The Beauty of Solitude - That Strange Feeling of Oneness That Exists in a Dark Room at Half Past One in the Morning

Good evening, everyone. As I type this first sentence, it is 1:04 AM, July 31st, 2013. If you've been observant, you may have begun to notice that I do a lot of my writing in the later hours of the night. While this may not exactly be beneficial to my circadian rhythm, I've found that this practice has some advantages that would go unutilized at other hours. In a time like this, when the fireflies have come to a cessation of their nightly phosphorescent festivities and the moon rises high into the sable blue-black of the dome of the sky above us, I find that my creative and expressive abilities come to a zenith. I don't know exactly what it is. All I can offer is that at a time like this, my mind feels somehow lighter. It's not light in a way that would mean it's disoriented (or empty and lacking weight, mind you), but it's light in a way that it feels swifter and more maneuverable, freer and more open.

As much as a late hour can do for my expression, there's still a component that needs to be there as well: solitude. I suppose at times I can be a little introverted. Sure, most times I love to be with people. I like communicating with people and talking to people and listening to people. I hope to base my career around people, after all. But yet there comes a time at least once in every day where I need a hiatus from people. It's not that they've done anything wrong necessarily; it's just that I need some time away to just be with... me. I need to be able to think for a little while without influence. I need to be able to pace the floor in a single circle for twenty minutes if I feel like it. I need to be able to talk out loud to no one but myself. Does that make me odd? "Oh, wow, this guy likes to talk to himself, he must have a screw loose." Relax, folks. Talking to one's self (in the appropriate time and place, of course) is not a sign of schizophrenia. Admit it, you do it yourself sometimes. Everyone does it at one point or another. It's our minds way of letting us express our ideas to ourselves. We as humans, obviously, have the gift of speech and the use of words. We have the beautiful ability to take these thoughts in our mind - these nervous impulses in the depths of our cerebra, worked up to the cerebral cortex and processed in the Wernicke's area - and transform them into words that permit us to transfer these thoughts out onto the whole of civilization if we so choose. It truly is a thing of beauty. Your mind is constantly thinking, constantly processing information and ideas. The release of these ideas is a natural thing. Talking to yourself is a natural way for these ideas to be released. If you can take control of it, it can be something you can use to your advantage.

When you're alone somewhere, you have the freedom to release any idea in your mind without the judgement of anyone but yourself. The sorts of things that your mind can process in such a state are simply breath-taking at times. In my times of solitude, I find myself falling into streams of thought about human nature, patterns in history, metaphysics, or even love. And it always happens right in that certain time of night, that time where my eyes are heavy but my mind is active. It's a strange but almost divine-feeling state of mind.

Unfortunately, I've not felt that state of mind as frequently as I would like.

Here at Penn State, it's hard to be alone. Though it's only the summer semester, there are still people everywhere. I of course share my dorm with my roommate, so there's only so much privacy. I can't really take a walk to a secluded area, because there are almost always people walking about. I can't exactly try to be alone on a walk at night either because, really, it's a little odd to see some bearded fellow out walking around campus at one o'clock in the morning talking to himself. That's not exactly the sort of person I'd like to be, thanks.

All this makes me miss home. I was the only inhabitant of my bedroom, so I was free to ponder and contemplate as I pleased, all in the peaceful, quite sanctity of my own space. If the space of my bedroom wasn't enough, I lived in Juniata County, Pennsylvania, where there were more cattle than people. It was so easy just to take a stroll out in the hills and fields, even at nighttime. Granted, I had the possibility of running into a bear or a coyote in such an event - not the case here in good ol' University Park - but I was still up to the intriguing but highly unlikely danger of it all. It made my pondering seem more noble, I guess.

