So lately, I’ve tried to force myself to change mindsets (notice how mindsets has nothing to do with my actions!!!) from the ethereal idealist to a more grounded thinker. Not to say that I’ve actually experienced any amazing life changing events, but in this new slow paced world of Franklin Cong Nguyen, the smallest things that happen to me are spectacles, and days where nothing occurs become days that don’t exist.
yeah I haven’t really weaned myself of the ‘stop being so dramatic’ mentality yet..
But though i’m not off the bottle completely, i’m on my way!!! What small things am I talking about? Well, I almost lost something, and that led me to the conclusion that money was the only thing in the world that matters (I have two posts in the works having to do with money. That stuff is amazing yo). So for maybe the last week or two, before I found what I thought I lost, I was extremely fixated on money. After this thought passes, I will probably continue that fixation (as it’s a LOT better to be money-centric then to be enamored with _____).
But I just remembered something. I was deleting the old emails i get from twitter notification, and one of them was when my homie Tiffany liked a quote i tweeted (btw, I love twitter cause that stuff is much more spontaneous and good thoughts die young, but the greats go on facebook). The quote was something I took from a movie review of Miyazaki’s Spirited Away by Joe Morgenstern, and it’s really something that explains itself:
This will serve as fair warning about what happens after the lights come up and “Spirited Away” is over. There’s an afterglow of profound pleasure, but also a sense of loss. The world around you goes flat. Colors stabilize, losing their pizzazz. Sounds settle down. Forms don’t shimmer or morph anymore. People, animals and objects go back to being solid exemplars of who or what they are, with no immediate potential for astonishment.
When I heard Morgenstern describe this atmosphere, I knew exactly what he was referring to, and I really never heard it described as acutely as he had done. From what I remember, I have only felt this sensation three times:
- After watching Spirited Away
- After watching FLCL
- On the day of Summer 2011’s OPP/TI/HI/Oliver’s beach outing, where there was a surfing competition and no one really knew why until we got to the waves, which were surging into the strongest plumes I have ever experienced. I went out the ocean to do that thing where people stupidly ride waves repeatedly for fun, and, as I floated atop my pillow of a wave, I looked out toward the ocean and all I could see were even greater waves coming as far as I could see. At that moment, I felt very secluded and alone in the middle of all those ebbs and flows
Isn’t it sad that 2 out of 3 of these experiences have to do with anime? That’s sad man. But I guess that explains a little bit of my enjoyment of fiction.
I will now try to explain this feeling myself. I remember being thrown the word ‘wanderlust’ by seeger, describing the feeling of amazement and fear when an alien crashes into your room in a fiery burst (but now that i look at webster and see that it means ‘a strong longing or impulse for’ i’m not sure.. but we’ll just take the unofficial definition). It’s the feeling of wanderlust, multiplied a thousand times in either direction.
Yes, there’s a great feeling of amazement. This feeling makes one feel like the world is a huge and amazing place, realistically bursting with all the images that you could only see in your mind and that it’s not futile to be wide-eyed because there are wonderful things out there, and you need to look to see it unveil in front of you.
But along with this amazement is a feeling of helplessness. Not fear, imo, but powerlessness in the face of all these great forces working around you - if you spend too much time admiring the ocean, it will think nothing of it to swallow you up . There’s a small hint of envy too, like why can these fantastic things occur in front of me, but I have no control over any of it? Ultimately, this feeling is poisonous. It’s greedy, and wants more than it can have, because it wants what doesn’t exist.
SIDE NOTE: which is why I think proper fiction is amazing, because whether it is describing the life of any other person or weaving a fantastical world that doesn’t exist, the way it’s presented just shits on anything that reality can muster.
I’m sure if you compared what you just read right now to Morgenstern’s rendition, it seems pretty immature in comparison, but that’s the feeling that, in my youth, I wanted. Hopefully, when i’m older I can return to having those fancies, but right now such things are impractical.
But even so, I honestly think that this, whatever i just described, is the most important sensation in the world.
yeah i’m probably not going to change any time soon..
(Source: The Wall Street Journal)
