it. I don't know why, maybe I just subconsciously try to become someone separate from everything because of my inability to cope with my reality. All these stories in my head, all these characters I can become, are just entirely separate personalities, and I can put a hand over the mouth of the one that cares, if I need to.

That's why acting is easy for me. Imagine a character, any character, and I have some opinion or experience regarding said character. Every human consciousness is made up of millions upon millions of different aspects of said consciousness. For me, there's me, then a demigod, then a Sith, a warrior, a pacifist, a hero, a villain. I am all of these things and more, and if I need to, I can become one of them with ease, because they all are a part of me. That's why acting is easy for me, because of the immense amount of how much I don't care about who I am.

So who am I? (<----Note: read this!)

I am enlightened, in a way. This allows me to prioritize, bring out different aspects of myself at any time. Acting isn't reacting, acting is living within a certain aspect of your psyche. People say acting is a form of entertainment, a way to gain fame and fortune and to satisfy one's ego, but they're wrong. Acting is your life. If I ask you who you are (not your name, who you are), you'll probably have an answer, because you've assigned yourself a title and you've stuck to it, but not so with me. People underestimate life, and believe foolishly that it's a constant. Wrong. Life is the most inconstant thing anyone can imagine, and if you were to ask me who I am (again, not my name), I would have no answer. I don't know who I am, I just am, every aspect of myself coming forth, feminist, misogynist, bully, victim, whether desired or not. Who am I? I am everything I've ever been, and everything I've ever become.

There's a infinite amount of fragments of my personality that don't care, and an infinite amount that do. The interesting thing about me is my ability to choose whether or not I care. I can delve into addictions for the longest time and then simply quit without a second thought. I can care for the longest time and then simply choose not to.

So why do I still care about her?

She 'left' me (as much as an internet girlfriend can leave you) due to the lack of physical affection, a desire she couldn't live without, and has been radio silent ever since. She's said she's been busy, and I believe her, but you'd think she could message me once in a while. She told me to consider it a breakup for all intents and purposes, and mentally I did. Of course, our brain isn't where it hurts, is it? I miss you, Danielle, please talk to me. Please.

Back to my life, it's life, meaning it's one thing on one day, and another the next. Mainly it's dance class, where the teacher's insufferable, because English actually has become slightly tolerable. A days are a pain, a hub for drowsiness, while B days are full of activity. Why is it never balanced? Damn school district.

I am depressed, and yet I love myself. That's life. It sucks and it's painful, but you'll need all of yourself to get through it alive intact.

Who are you?

A Lack Of Music Is Exactly the Problem with School.

We tend to forget the simple things in life.

Every time I write (*had written) a blog post, I always include music of some sort. Music is inherent with humanity, and even if you don't understand the English language, Shinedown's "save me" still makes sense. It's grief, and it's uniform in everyone's culture. Music is amazing because it can convey more than words can simply let loose. Music is a sound, and sounds can be simple or complex, and it's effect is astounding. In the princess bride, Inigo recognizes the sound of ultimate suffering, and in 300, when Astinos dies, Captain Artemis' cries of pain at the loss of his son scare the Persians away for an entire evening. Happiness is silence, a contentedness, which is probably why I haven't really been writing much on here, and more in my spiral notebook, the repository for all my random thoughts that save me from having to mull them over in my head. When I can't write, I listen to music, absorb the emotions of the story, and find a way to relate them to my own.

Needless to say, I'm rather pissed that some asshole in my school district found the need to restrict YouTube to the point where the only videos there are the crappy homemade videos that don't qualify as restricted content. I can't find Shinedown's Nowhere Kids, but for some reason, the third result is a pokemon battle in another language. Fucking thank you, AISD, as if I didn't feel stressed enough.

On top of that, the room I spend my off period doesn't allow even the faintest of cell signals to get through, so to force myself to not have a panic attack (other than hypnotizing myself) I had to pace all around the halls of my school in order to even relatively slow my heartbeat. Thank you, AISD, you done fucked up again.

I got that from my computer's auto-fill thingy when I type it in, but I can't play it, so instead of having noise, I instead have silence, the illusion of silence where there should be none.

Miss me?

It truly has been a while. So much stuff's gone on, an interesting developmental period in my life. The main one I can think of right now is the book Hypnotizing Maria, a book that made me question the very foundations of my reality and, if you ask me, much better than anything having to do with Pride and Prejudice. That book truly sucked, because of how boring it is, and I honestly had no interest whatsoever. I don't give a shit about how people in England felt 200 years ago, I already know how Jane Austen was trying to challenge the aristocracy or some shit like that. Feminism of any sort I hate to read about, because I'm beyond feminism. Other people may like to read it, but not me. I'm beyond feminism because I'm beyond the idea of whether someone's male or female. Fuck that shit, you're human, and that's good enough for me.