Point of all this rambling, wee-hour-of-the-night ranting is this: free thought to yourself is a beautiful thing. If you don't consciously and frequently do it, try it sometime. You'll find yourself re-having old conversations. You may find yourself coming up with witty responses in arguments that you had last week. You may find yourself coming to a logical conclusion as to why your girlfriend wants to wear a fly-fishing lure in her hair (yeah, I guess that's the thing now). You may even find yourself writing a new life philosophy. Ladies and gents, private thought is wonderful. Some night when you're alone with nothing to do, play the album below, sit back (or pace the floor until you wear a circle in the carpet), and just think aloud. It's easy.

Good night, all. My thinking and pondering for the night is complete.

My sincerest regards,
Brandon

The Certain Joy in Being a Usual Teenager

Today was another rough day. The depression has been addling my mind and driving me down quite a bit, I think even rougher than it has in a long time. However, I'm tired of thinking about the effects of this hellish disorder, and I don't want to weigh any of my potential readers down with any of the same. I want to talk about something different.

To any of you who know me, you know quite well that I typically don't act like a usual 18-year-old (thus the title of this blog). I don't really go out and party, I'm not a particularly heavy/frequent drinker, I don't mess around with any girl but my significant other, and I don't listen to anything on the radio these days. I'm not really like a lot of teenagers these days. I'm kind of reserved, chilled-out, and old-fashioned. Some people even say I was born in the wrong century. I must say, that goes extremely well with the fact that I'm a Civil War reenactor. I guess I'm somewhat of an anomaly in today's day and age. I call older people that I don't know "sir" and "ma'am," I go out of my way to hold doors for ladies, I always remove my hat when going indoors, and -- if you watch me very intently -- you'll notice that when I first meet someone and go to shake their hand, I put my other hand behind my back and bow slightly. Regarding the bowing while shaking hands, I actually didn't notice I did that until someone pointed it out. It really shows how ingrained in my mind that sort of old-fashioned, respectful behavior really is. I shouldn't be 18 in 2013. I should be 24 in 1862.

Before I started college, this sort of old-fashioned behavior about me almost had me sequestered and separated from my friends sometimes. I never really cared to go to a lot of parties, they just never really connected with me. I never tried to act like I was above them or anything, I just could never really get into them. The night before I left for college, I remember I went to a party back home late at night. I wasn't really all that crazy about being there, but I figured I needed one last awkward hurrah before I embarked for the next chapter of my life. Everyone started drinking as the night progressed. That's not really a problem for me, I'm not one of those people that will preach at you to stop drinking. That's all cool by me, that's your choice. But really, there's a difference between drinking like an adult and drinking like a teenager. Unfortunately, teenagers, as can be expected, drink like teenagers (e.g., drinking straight vodka en masse with a chaser of hastily mixed pineapple juice and whatever cheap liquor you could sneak in). The people at the party, all mostly people a year or so younger than me, got wasted pretty quick. There was drunken dancing, inebriated affections, and roaring laughter at trivial things. One girl I didn't know tipsily tried to brag to me about how she was pursuing a not so prestigious degree at a sub-par college. Needless to say, I wasn't particularly impressed. I just kind of awkwardly sat there in the middle of it all, soaking in the alcohol-perforated air and observing everyone's behavior, almost like a sociologist at work in the field. In the end, I simply looked at it like this: they were having fun and enjoying themselves, I wasn't. It's not a question of one of us being better than the other, our minds are just constructed differently, simply that.

That's generally the main occasion I use to symbolize my relationship with the general attitude of my generation. However, sometimes there are gaps in the thick awkwardness that permeates that relationship. Sometimes I look at people dancing, or singing, or partying, or just having fun, and I think, "Huh. I should try that some time." Sometimes these gaps in the awkwardness comes at large occasions, other times at small occasions. The smaller occasions always seem to connect with me the best. For instance, this evening, I was yet again laying on my bed in my dorm while my buddies Matt and Steve were hanging out across the room. Matt was interested in how to "wop." I'm still not really sure what that is, but I guess it's a kind of dance. After watching a short instructional video, he started wopping right there on the rug in the middle of the dorm. I have to admit, for a skinny, hairy, Jewish white boy from the more affluent hills of Pittsburgh, the guy's got some smooth moves.

