Category Archives: Passion

The Only Source of Knowlodge is Experience

A Strange Weekend

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Have you ever had one of those one of those weekends that is fundamentally absurd? One of those weekends that starts a little weird, but progressively through the course of the weekend it gets increasingly weird. Well regardless of whether you have any idea of what I am talking about, I had one of those really weird weekends.

My weekend began friday like most fridays do. I woke up, brushed my teeth, got dressed and didn’t go to class since I don’t have friday classes. I got up and went outside to be slightly confused by the wether. Since it was in the mid 30s, low 40s Thursday, I was quite surprised to go outside to be greeted to warm weather in the 50s which totally threw me off from the beginning. Following a relaxed morning while everyone else was at class, in the afternoon I went to this artscrawl a friend of mines club was hosting. The event itself I found very interesting. A large variety of art ranging from aesthetic exhibits to a plethora of different bands showcasing several different genres of music. I left early because I wasn’t feeling good and while friday wasn’t too weird, it seemed it was weird enough to set the stage for one of the strangest of Saturdays of possibly my entire life.

Again, I woke up feeling sort of sick and what not. I had a lot to look forward this saturday because one of my best friend’s here invited his friends up for the weekend whom I had become pretty close with. So with a cluster of teenage boys simply chilling in my buddies room we spent a good part of both the morning and afternoon playing video games while listening to music to pass the time. Rather bored of sitting in the dorm all day, we headed over to the arboretum to watch the sunset. It was pretty cool. We stayed there for a while having rather in-depth conversation about both life and philosophy.

And from there the rest of the night quickly escalated to so unbelievably bizarre it felt as though it was a dream.

After our conversation was finished, we directly made our way downtown to get our night underway and on top of other things grab some Canyon Pizza. As we consumed our delicious pizza two of my buddies and myself crafted a plan. Amongst the friends visiting our buddy Jackson was a brother of one of the fraternities at Ohio University so we thought we’d go ahead and split from the rest of our group of friends to checkout what was going on there. So we split up and headed to the fraternity where we greeted with open arms. As strange as it was, the fraternity we were visiting was hosting a parents weekend that wasn’t their own, but a sorority taking advantage of their house. So as we headed into the basement to be greeted by a bunch of parents listening to both 70s and 80s music we saw  plenty of parents who were far beyond the point of drunk. To make things stranger, I’m from a Maryland, so when a girl from your high school you weren’t friends with in High School pops out of nowhere and starts dancing with you, it is a little weird. With all the absurdity happening in the basement, my friends invited me to join them as they took a step outside to smoke a cigarette. As I sat at the side of my friends we started up a conversation with a parent there named Yugo. And carrying the motif of the absurdity of the night, Yugo being an intoxicated parent, took the time tell us about his feelings of daughter and her sex-life while amongst other things he gave us the spark notes to his life story. With all the strangeness happening my friends and myself included thought it was time for us to leave. We thanked the brothers of the house for their hospitality and made our way back to the dorms. I sat outside with my friends and simply talked to them while they smoked their cigarettes until it was getting rather late and decided it was about time to go to bed.

Now, you would guess that since I’m going to bed that would be the end of the absurdity. Wrong.

As I comfortably rested in my bed preparing to go to bed, I looked to my right to see my roommate peacefully asleep. As I began to relax, roughly 15 minutes later I see my roommate get up and ask him whether or not he is okay. He struggles to get up and from there he comes over to my bed and tries to pull off the covers. From there I ask my roommate “What the fuck are you doing?!??!” And from there he left the room and thats when I knew he was sleep walking. Being the concerned roommate I am, I followed my roommate around as he made attempts at sleeping in another person’s bed. I kept talking to him and at one point he woke up to make his way back to his own bed. Although, this was all before he decided that the shower was a toilet.

So overall, weird night.

Stop and Smell The Roses

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“You’re only here for a short visit. Don’t hurry. Don’t worry. And be sure to smell the flowers along the way.”~ Walter Hagen

It is quite often that people find themselves getting caught up in so much stuff. Whether that means their job, their family, their club/organization, or anything else, people get so stressed and wrapped up in both their passions and goals. We get entangled in so much we fail to take the time to recognize and appreciate the little things in which we often take for granted. For example, the individual who takes the effort to start a conversation with the person they hardly know as they make their way to class. That little thing. So minute, it is often passed over. Yet, it is by far one of the most powerful actions a person can do. That little thing just changed their day.