Instead of learning about how people in England 200 years ago wanted to get married, I learned how to adequately cheat at the game that is reality, how to awaken myself to life and how I can simply whisper a few words to myself and suddenly make my anxiety go away for a short while. I learned how to attain a higher level of thought, how to read people, and how to make myself more awake, all in the span of 150 pages or so.

Strangely enough, I couldn't hypnotize myself into getting interested in Pride and Prejudice.

Right now, I'm suggesting something to you. Your shirt's red.

A good amount of people reading this accept that suggestion as true. An equally good amount of people aren't wearing a red shirt, and have the ability to go "haha, you're wrong!" and disregard my suggestion.

But am I?

You should probably pay attention if I say you're wearing a red shirt. Believe me, it's a metaphor.

All hypnotism is is the accepting of suggestions about your current reality. I can use 500 suggestions, and eventually convince you that due to wavelengths or light patterns or whatever that your shirt is, in fact, red. It's only when someone does it in 2 or 3 that we consider it hypnotism. You're hypnotized right now. I can suggest to you that you're in a cage, and that's all I need to do. If you accept that suggestion, your mind will fill in the rest. Whatever it looks like or how many bars, that's your mind's decision, but the initial suggestion is mine: you're in a cage right now. Can't you see it?

Hypnotizing Maria was a fantastic book because it helped me realize that the accepting and disregard of suggestions is something within my own scope of power. You can choose what suggestions you accept and disregard, and you can change your reality based on those perceptions of it. I could've chosen to accept the suggestion that Pride and Prejudice was entertaining, I really could've, but I didn't want to. If I had, maybe I wouldn't have made a 50 in English last six weeks, and maybe I wouldn't be as hard pressed to pass that godforsaken class. Maybe I wouldn't be here on this blog post bitching about how my life's kinda going downwards. Maybe my girlfriend wouldn't have broken up with me. Maybe.

I'll avoid that topic, I'm still in shock, so I haven't broken down and felt anything. Maybe when I do I'll write another blog post, but in the meantime, the stress of these past few weeks really got to me this morning, making me lag behind in a dance class that seemed to be missing a whistle and army helmets. I had the usual "end of the grading period" frenzy where I had to present at least 5 final grades (one to be presented tomorrow). The whole thing with Pride and Prejudice in English went on for the entire grading period, so that shit was unavoidable, and it's made me dread the entire class (at the very least, more than I already did). What's funny is I'm in English class right now as we watch the Pride and Prejudice movie, complete with worksheet on a comparison between the book and movie versions of the character.

All I can think is "why?" At least pick a less boring movie!

The amount of shade thrown in this movie/book is the only reason to check it out. I highly suggest the movie.

I could go on and on about Pride and Prejudice. This blog post is more interesting than that book, but you may disagree. My sister enjoys that kind of thing, exploring the idea of real life and it's ordinaryness. Switched At Birth is one of her favorite shows, but I can't see the appeal. All that it is is real life drama with one simple question: what now? Whatever the hell you want, that's what's now. Thankfully, I managed to get my sister into Person of Interest, where the problem is the urge to kill, and how it can be predicted through very real means, and what should be considered when using these means. In short, Person Of Interest provides worthwhile questions about society, which is important, considering nowadays it seems like society could collapse at any time.

Well, the Pride and Prejudice movie is something. Maybe that's because someone actually made it with the idea in mind that someone would have to sit through it.

Wow, I care about the whole thing about as much as Mr. Darcy does.

So....if this is how easy it is to get a girl, I'll gladly move out after I graduate.

This is almost as good a love story as Root and Shaw.

This is probably the wrong image to depict their relationship.

That, or the right one.

I should conclude this blog post before this all ends up becoming Pride and Prejudice commentary. I'll assume unless you also dislike Pride and Prejudice, it'll be too snarky for you to take in.

Pride and Prejudice is just another example of why I think screenwriting is a much more interesting profession than just writing (I'll hear no end of this from my mother), because a book can go as far as it likes in the life of the main character(s), but a movie can only go so far before the audience loses interest. They have to keep the story fresh and exciting, no time for a week in bed, the movie skips to right afterwards. The book shows you a main character in a scene, the movie shows you the best angle to view it in. Fantastic books are all over the place, but fantastic movies are rare as life.

If Leo had been in this movie, he probably still would've won an Oscar.

All around us is fantastic art, art that mimics the hypotheticals of life and what we must do compared with who we are. All around us, no matter how terrible it is, we have to try to take it in and understand it.

