Earlier today I got a phone call from what sounded like the least enthusiastic student at UNCW asking if I would like to donate to the alumni fund. I graduated less than 6 months ago, boy do they start early. I tried explaining to the fellow that I lived on cracker's and my parents soy milk and that a $150 donation just wasn't in the cards. He then pushed a smaller donation with all of the enthusiasm of a disenchanted dairy cow in his voice. I listened patiently then thought this.
"I enjoy shrubs"
"Excuse me sir?"
"Yes, I think the landscaping is my favorite thing about my experience at UNCW, the shrubs in particular."
"Yes sir, we have a full-time crew of profess..."
"In fact, what if I told you that I'd be willing to donate $2,500 as long as you can guarantee it will be invested in shrubs?"
"I don't think I can do th..."
"I would like it to be called 'The Nathaniel Sloan Shrub Garden for Student Relaxation,' and I would like it to be situated somewhere along Chancellor's Walk."
"Um."
The conversation ended quickly.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Lone Some
If there is one thing I hate, it's being lonely.
If there is something that I hate slightly more than that, it's feeling like I'm wasting my time.
These are two seemingly unrelated things that I've managed to draw a correlation between when I more than likely have no business drawing it. Nonetheless, it's done and now I think about it often.
Today I woke up. I stared at myself in the mirror and patted my belly a couple of times before hopping in the shower. When I came downstairs I reclined in a chair and read facebook and wikipedia in the hopes that someone or something would pop up and give me the stimulation of interaction that I need. Here I am at the end of the day and I feel that I've accomplished absolutely nothing of real worth, (ironically, I voted today).
Two years ago I was stricken with depression and grief when the girl who was my whole world dumped me like a sack of moldy, annoying potatoes. I realized that in placing so much emphasis on her and away from friendships, I had neglected to procure new relationships or sustain my old ones. Out in the cold with almost no one to turn to, I was forced to get creative. I had to distract myself from the depression, distract myself from the loneliness, and move on.
Naturally, I became a guitarist. Not just an annoying, sit in the back of the room and play indiscernible versions of 'Freebird' kind of guitarist, but a, (kind of), real guitarist: The kind people wouldn't mind listening to. Ok, maybe that's a stretch - but it was a feat for me. Also in that time I wrote creatively and came up with new ideas for videos and movies that I would later attempt to make. I did a lot, and not only that, but what I made was uniquely mine. All of this happened because it was all that I had. A strange person in a newly foreign land.
Moving on has seen me change in a lot of ways. Most obviously, I've become more centered in my faith in God, though out of necessity not my own pious superiority. I've made new friends and become a relative master at getting people to at least pretend to enjoy my company. If you give me a warm cup of coffee, I can cradle it with smiling eyes and chit-chat about anything - linoleum floors if that's what you're passionate about. A few years ago this would be unheard of. Little by little my heart healed as I filled its vacancies with swams of new people.
The thing about people is this: they are time consuming. I go weeks at the time without playing guitar. My other pet hobbies barely get off the ground before I send them, smoldering, into a pile of rejected dreams. Most importantly, I'm not making something of myself the way I always hoped I would. I've traded the power of pain, which led me to make and do so much, for the security and comfort of people. I don't have to get creative anymore because I don't need distracting. I have friends now!
And I'm thankful.
But I can't get this out of my head. Maybe I need to be uncomfortable again. Maybe being really unhappy, submitting myself to that loneliness that I've tried so hard to escape - maybe that's the only way I can become the man I need to be.
Maybe it's time to be a foreigner again.
If there is something that I hate slightly more than that, it's feeling like I'm wasting my time.
These are two seemingly unrelated things that I've managed to draw a correlation between when I more than likely have no business drawing it. Nonetheless, it's done and now I think about it often.
Today I woke up. I stared at myself in the mirror and patted my belly a couple of times before hopping in the shower. When I came downstairs I reclined in a chair and read facebook and wikipedia in the hopes that someone or something would pop up and give me the stimulation of interaction that I need. Here I am at the end of the day and I feel that I've accomplished absolutely nothing of real worth, (ironically, I voted today).
Two years ago I was stricken with depression and grief when the girl who was my whole world dumped me like a sack of moldy, annoying potatoes. I realized that in placing so much emphasis on her and away from friendships, I had neglected to procure new relationships or sustain my old ones. Out in the cold with almost no one to turn to, I was forced to get creative. I had to distract myself from the depression, distract myself from the loneliness, and move on.
Naturally, I became a guitarist. Not just an annoying, sit in the back of the room and play indiscernible versions of 'Freebird' kind of guitarist, but a, (kind of), real guitarist: The kind people wouldn't mind listening to. Ok, maybe that's a stretch - but it was a feat for me. Also in that time I wrote creatively and came up with new ideas for videos and movies that I would later attempt to make. I did a lot, and not only that, but what I made was uniquely mine. All of this happened because it was all that I had. A strange person in a newly foreign land.