Today is Easter. While I’m not Christian, I enjoy the friendliness of others on days of celebration and family gathering. This morning my friend’s parents treated me out to my first Easter Brunch. We went to the Tavern to be presented with a fantastic buffet made complete with prime rib, mashed potatoes, and just about anything you could possibly think of. As I went to go grab some food I made a comment on how good the lasagna looked. Next to me was a middle-aged woman who replied to my open-ended comment “Yeah, but I think I grabbed far too much for my size, haha!” followed by a pause and then a swift “Happy Easter!”.

It is those moments which we take for granted. The simple smile as we walk to class or the effortless “hello!” as we greet others on our floor. Believe it or not it is those moments that make the entire difference. Your entire day can be altered based on the microseconds of a single moment in time. It is wonderful, yet generally overlooked.

That being said I end this post by inviting you to have an unbelievably fantastic day!

 

Streaming

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So as I sit here thinking about what I should talk about in terms of experience for this week absolutely nothing comes to mind. Since I’m having a difficulty figuring out what to write about for my blog this week I’m just going to write in the form of a stream of consciousness in the hopes it stirs my creative side. Well, I suppose for starters yesterday I had the opportunity to act as a tour guide showing a prospective student and friend of mine around the beautiful place which is Penn State.

I suppose this may be interesting to talk to be now that I give it more thought. In showing my friend around the campus I showed her everything that I’ve attached feelings and sentiments to in the past 6 months I’ve gone her. Looking back I remember my first night here at Penn State. No one knew anyone at the time. You arrive here and there is unheard of sense of novelty. Everything is new in this new place in which you hope to one day be able to refer to as a second home. A bunch of us were uncomfortable and amongst others things reserved on our first night as we came together to hangout. A floor dweller who is now a cherished friend of mine did us the service of taking us to his older brother’s fraternity. I remember like it was yesterday walking downtown to find myself unfamiliar of my surroundings. Being disoriented the experience was new and exciting. Walking along Fraternity Row I was introduced to a fast-reacting world I never even knew existed. We walked into my friend’s brother frat house to be greeted with poorly up kept house with torn upholstery and wallpaper hanging from the walls, but nonetheless the feeling was special. We then proceeded to go upstairs and were shown around the area where we lingered on the balcony enjoying ourselves as we glanced below to see the other freshmen experiencing the same incomparable experience.

Relating this back to where I began, when my friend from my hometown told me about how she aspires to start college It reminded me of all the great things I experienced in the first few weeks of school. thus, in my excitement I show my friend around and was luckily able to extend to her a good time.

A Feeling of Nostalgia

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Now that I’m coming close to the end of my first year of college  I have begun to reflect on my experience here. Something I have begun to understand over the last year is the feeling of nostalgia. Having traveled home for Spring Break you develop this feeling that is irreplaceable. The feeling is not happy nor sad, intimating nor easy going. Instead it is a subtle sense of familiarity. You know where your bedroom is up the staircase and the first door on the left. You know if you want a cup of coffee it is best to pass through enid as opposed to going up post oak. You recall the elementary school classroom where you initially learned the alphabet. It is strange how only once your hometown becomes a physical manifestation of everything that existed in your past.

Having lived in the same little hole in the wall my entire life, I wonder what my feelings towards State College will be after having spent 4 long years of my life here? When I return here will I pay close attention to the dormitory I spent a large portion of my first year in? Or instead will the memories of my appear insignificant and meaningless when compared to my whole experience here? Will I remember the names of my dearest friends of the moments 20 years down the road or will their identities disappear into a dark abyss as I proceed with my life?

It is for these reasons why I have newfound appreciation for the feeling of nostalgia. Nostalgia is a byproduct of everything we experience in our life, but for whatever reason choose to leave behind us. A constant reminder of what we used to be and like a chip on our shoulder, an indicator of how far we’ve come.

FTK.

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So Two weeks I had the pleasure of enjoying for the first time Penn State’s well regarded 46 hour Dance Marathon and I must say it was indescribable. While the experience may have been indescribable, I’ll make my best attempt at trying to describe it. The day started off with me waiting in line around two O’Clock. Being a member of a fraternity I told my brothers that since I didn’t have any classes on friday I’d help out and try and grab at spot for us. As I stood in what I found to be particularly cold whether, I looked around to see a bunch of people getting very excited and hyped for this event that has gradually become something that identifies and separates Penn State from several other schools. So many smiling faces in the large crowd waiting for the doors open with little understanding to why. I mean, people had told me about how great THON is and why everyone should look to attend it, but they never really provided me with the why. Of course, the money goes to pediatric cancer which is a great cause, but what supplies the hype that makes such a large group people consistently look forward to this event?