All around us, AISD will still censor it for no reason.

As Always, I Have No Idea What To Title This. Good Luck Trying To Reference This.

So I've neglected to make a post on New Years like I planned, and am instead making it on the last day of my break, which my mother deemed the day to work on some college stuff. Even though I'd like to enjoy the last bit of my unstructured freedom (the lack of structure, I'll admit, has had an effect on my sleep schedule), I'm stuck looking up college stuff with a distinct un-passion. Instead, I'll just write about all this other stuff. Why not? It's not like college was that important anyways.

One thing some people have noticed by now is that I'm not Captain Dirk Yaple on G+ anymore. Ever since sophomore year, I've always clung to it as a title, like some other obsessive pirate we all know and love. Now, however, it feels kinda tedious having to introduce myself like that everywhere, instead of just keeping it as a theatre nickname/reputation that'll always precede me. It feels as if it's something more I'm adding to myself, and on New Years, even though I didn't write this blog post, I did change my G+ name back to it's original Dirk Yaple (keep in mind the picture will remain unchanged until I can shoot a high-def version of it). The "Captain" was just an add-on to who I was, when in reality, I needed to be proud of just who I was, and that's my new years resolution, I guess: to be proud of who I am. Sorry Jack.

Not him, we named the monkey Jack

Continuing with the whole "philosophical self-reflection" motif, I finally read Paper Towns. My mother may or may not have gotten annoyed with me over college stuff and taken away my electronics, leaving me with no entertainment but the stack of books I'd amassed over the week from Christmas. I had a Star Wars book, recently written as a prelude to The Force Awakens (brilliant movie, by the way; I'll fangirl about it some other time, because if I do now, someone's gonna say I spoiled shit for them), but Paper Towns seemed to call out to me, as if it was telling me that it was the book that needed to be read next in my life; I hate books like that, because those books tend to require frequent breaks to self-psychoanalyze like no tomorrow.

The one thing that stood out to me during Q's adventure with Margo in the night was her anti-college speech, where she mentions how our lives have devolved to the point where all we live for is in the future, and nobody really lives to appreciate the moments we have to do awesome things. I really loved Margo's character on a personal level, because she always seemed to be one to seize the moment and have adventures, a person I've wanted to be, but my anxiety, personified by Q, always held me back. I think even though I'm a really chill person and don't have much of a desire for revenge, romance (well, I have a girlfriend now, so I'm kinda out of the game of love), or real estate, there still was a passion inside me that wanted to be unleashed but was capped by the anxiety of not wanting to be disliked by anyone. I'm the kind of person always cracking jokes, like Leo Valdez in Percy Jackson, because I never really had a good set of friends, and people will keep you around if you're funny. People always laughed at my humor, but nobody ever appreciated me for it. Props to my new friend group I found this year, the right kind of friend group, and it sucks because I won't be able to chill with them after this year, because after 3 years of high school, I finally actually have real friends.

Back to college, I still don't have any kind of inborn passion for it, because for every story about how college made someone's life great, there are 5 stories that say they did just fine without even high school or that college screwed them over in life. No matter how many assemblies school calls where they tell us all about how college is awesome, it always seems like it's more of a detriment than a benefit to do it right after high school, when my personality is barely established and my finances far from capable (which is why I say gap year all the way). Re-watching Tim Minchin's graduation speech helped me relax this morning and let stress subside. The idea that it's all luck and that I shouldn't rush helps the anxious feeling of "you're a failure" that you seem to get whenever you tell someone you're not really interested in college. It's amazing how much it's advertised that your success in society is dependent upon whether or not you go to college, even if you can't afford college. At the very least, it'd help if schools were subsidized by the government, meaning admissions prices (and even the cost to apply) would drop and broke teenagers (like myself) could actually go to college without fear or worry.

A half-decent politician for once and he probably won't even make it into the primary. If the democrats won't take him, then he'll probably run as an independent, stealing enough votes from the democratic party so that they can't get the majority and making it so that Ben Carson wins the presidential election. A creationist brain surgeon is exactly who we need running America.

Thank god I can vote this year, but I'll start making a sign just in case.

I wish you all good luck for your spring semesters, if you are in school. If not, I still wish you luck. 2016 will be great for all of us, I just feel it.

I Wonder If I'll Get My Internet Privileges Taken Away Again Because I Mentioned Your Girlfriend's Name.

I think it's funny how many times I've started a blog post about my dad, then had no idea where to go with it and ended it before it began. I think that's a good assumption of my father's character, now that I think about it. I don't know, whatever gets his attention, as it seems nothing else will.

