Sylvia Says

As usual, John Green got me thinking about something.

Quotes. I love quotes. But it's kind of a weird thing if you think about it. Why do we love quotes so much? We're just stealing other people's thoughts and ideas and putting them on tshirts, car bumpers, motivational posters, our master's thesis. It's like an acceptable form of plagiarism. We can say exactly what we want to say, but we don't have to own up to it completely because Ghandi said it first. But I love quotes nonetheless, giving me the opportunity to steal from the smart ones and use their brilliance for my own personal gain.

Anyway, John was talking about how the quotes we love, when quoted, lose their original context and enter a whole new one- the context of our lives.

I keep a real, paper journal and in it I often copy down quotes from things I read that I like. Sometimes I go back and read them later and whatnot. But I've never really looked at them as a whole, and wondered why I liked them. So here I go.

From The Bell Jar:

I wondered why I couldn't go the whole way doing what I should anymore. This made me sad and tired. Then I wondered why I couldn't go the whole way doing what I shouldn't, and this made even sadder and more tired.

Well, my first instinct is to simply say, "that's true." It seems like, most of the time, I simply do what I have to, not what I should or even shouldn't. Some people live their lives in defiance, doing whatever it is they think somebody doesn't want them to do. I think that's silly. Some people do absolutely whatever it takes, whatever the rules dictate, to put themselves in good standing. I don't really do that either. That sort of begs the question, what am I doing then? I live somewhere in the middle, doing what I need to do to get by, with no extremes and no excitement. Usually, I'm the highest advocate of moderation, but in this case, it only makes me "sadder and more tired."

There is nothing like puking with somebody to make you into old friends.

I just thought this was funny, and probably true. I don't have the experience to back that up, but I do believe there are just some experiences that two people cannot go through without growing closer. This quote always reminds me of a line in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, something about how fighting the troll in the bathroom cemented Harry, Hermione, and Ron's friendship. While that sounds horribly childish and all, there's definitely some truth to the concept and it's something I rather like the idea of.

It mightn't make make me any happier, but it would be one more little pebble of efficiency among all the other pebbles.

I really liked this originally because it hit upon a concept that I'd always been subconsciously aware of but hadn't articulated. There's a certain feeling of accomplishment, maybe superficial or maybe not, of completing some sort of task that was assigned to you. Busywork, if the term must be used. Perhaps it's just knowing you've done something that somebody else wanted you to; you're that pebble of efficiency, flowing with the current instead of against it.

If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then I'm neurotic as hell.

If Sylvia had any wits about her and this statement has any truth to it, then I should be locked up in the funny farm immediately. My life is but a series of wanting mutually exclusive things at once. I'm horrible at making decisions- perhaps I'm just neurotic. Please, give me an excuse. I'd love to know why I agonize over things, sometimes wanting two completely opposite things all at once. I think this might be a universal experience, human nature to want it all, but when you're standing there weighing the options, however big or small, you feel horribly alone. Like a neurotic person in a padded cell.

Well, I could go through the oh so many other quotes I've pilfered, but it would be so long and even more boring than this already is. So I'll leave it at quotes pulled from this one, beloved work, and maybe analyze myself further at a later date.