10:24 PM, Thursday, July 8, 1999:
What was the statement...? Ah yes. "Hindsight is always 20/20." That little gem is lifted directly from the 1998/99 Student Handbook of my high school. I've just come from reading Funny's recent addition to The Dumping Ground. Before you freak out, Funny, I should inform you that you had a lot of good points in there. And a lot of stuff that was purely skewed through the miracles of a single line of perspective.
That got me thinking.
Social interaction is little more than a series of seperate entities, each acting by attempting to guage the meaning behind the others' actions. Therefore, one misinterpreted action skews the whole series of actions beyond that point. Add to that fact the Chaos Theory: because intended manipulations are merely one in a series of factors, the results are virtually random. Basically, any group of people acting independently from one another is a good example of chaos. It's no wonder so many of us have come to the conclusion that our group is doomed.
After looking back over the events of the past year or two, I've come to a conclusion--a conclusion that could possibly mean the end to these trivial aggravations we keep having. Now, I may just be naive, but I think a bit of communication (Agh, the accursed word!) could solve most of our problems.
I'm going to diverge for just a moment and state some of my beliefs right here; I call them beliefs since no one has yet adequately proven their truth yet. Simply this: that everyone, and I mean everyone, makes any given decision based on three factors (See above, I think): instinct, or the "gut feeling" that is usually a person's first impression, the decision made in the lack of all other info; experience, or the accumulated knowledge a person acquires birth, which is really the only way a baby raised by people who speak only english learns english rather than french; and lastly, knowledge of the situation as it stands. An example: John is confronted with a choice. He must choose to go to the subway or the streetcar to get to his final destination. He knows that wild animals are loose on the subway (knowledge of situation); he knows that he doesn't like wild animals (instinct, experience); he knows that the subway deposits him closer to his given destination than the streetcar (experience, knowledge of situatioin). He then weighs the options in his mind: animals more important than proximity. Streetcar wins. Suppose, though, that he knew the streetcar tracks were under construction, and would never get near the destination? Or that the wild animals had already been caught? In truth, the situation has not changed, merely his perception of it has. In this circumstanse, he would probably choose the subway.
But what does it all mean? To me, it shows that proper knowledge of the situation itself is imperative to making the right choice. So, rather than try to fix the problems, why not eliminate them from becoming real problems in the first place? If everyone knew why everyone else did what they did, then we should be able to prevent the creation of monumental problems. In this spirit, I have decided to state the motivations for virtually everything I do on a web site. Now things get unique.
About a year ago, I discovered a little web service called theglobe.com. This page was a "catch all" website, where you could have an e-mail account, a web page, stock quotes, chat, etc. When I first found it, I was most interested in the e-mail: this service had the ability to post a message to anyone e-mailing you automatically while you were "on vacation." I wanted to use this to create a virtual i.d. card, something people could use to quickly find out about the ICBW Movement, or something like that. Whatever the case, the project failed; I never could figure out how to work the thing, and in the end, I couldn't decide what to use it for. In the meantime, I had tried to use the facility to its best use, which meant taking full advantage of the resources it had to offer. I created a web page and, not knowing what else to call it, I titled it Omniscient Realm and threw it together. I never really thought it through. The page was to be unique in its format, employing what I called Primary Cycles and Secondary Cycles to create a very intriguing layout. I ran into a wall pretty quickly, though. I had no content whatsoever. I made the index, the first page, a template or two and little else, considering the whole project an "interesting diversion" and turned to other things. Now, I have the content for it. The name is purely dumb luck. The primary cycles will probably also remain, although I see no way to save the secondary cycles, or to work in the tertiary cycles like I'd wanted to near the end. But it will come to life, and hold an online "journal" of sorts (http://members.theglobe.com/ander387/). Leaving this page for my more immediate concerns. A few lesser of which, I shall declare now.
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I would like to take this moment to state that I wrote the previous page under the influence of my inferiority complex extraordinaire. That is, ICE. I am under no such condition right now--or at least, not nearly as much. Hopefully, then, I will make a bit more sense in the following paragraphs.
I want to make it clear that I know I undervalue my own significance. However, I cannot guage how much. It is especially difficult because of the structure of my world: my family holds about ten times more importance than anything else in my worldview. Don't think I doubt your own relationship with your family, but I cannot help but feel that my family and I do more together than most people do with theirs. I don't know if its American individualism or my own underdeveloped social habits, but I do know that my family seems to place a certain limit on my own freedoms; a limit that I freely accept, albeit a bit wistfully that I cannot devote myself to my friends as much. This may be why I so look forward to college: it is a chance for me, not only to reinvent myself in an image much closer to the one I had originally intended, but also to view the world as a single person rather than a family group.
One of the repercussions of my close family life is that I don't nearly have the energy or will to throw myself at my friends. Basically, my family (and a few other factors) seem to indicate that, in our group of friends, I am not in the loop. When something happens to a couple people, I usually don't know until much later, often after the problem is resolved. Talking with some of our mutual friends may show otherwise, though. I still don't know where I stand. I tried to find out early last year with an "association survey" to figure out who was the most interconnected. As it turned out, Fatty Fatty and Funny tied for first. This more or less confirmed my observations from the time. That is my perspective on the whole mess of group dynamics... for now, at least.
New topic. This topic has been one of aggravated fascination for me since last school year. The topic is not a what, but a who. I shall call him The Unwelcome One, partly because it's so appropriate and partly because it's so amusing to picture him with this title inscribed in a banner fluttering above him, as in a portrait. I don't think most people realize how similar we are at heart. I ascribe this to our years as best friends in elementary school. Have you ever noticed how people who spend a lot of time together as friends start to resemble one another? We did, back then. Not physically, but in our thought processes and reactions to events. During middle school and high school, we weren't nearly as close, so we stopped resembling one another in thought as much... but those elementary years were the formative years. I will always be curious just how much he influenced me, and vice versa. Why I even mention him here is because of the disturbing practise I've noticed lately--pure, unbridled malice toward him. I concede that he is a hard person to know, but the things that have happened are quite uncalled for. I suppose a bit of avoidance can be tolerated, but I don't understand why no one else can be his companion as I can.
As near as I can tell, people do not like the Unwelcome One because he is irritating in their presence. Irritation is a good way of proving you exist. I believe that the Unwelcome One simply wants a bit of attention, seeing as how he almost constantly ignored by all with whom he, by rights of intelligence, association, and character, should naturally be friends with. If he cannot have at least some outlet for the incredible creative energies he possesses--and believe me, I would be much less entertained with a simple sheet of paper and pencil today than if I had never met him--the logical conclusion is he would simply become more irritating. Therefore, unless you wish for him to become more aggravating around you, I would strongly suggest that, while you yourself may leave at any point, you not drag me away by the collar until we have spoken our fill. Thank you for your consideration.