The Pen Is Mightier Than the Melancholy... Totally....

I'm not sure what you were hoping for when you clicked the link that brought you here. Perhaps you had nothing better to do. Perhaps you've never read my blog before and are just wondering what I have to say. Perhaps you're a kind soul trying to humor me, and for that, I thank you. Like most people, I do enjoy being humored.

On the off chance that you were actually expecting some sort of deep insightful commentary on life and the nature of humanity -- sorry, I've got none of that at the moment. What I do have tonight is a sort of melancholy discontent. There's no good reason for it; it's just there. And so I'm attempting to flush it out by writing. No grand thoughts tonight. Just an overactive superego and a keyboard.

Which is all a very roundabout way of saying: hey, I'm gonna write about myself. Today, this is a vanity blog. I'm sorry -- you can leave now if you like.

Now that that's out of the way, I'm going to write about misconceptions. Namely, three misconceptions that I think quite a few people must have about me, as they're misconceptions I've had about myself.

Misconception 1: I'm not content with where I am (geographically, I mean.)

I probably talk a lot about how much I want to travel. It's true that I do have a powerful sense of wanderlust, and that my greatest dream is to go abroad and live in other places and cultures. But that doesn't mean that I don't like it here. Sometimes I think people get the impression that I feel like my country isn't good enough, or something, or that I think other places must be better. That's not true at all. I'm not looking for anything "better." I don't believe in better, really. I just believe in "different."

This place is where I come from. It's ingrained within me, and I'm glad for that. In fact, if it wasn't, my wanderlust would not be so strong. My Americanness is my frame of reference -- without it, I could not see the rest of the world and think "Hey, that's different from what I know! Awesome!"

And it's not the necessarily places that I'm so eager to see. Places are awesome, but sightseeing isn't what I'm so passionate about. It's people and everything they do. Culture. Potential friends. There's a whole world of it, and that's what I love. I don't think that there's something "better" out there that I'm missing. I just know that there are things that are different out there. That's what I'm looking for.

I was going to go on, but I don't think I will. I'm really trying not to use this blog to rant on about personal things that nobody cares about anyways. I'll leave you with two parting thoughts.

First, a question: is it better to be insecure or overconfident? Obviously both are follies and have their issues. On a spectrum, I fall decidedly on the "insecure" side. In fact, my insecurity (along with my emotional immaturity, inability to make eye contact with people, and practical uselessness) is one of my biggest faults, I believe. I wonder what it would be like to have extra confidence. Would it cause more problems than it solves? Or would my life not necessarily be better or worse, but just different? What other aspects of my character would it alter?

Second, a thought: I think that most people end up hating other people due to misconceptions, misunderstandings, and the simple fact that we are all locked behind different sets of eyes. People interpret the world differently by the virtue of being different people. I think sometimes we all assume too quickly that everybody else thinks exactly the way we do, and that the reasons behind another person's actions would naturally be the same as our own.

Alright, I'm tired now and the melancholy would probably be better served by sleep. Goodnight... and till next time, when I hope I'll actually have something other than my silly old self to write about.