Thanksgiving break was a time my sister and I had to spend with our dad, a time my sister and I came back from still shook up from the long encounter. Our dad was abusing his dog, my sister said to my mother and I when we sat down in the living room, and watching her cry is always one of the most painful things I can witness. I would've hugged her, but alas, she was sick, as she always seems to be whenever she comes back from our weekends with dad.

Yesterday I came to a revelation, one that struck me all throughout today, preventing me from being in the proper state of mind to do homework which the district assumes we'll do with a clear head: It's not about us anymore. My sister and I aren't the focus of his life anymore.

Our dad always corrects us, never his girlfriend's kids, even though he claims we're part of a "big happy family", which anyone with eyes could see isn't true, even when it comes to him. He always makes sure we stay in line, but he lacks the passion any semi-decent parent would have to make sure their children end up prosperous and successful in life. He simply does what he always has done, not because he wants to, but because he has to. How else would he seem the perfect dad?

He chastises us for poor grades, yet fails to provide anything worthy of a homework-doing environment. TV's always on, whether anyone's there to watch or not, just showing how dysfunctional a household he lives in. The TVs are loud, the conversation is lacking (it was a bit of a shock how isolated I didn't feel when my sister and I got back to our mom's), and my sister and I have to cling to each other to survive in a place where no intelligent life seems to flourish.

Dad, I have one question for you: Are you happy now, living in the bliss that is your ignorance? I know you're not stupid, so why do you turn a blind eye towards your own children in favor of another's? Surely we actually matter to you. If we do, then why is it that you're but a sociopath towards our affairs?

And yet, despite all my words, I know what you'll do. This blog post is nothing but an attack on you, because you're the victim, and Rebecca and I are dead set on bringing you down for absolutely no reason at all. Isn't that the case? It usually seems to be. In your world, there is no such thing as a villain with human qualities. I'm left wondering exactly when, in your mind, my sister and I ceased to be human.

Dad, I have one question for you: Are you happy now?

Sadly, I need to do a project on this book. I hate English.

Books that make me depressed are books that everyone should read.

Today I finally finished A Clockwork Orange, despite my deadline last week. I'm supposed to do a big research project on it now, and yet I hesitated, not wanting to read it for a grade. The moment I started reading it, I knew this wasn't a book I wanted to rush or sparknotes. Let's face it, everyone sparknotes' the books we're supposed to read in English.

Some of the things I like about stuff like this is that the focus isn't a part of the new wave feminism. There's not a single named female character apart from possibly Alex's mom, and yet if a book like this was published today, people would be crying and screaming about how there's no strong female characters. A book like this doesn't focus on feminism, which is how everyone else should regard the issue. Stop giving a shit who's a guy or girl and just treat them like people.

A Clockwork Orange was a book that took my soul somewhere, enough to make me write a blog post about it when I still need to get my sources sheet together (if you don't understand what I mean by that, know that neither do I). So why did I start a blog post about it, music and all? I've only written two paragraphs at this point, so what else can I write? (EDIT: apparently a lot)

A Clockwork Orange is apparently one of the top 100 books of all time. I would've preferred to reread Hitchhikers Guide, but my partner didn't want to do that one, leading to me reading a truly amazing book, on levels The Stranger was on for me in sophomore year. For some reason, I feel like life somehow knew of my emotional troubles, the troubles I keep silent, the stressors I never bring up, and decided to give me a book to solve it. Sophomore year I was struggling with my identity, and trying to grow through a crack in the sidewalk like a random flower that could easily be stepped on. Since then, I've made my way with it, and adapted my attitude to suit my environment, kinda.

My recent issues are to do with who I am beyond the identity I've inherently adapted myself to, my choices. Should I do A or B in order to have the most fun? Should I say this or that to be liked more? I've spent so much time analyzing the cool people at school, seeing how they act, how they get the amount of friends they do, without being the backup friend that I always seem to be. How? How do I be loved for something other than my passive demeanor? How do I be loved for something I myself have done?

At the end of sophomore year, I had the revelation that I didn't want to be who society/school wanted me to be, and I wanted to be me. I think now, after reading A Clockwork Orange, I finally know what I've been missing. My passive demeanor I care nothing for, finding myself over the hurdle of anxiety when it comes to things I inherently do. Tossing stuff into trash cans from afar, getting up to use the bathroom, even dancing around for no reason (despite my dislike for my dance teacher, I do love the class).

I can't just be me, I need to BE me, if that makes any sense whatsoever.