I look at little things like that, and I think back to times where I've just cut loose and did something silly and fun like that. I remember going to proms where I'd start raving like a maniac and dancing until my rented tux shirt was soaked. I remember at my senior prom, I took my darling Megan with me, and we absolutely lost it. We were both head-banging to Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit," screaming in each other's faces to "You Shook Me All Night Long" by AC/DC. It was one of the happiest nights of my life, and I am so blessed to have been able to share that with her. It makes me think that beneath my hardened, old-timey, crusty old shell, there's actually a capacity to cut loose and just live life like it's a big party. Though I'll always believe that propriety, dignity, and social finesse are an important part of a successful life, there are few things more integral to a life in general than the ability to just let yourself go; to just run wild and a beautiful night with the only person in whole wide world that you love; to be able to swing them back and forth in a hot, poorly ventilated gym to the greatest songs of twenty and thirty years ago; to be able to not give a damn in all the world for what anyone thinks and just be able to love and have fun, right there in the midst of a couple hundred of your peers. That's what life can truly be about at times.

No matter how serious of a person you are, even if you're an old tight-wad like I can be sometimes, you can never forget that that is what truly makes life beautiful. The spice of life is every now and then living like you don't care, living like life's a party, living like tonight's the last night to ever be. Don't relegate yourself to the corner all the time. You don't have to go out and get wasted and make an ass out of your drunken self, no, not at all. But every now and then, don't be afraid to just get out there on the dance-floor and just be whatever you want. Every now and then, play some stupid, shallow Top 40 song on YouTube and just dance in the middle of your room to it. It's things like these that add a sort of beauty to life that can't really be replicated with many other things.

My sincerest regards,
Brandon

An Evening with Depression - A Strange State of Mind in Which All Things Are Dreadful and Yet Thought-Provoking

I suppose this is my inaugural post on my blog. As of yet, I haven't really let my deeper thoughts out to people. I'm making my first post about something I don't typically entrust to the common person. Most of the time, I keep my depression pretty under-the-radar from people. During the winter of 2012-2013, I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder. Along with the depression, there have been the effects of anxiety, and a professional I am seeing is even thinking it may be a form of PTSD. I may look like everything's fine on the outside, folks, but on the inside, there are things that I'd probably never want tell anyone about.

This evening has been a tough one. I'm attending summer session at Penn State University in University Park, Pennsylvania. It's a pretty nice place, really. I love the sense of community here, I love the academia, I love the school spirit. Though unfortunately I've not been as social here as I would ideally want to be, I still find ways to enjoy myself. I spend time with my roommate and my friend from next door. I've been spending a fair amount of time reading in some of the more idyllic places on campus (the garden under the cantilever of the Millenium Science Complex is such a wonderful spot and allowed me to immerse myself in the lion's share of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World). However, despite all this, this evening still managed to be a tough one.

I never really externalize anything that I feel when the effects of my depression/anxiety/what-have-you hit me, and tonight wasn't much different. My buddy from next door -- a big, happy-go-lucky kind of guy named Steve -- came over and was watching videos with my roommate -- a lanky, quiet, but still good-humored guy from Pittsburgh named Matt. They're both great guys, and I sincerely consider them my friends already. However, while they were enjoying themselves with YouTube, Vine, and whatnot, I was off someplace else. Physically, I was just laying on my bed, glancing out the window, and running my fingers along the plastic slats of my window fan (almost like I was daring the gray blades of the fan to come and bite my fingertips like the vicious dog that lives in the backyard of the house down on the corner in our childhood). Emotionally, however, it was like I was adrift on a tiny raft in the middle of the Pacific.

