HOW TO BE HAPPY

Lie.

adam constructs an elaborate rationalisation of his constant inebriation

There is a reason for the College Experience. For College Experience, read : excessive drinking, smoking, recreational drug use and free sex (or at any rate, frequent pre-marital copulation. It most certainly is not free). The reason has something to do with generations of stratified pre-conceptions aided and abetted by movies like American Pie and Eurotrip and Harold and Kumar. But really - the marketing basilisk bites its own tail. These movies wouldn't have been able to sell their brand of ridiculous college-hijinks schtick if there weren't an audience that was (if not actively participating in it) appreciative of such a lifestyle.

Part of it is the experience of being away from home. That's what happens in college, usually - in NYU, anyway, most small towns in America are less well represented than a tiny country like Singapore (kudos to Terence for pointing this out), and aside from the odd Brooklyn/Queens/Bronx and the even odder Manhattan native, almost everybody from NYU is hours if not days away from home. The concomitant relaxation of restrictions undoubtedly fuels the drugs-and-free-sex ethos that permeates the residential halls.

I would like to believe however that pointless rebellion only constitutes part of our lifestyle. Part of it is also the experience of becoming an adult in an increasingly bewildering world. Part of it is the slow realisation that the ideals of our childhood cannot apply to the Real World, or better yet, must be paid for in the things we hold most dear. Perhaps the drugs and the drink are our way of cushioning our way into the stupor of adulthood. Pete Townshend was right - I never want to grow up, if growing up means getting comfortable, if growing up means losing my rage (what use is your virtue otherwise, Nietzsche says - I agree), if growing up means settling down and becoming part of the Civil Society I loathe. It is more of a conflict than teenage hormones and piercings and leather jackets imply. It is the fundamental disease of youth without which progress is impossible. Ray Bradbury wrote that all 17 year olds are all fundamentally insane. I am 18. I wasted two and a half years in the army becoming angrier but not older, more efficient but not more mature, wiser but not more self-assured.

The drink and the drugs are cushioning against the horrors of adulthood. They are also a vindication of youth. Adults are afraid of alcohol and of marijuana and LSD because they have conditioned themselves against reality. But I want to be high not because it makes me passive and comfortable; I want to be high because it makes me more truthful. The adults are comfortable and any touch of the truth rankles. I say for this generation that we are not afraid of the truth. That is our war cry. We are not afraid of experiences and of conflict and of violence because they are the path to a better world, and we have dreamed of a better world. We are now bringing this dream to war with reality, with the aid of some drugs and some drinks but mostly with the aid of the untainted innocence that is our birthright.

I say : let us embrace the conflict. Let us embrace the violence. We are warring against corporations. We are warring against liars. We are warring against the appropriation of pleasure for reasons outside the self. We are warring against God. Let there be rage and let there be violence - change and goodness know no other name.

music is an affirmation of consciousness

Music is an affirmation of consciousness. Its structures belie a primary joy: the joy of existing and perceiving. The act of music-making is the fundamental act of triumph over existential angst.

The improviser chases the sacred. Scales and rhythms and pitches and sounds are our tools; by the exercise of what is inherently sacred (mind) we seek to elevate the physical.

The act of performing is an affirmation of love. Music itself expresses consciousness and joy; performance expresses the desire for communion with other consciousnesses. The appreciation of music by an audience is the moment of communion with the performer, where his subjectivity transcends its logical status as an unprovable hypothesis into an experiential reality. This is love. Hence performance seeks the same status as love, in a primary acknowledgement that both performer and audience exist in joy and consciousness.

2011

It has been a great year. Coming to New York has been the best thing that has ever happened. Yet I've been sad and lonely and broken more times than I can count this year, and happy and full of life even more than that. I guess I'm thankful that I'm still breathing - we all should be.

This year has been a year of learning. I've learned that it's more important to be a good person than to be smart or clever or funny - not that those things aren't important. But they are secondary. The only thing we have in this short existence is the presence of other people to help us on our little way. It is the mystery of our lives, a nonsensical proposition we accept in order not to feel so alone - and we are accepted in order for others not to feel so alone. We have no reason to believe that anybody else exists, but the assumption is necessary - it defies logic. Yet it is not merely comforting but necessary.

I am glad for the presence of other people in my small, dark and terrifying world. It makes the nights bearable and the days joyful. My dad was right - and Zarathustra was right - you can live on the mountaintop as long as you want, but out of love you must descend into the valley to share and be shared. I miss my old friends and I cherish my new ones. I accept them unreservedly.

Every new year is bittersweet - I treasure the accumulation of the detritus of thought, of work, of love and friendships, and yet I know that I am one year closer to not existing anymore. At this age I rail against the thought. I am too much in love. But barring any bus accidents, it will get easier. Death is a slow process, and I hope by then to have accumulated the presence of the people I treasure the most to make my passing pleasant.

For 2010 I give thanks for the presence of people. For 2011 I resolve to be peaceful, to give thanks for kindness, and to be kind.