Journal Observations

[Horace]

1. My mom used to beat me, but it was so far back that I don't retain the memory or any scars. Knowing her even just a little older the image fit with her attitude that corporal punishment is the proper technique of a parent who isn't a "coward." The way I tell it, she stopped because I pretended to enjoy it, which had no bearing on what other unwavering adults decided to do. That idea stuck with me: if I pretend I like something til people stop asking my opinion of it, it will go away, and I will be considered well behaved because I won't force others to discipline me. Sometimes displays of intelligence are the works of obedient slaves; in contrast, alien influence is invented to enchant an otherwise inauthentic landscape.

 

[Horace]

2. When I got to the top of the mountain, only then did I realize it was a hill.

 

[Horace]

3. Yesterday I saw a cute guy on the bus. I notice that I envision my life with a beautiful girl differently, I might want to show them off to my family. The few times I have been forward with guys I have been remarkably inarticulate; I remember inexplicably hugging a guy in the rain, whereas with girls words were had prior to the embrace and I thought about it like a moron. I believe that expressions of uncertainty in the light of actual preferences is just like that, intelligence, on the other hand, is best expressed by a mode of both affirmations and negations which move a person forward. A person does not chose what they like, they do chose to like. As it is the tendency for slow things to remain slow and fast things to slow down if their momentum is not maintained, at both ends of the spectrum (things that remain in motion despite flirting with absolution and things which are so expedient they shirk every chance at increase) we pray witness to pitiable aberrations.