My emotions consisted of the following ingredients:

2 cups (heaping), loneliness
1 1/5 cup, self-doubt

1 1/5 cup, being convinced that I'll never make new friends here
8 fl. oz, irritation at things I shouldn't be irritated at
2 handfuls, "God, I wish I could just go somewhere and do something."
1 tbsp, guilt
1 pinch, pure granulated "Why the hell doesn't this medication work"

Mix all together and heat at 8000 °C in the "General Depression Symptoms Oven 5000 by KitchenAid."

OK, I'll admit, even I chuckled at that. But all joking and metaphors aside, I was in a pretty rough state. For some reason, I felt incredibly distant from everyone here at Penn State. I felt like I would never make any friends here. For some reason, I kept getting this vibe that people didn't like me, that I was for some reason weird, or unattractive. This bothered me so much that I went to the bathroom down the hall and trimmed my beard because I thought it made me look too old and unpopular. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm proud of my beard. You can tell I was messed up.

Even after this trimming, I came back and laid on my bed, still glancing out the window. I'd see people outside Simmons Hall, all walking with all their friends. There were sporty, attractive boys wearing $70 Hollister shirts or over-sized sports teams tank-tops. Their hair was cut short, without character or flair. All the same. Their faces were rusted into a sort of self-confident, self-sure sneer. These sneers were clearly found attractive by the sporty, attractive girls who walked with them. They all wore shorts too short and shirts with neck-lines too deep. "Hey, boyssss, take a nice look at my ass and my tits. Welcome to college, boysss." Though I inwardly resent things like that, there are times -- times like today -- where I think to myself, "Dammit, why can't I be like that? Why can't I be a complete dickbag with no regard for the respect of women and not a care in the world for my education? What the hell are ethics? What the hell is modesty? Those things don't matter when I've got all these friends." I think that the way people my age act is at times really, truly stupid, but at the same time... I'm inevitably drawn to it. It's almost like a moth to a bug-light. It's a damnably stupid move to go towards it, and yet... It's so beautiful, so alluring, so tantalizing... And then I stop myself and notice the electrified metal frame around that pretty light. I notice the charred exoskeletons of all my little bug buddies who went toward that pretty purple light and got fried because it was all a joke. Keep your path, Mr. Benner. You might be a moth, but you're a smart moth. Keep moving.

I found myself falling into more of an inward struggle as night fell. The loneliness persisted, and though my two friends across the dorm were enjoying themselves and having fun, I couldn't feel that I could be a part of it tonight. I hid myself under the guise of typing a paper for my rhetoric class. In reality, I just had my laptop open and was completely zoned out, lost in a sort of psychological twilight zone. That tends to happen, FYI. With this cocktail of depression, there are times when I just sort of lose focus and get drawn off into la-la land. Of course, it's not la-la land, it's sadness-and-misery land. Then, to put it colloquially, the shit hit the fan. My girlfriend and I had an issue involving the administration of a comedy page we run on Facebook. There was a mistake made, and there were some momentarily serious issues I had to address. We had a sort of falling out for the evening over it. Now, not only was I sipping that bitter, bitter cocktail (or rather cake, I suppose) of emotions from earlier, I was tossing in a few extra spikes of anger, guilt, sadness, and frustration. By the time things settled down, it was after midnight. She and I both decided it was best for us both to cool down for the night and said good night to each other.

This leads me to where I am now. As I type this sentence, it is 2:09 AM (EST) on July 25th, 2013. For the past hour-and-a-half or so, I've been laying here, basically a stagnant pool of emotion. The pool is full. It's all there: all that sadness and frustration and loneliness and worthlessness. But it's not going anywhere. It's not hurting me. It's just sitting there, stagnant. I feel that as long as I am conscious, the stagnating will persist. I find that the only thing that can really release me from the effects of my depression is sleep. Thus, I will press that ever-trusty reset button and turn in for the night. In conclusion, forgive me that this was all so long and rambling. It's been a long and rambling sort of night. Hope you've gained a degree of insight into what actually happens in my mind.

My sincerest regards,
Brandon