I need to take risks, I need to dance around, I need to make active decisions as to who I am. I've started to do it unconsciously ever since I started reading A Clockwork Orange, and I've gained friends, friends who make me feel like I'm not just the backup friend, not just some guy you can count on for a laugh, friends who make me feel like even though I'm set apart from all the rest, I'm not an outcast.

In my fanfiction, the massive continuous fanfiction that's spanned several composition notebooks, I couldn't help but characterize someone like I characterize myself. Jeremy Lambert, a master of none, who feels continuously undervalued because everyone else gets chosen for the special tasks and appears more valued than him, while he seems nothing more than the Administrator's assistant. In the end, the Administrator dies, and while everyone else grieves, he can't seem to care, blaming him for his undervaluedness. However, an "if you're watching this I'm dead" video is shown to him, and it turns out the Administrator had chosen him to be the next one. Jeremy Lambert is the Xander Harris archetype, the normal unspecial person who ends up being the most special of them all.

They'll never know how tough it is, Dawnie, to be the one who isn't chosen. To live so near to the spotlight and never step in it. But I know. I see more than anybody realizes because nobody's watching me. I saw you last night. I see you working here today. You're not special. You're extraordinary. 

It's hard being the one who isn't chosen, the one who's always around, but nobody makes a distinct effort to talk to, the one who always has to look around when a group project comes up in class, the one who always has to back away on the sidewalk when it becomes too narrow. It's hard knowing you're not special, but it's even harder thinking it.

A Clockwork Orange helped me further along my journey, into the next chapter of my story, a better chapter, I feel. In the end, Alex finds a way to overcome his own psychopathy, find his own reason to live, find a passion other than the escape he craves in Beethoven's 9th and other classical music. A man who lives without choice becomes no longer a man. I need to make choices, I need to be me.

After all, if I won't be me, who will be?

I already knew the answer, but now I finally understand the question.

Jesus fucking christ is my heart racing. It's opening night for a Midsummer Night's Dream, I in the role of Theseus, king duke of Athens. Naturally, anyone reading this expects me to be nervous as hell with the prospect of going onstage, and it doesn't help that I'm the first dude onstage.

Now let me tell anyone who thinks that that they are wrong.

Reading this blog, at least for the people who've been there since the beginning, knowing me as the sarcastic teenager with a penchant for speaking my mind, one assumes my writing is amazing and that I'm simply logging the amount of stress I go through. While that's right, it's not just my coping method, not just a way to help me to survive life's pain and suffering that seems to be focused all on me. It's more than that, it's my light at the end of the tunnel, the hope that by exhaling the darkness of my life out onto here, that there will be less for me to deal with in real life.

Tonight before the show, we spent some time in darkness. We laid down on the stage while the lights went down with us, our vision blacking out and leaving us alone with our thoughts and my theatre teacher's voice of encouraging tones to rev us up for the show. The darkness is in all of us, it is us, it is what we fear and what we crave, it is where we go to cry, where we go to yell, it is us. The goal of the show, she said, was to allow the people in the audience to forget the darkness, if only for a short while, to forget our stress, forget grades, assignments, friends, family, drama, peace, and simply lose ourselves in a story.

Naturally, this blog post is about me, not just everyone else. It's nothing selfish, it's that every human being is entitled to one thing: their story. This is my story, and so I will tell it. This is the story of a boy who never had as many friends as everyone else, who never knew who he was, who always wandered in doubt in response to society's expectations. We say women are victims of society's expectations, which is only partly true. We are all victims, and we must all find our way out. I was expected to be someone, simply because I wanted to be recognized. I am the one who must be a one man band to entertain the rest, attempting to placate everyone. I am the one who is never who he wants to be, because he never knows what he wants.

Tonight that changed. Tonight, I found myself in the darkness. I am the jack of all trades, the one who is master of none. I am a wanderer, a thinker, an adventurer, an actor, a scholar, a lover. I am the one with a family of three. I am the one with a girlfriend in Missouri, unknown to everyone who knows me out of fear that it might not last (no longer, I say). I am the one with a girlfriend in Missouri I would hold with words when too far away to comfort. I am the one who's never gone through a year of LASA without an emotional quandary of some kind. I am the one who's always desired and hated solitude. I am the one who makes horrible jokes to challenge the security of those around me. I am the one who makes a joke out of everything so as to get a huge laugh. I am the one who loves in silence to those around me. I am the one whose anxiety cripples and encourages him. I am the one who laughs at the slightest.

Tonight is the night. Tonight is when I lose my character at the same time I find it. In discarding myself to find Theseus, I know who I am by what I have lost.

Words cannot contain the exhilaration I feel, nor would I have time for me to type or for you to read, so I'll condense it right here.

Tonight is when I become...when I became me.