So I stood in line for roughly two hours until they opened the doors and let everyone in. Thats when the magic of THON started. Everyone in my fraternity was separated in the line earlier, but once we got in we all convened at section 104 of the Bryce Jordan Center to stand with our buddies sticking through all 46 grueling hours of standing on the floor. So we stood.Music began to play as we started to dance in the stands and as the hours pasted everyones started to sweat as passion started to leak out of their skin. Cheering on these people on the floor as the night went on with nothing but adrenaline to keep us going. And then there was the line dance. A spirited dance complied of several pop culture references and funny jokes, was a common point used to bring us together as not a university, but a community working towards a common goal. While the dance was something difficult and slightly embarrassing to produce at first, by the end no one cared about how they looked doing it. We Were Penn State. And the feeling was irreplaceable. After spending 16 hours in the BJC I finally understood why people had initially gotten so hyped for this event.

There are so many great things about THON that it is difficult to condense it into a single blog post. But If there is one thing I found incredibly interesting was a description of THON provided to one of our dancers while they spent their epic time on the floor. the letter our dancer read was a THON memoir from years past that asked question “Why Do We Dance?”. In the letter it compared the experience to the life of a patient at a pediatric hospital. When you stand-up at the very beginning you’ve been diagnosed with cancer. At the beginning it isn’t to bad, but as the treatment continues you begin to feel the pain. You have your line dance which our your weekly check-ups. The moralers are your nurses and doctors who try their best to make you feel better. While you are consistently given a lot of food you don’t want to eat because of all the pain. And then you get excited when your family and friends get passes to come visit you in the hospital, but eventually visiting hours close and they have to leave. While your friends and family may not always be able to be at your bedside you can look to the stands to find they are by your side in spirit. And then after 46 hours they tell you it’s over. The cancer has gone in to remission and you get to see them show the numbers as you get to go on with the rest of your life.

A Character’s Journey

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Something I find particularly interesting is how deeply rooted memories and experience are manifested in how we identify with ourselves. To go a little deeper, ask yourself the question “What do I recognize with?”

So as you sit there asking yourself this question you are probably thinking of the several activities and hobbies that accumulate to fully form, well, you. For instance, when I look at my own identity I see that I identify with several things. I identify myself as a student (more specifically of penn state), a resident of Maryland (and The United States), I’m Jewish, I enjoy music, I enjoy t.v., I enjoy film, I enjoy art, I enjoy philosophy, I enjoy being social , and so on and so on. Thus, if you look at the following you can see I identified with several different things. Now you looked at the accumulation of my “identity” and you ask “why?”

And if you retreat to your past, you generally can see why. I recognize as being from maryland because from the day I was born I was repeatedly told I was Marylander and from there I continued to experience more that went to form my collective identity and who and what I identify with. From beginning with a maryland identity my identity grew to encompass friends who grew up being surrounded by music and art which in turn, like a sponge, I gathered a new part of my identity. Judaism? Influenced by attending synagogue with my family and being influenced to attend hebrew school. Current Events? Influenced by a dad in politics. In turn, attending public functions. Art? An Uncle who is a creative writer. With all this being said, It is interesting to see how these small details are generally passed over when we look to see how we are formed as individuals.

Now that I’ve finished that never ending tangent that looks at how my past experiences influenced who I am, allow me to inform you of the new experiences I have been experiencing over the past few weeks. For starters, I’ve opened up to the idea of joining a bar band. After being approached by one of the brothers in my fraternity, I accepted the invitation with open arms. I hope to learn a lot from being part of this. More so, having been part of a fraternity for the past few months, I’ve learned the things you begin to appreciate by being part of organization for a long duration of time. The longer you spend being part of an organization you can see why so many people develop a strong sense of conviction towards it. More then just a club, it is something they identify with. Something they put their name to. And with that, you can see why people look to get so involved. With your identity comes a part of your livelihood. Something you want to work towards sustaining. So thats my little bit for this week and I hope to have more insight next week following THON and my reflection of the experience on that.

The Shape of Experience

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As I continue to look to my surroundings to find, I still find myself looking for the answers I started this blog on the basis of. This week I would like to highlight “How our experiences shape us.” When I look back on my first semester of college, I can now reflect and see how it has shaped my personality. I’ll start by bringing attention to the experience of friends with new surroundings and a new environment.

As most people enter college they are generally doing it alone with few people to help. As we embark on this journey that has become a growing commonality amongst americans, we meet people who challenge they way we think. Raised in generally isolated bubbles, myself along with many others experience the culture shock as you meet people unfamiliar to your native land. It challenges the way in which we think which probably is why it is growing trend amongst people to be urged to attend college. Beyond the formal education received here, those attending college also have the pleasure of receiving a social education. Rich or poor, black or white, college is a common place amongst all cultures of the american experience.

All being said, when I look at myself I can see just how much I’ve grown as an individual this semester just through meeting new people. Having been raised in wealthy suburb of Washington D.C. that consisted of predominately people where a large portion of the population was liberal and amongst other things jewish, to meet people who come from drastically different backgrounds provides a more holistic view of the world. During the first week I befriended a group of kids who are from a borough of Pittsburgh which consists of people who recognize themselves as either Irish or Italian. When comparing stories, it was strange to think how drastically different our lives were on so many different levels.  Where I was from, people generally different have pride in my small town of “potomac”. For the most part, few people in my town actually originate from potomac. In fact, most people move here to receive well paying jobs in the nation’s capital. My little bubble of successful consisting of busy civil servants.

In contrast, the hometown of my friends was significantly different. Generations of people lived and died in the name of Shayler township and the city of pittsburgh. A way life of instilled in the kin of the area that you’ll inevitably end up here later in life. A quick culture shock for myself in only the first week of college. And as I socialized and conversed with more people on my floor and made friends in various classes of mine, these experiences altered my views on the world as I listened to what they had to say. And while, this blog doesn’t answer the question I posed at the beginning, It serves as a starting point to answer it. Next week I hope to go into more depth to describe experiences and how they mainfest several shapes.

A Step in a New Direction

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Last the week, I had the opportunity to begin exploring my new fixation towards “experience”. One of my close friends had been telling me about an organization he is part of known as SOMA (Students Organizing Multiple Arts). When I first heard of the name of organization I inferred that, being a bunch of artistically inclined people, it was named after the drug known as SOMA found in the Aldous Huxley’s classic novel “Brave New World”. Since my buddy had been talking about this organization for quite a while now, I decided this week I would tag along with him as he went to all of the events his organization was hosting. On Tuesday night, I tagged along with my buddy as he made his way to the “Open Mic Night” SOMA downtown. My first impression of this club based upon the “Open Mic Night” was this club was a cluster of “hipsters”. Now, Why would I think this? Well, for starters, the genre of performances. The genre of music being played was for the most part alternative and indie. The few other acts were material such as spoken word that few people like to participate in. My second reason for making these generalizations is that everyone there was wearing stereotypical outfits associated with Hipsters such as large plastic rimmed glass, flannel patterning, and a beanie. Nonetheless, I enjoyed this new experience alot. I got to hear alot of very talented people. So the following day I attended the meeting for the organization.  And then I realized, organizations like these are holistic communities that aim to support each other. A large group of people looking to aim towards ideal common characteristics. So finally, on Friday I attended a house concert at the housesaurus co-op often referred to as the “Hippie House” and man did I have a great time. Everyone was just so very happy and having a grand time. People moshing around in the basement. It was a grand time. So in one week it seems I’ve learned a lot, so I can only imagine what the rest of the semester has to offer me as as far as experience goes.

Openness to Experience

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New semester. New Year. New Passion.  With a fresh start to the year I only thought it would be fitting to start it off with a new passion blog subject. This semester I plan to discuss experience as the topic of my Passion Blog. One of my favorite quotes by Mark Twain says ““Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the things you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. . . . Explore. Dream.” With a New Year on the horizon I thought I would use this blog to highlight my yearning to get involved. After all, “experience” is shrouded in mystery so I hope to play Sherlock Holmes this semester and answer some of oddities behind experience. What makes us long for experience? How do our experiences shape us? How does experience influence our identity? And those are only some of the questions I hope to answer by the end of semester. Included in attempting to assist me in answering these questions, I plan to seek adventure this semester this in turn providing myself with experience. With the experiences I gain I plan to reflect on them in this blog and see if they help me answer some of the hard hitting questions that linger in my mind.