Moving on has seen me change in a lot of ways. Most obviously, I've become more centered in my faith in God, though out of necessity not my own pious superiority. I've made new friends and become a relative master at getting people to at least pretend to enjoy my company. If you give me a warm cup of coffee, I can cradle it with smiling eyes and chit-chat about anything - linoleum floors if that's what you're passionate about. A few years ago this would be unheard of. Little by little my heart healed as I filled its vacancies with swams of new people.
The thing about people is this: they are time consuming. I go weeks at the time without playing guitar. My other pet hobbies barely get off the ground before I send them, smoldering, into a pile of rejected dreams. Most importantly, I'm not making something of myself the way I always hoped I would. I've traded the power of pain, which led me to make and do so much, for the security and comfort of people. I don't have to get creative anymore because I don't need distracting. I have friends now!
And I'm thankful.
But I can't get this out of my head. Maybe I need to be uncomfortable again. Maybe being really unhappy, submitting myself to that loneliness that I've tried so hard to escape - maybe that's the only way I can become the man I need to be.
Maybe it's time to be a foreigner again.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Whisp-o-whirl
Greenville has this run-down/built-up vibe to it. It is one of those places that I love when I know I shouldn't - like a guilty habit. If the whole of North Carolina were a body, its dirty hands are here. Don't get me wrong, there are good people here who will someday hold jobs in medicine and education, but to me it's just a little slimy: A place I'd never want to live, but couldn't live without visiting.
It's a little past ten when JaySun and I walk out of a convenience store on Evans St. The air has finally gotten cold enough that the warmth and comfort of a pipe is agreeable, so we have decided to take advantage of it. With a new white lighter in hand, we are ready to look for the best place to smoke. Taking short, quick breaths we hurry back across Evans and onto campus. Thinking of our recent exchange with the clerk in the convenience store, I laugh.
"What? What's funny?" JaySun asks.
"It's just the way you said it," I answer, "It was like - I was asking him what made the Bic lighter 20 cents better and you were really listening hard. He said that the plastic was thicker and it had this guard on the striker and then when I looked at you."
I started laughing again. JaySun, still slightly bewildered, starts laughing with me.
"I think it's just how you came off like you couldn't believe we were discussing it in such detail," I say, "especially when you sheepishly said, 'Well - I guess we'll get the nicer one.'"
"Ok, whatever," he says.
As we walk past the library, I notice the little television screens are working on the face of the clock tower for the first time when I've been there. JaySun assures me that they only show random garbage and aren't worth stopping for. I keep watching them as we pass. He is probably right. A little further on, they have these columns that sound semi-muted chimes as you pass through them. We stop and do a brief dance on each side of a column setting them off especially well. Amused, we set our attention on the campus commons, (or "cupola plaza," if you prefer), in front of us, looking for the perfect place.
"How about over there," I say, motioning to the cupola in the middle of the commons. Apparently, it is a double size replica of the cupola which sat atop the university's first building, Austin, which burned. Now the replica squats disembodied on the lawn, a beautiful, if somewhat awkward addition to the campus decor.
"Nah man," he replies, "that thing gives me the creeps."
"Why?" I ask.
"I don't know man," he says, "one time I was out here and there was a group of people in a circle all dressed in black with a fire in the middle doing something. It was creepy as crap."
I pause for a minute and accept this with a shrug, "We can at least use its lights to pack our pipes by."
"Ok, whatever," he says.
I notice the eerie quality that the the lights at the cupola's base lend the structure as we make our approach. Reaching into my canvas bag like a Christmas stocking, I feel around for the familiar shape of my pipe. I hand JaySun a small one that I carry as a backup. The wind picks-up just as I drop in the first scrappy tobacco leaves. Luckily, I hear it coming and manage to keep it from claiming any. A short time passes and I ask for the lighter. With a couple of flicks it sparks to life and soon we are both producing white-grey puffs that rise and dissipate in the wind.
"You want to go over there?" he asks, indicating a lone bench a short distance from the cupola.
Noting his eagerness to escape the monument, I agree.
The night is cold but our bench is colder. Bars of metal are curved to form its seat and back and they must have been designed to win the battle against my body heat. I put the mild discomfort out of mind and refocus my attention on making smoke rings.
"Did you see that one?" I ask.
"No, hold on," he answers before tilting his head back to attempt a few of his own. He claims to have produced a couple. I am skeptical.
After a while I lean back and look to the small patch of sky that we're afforded through all the waving branches. Several twinkling stars are visible in spite to the city's best efforts to conceal them. From nowhere, I have one of those moments of deep contemplation. For instance, when I started smoking pipes, I did so to have insightful conversations with my friends. Instead, we always end up talking about tobacco or how the smoke tastes and I seldom feel wiser. I wonder why our conversations rarely go deep. Taking in the sky and its vastness I consider the paths that are before me and the choices I have to make, each with its own fast-approaching deadline for consideration, and I wonder what I'll be doing in a year. I look at the buildings and I think of all the visits I've made to friends at ECU. Some of them are good memories and some of them bad, but when I blend them all together they make a smoothy of sorts that I wouldn't mind drinking again from time-to-time. I wonder how long I have before I don't know anyone in Greenville anymore. Because I'm getting older. Because they have all grown up and moved-on. I wonder if Greenville's dark shadows and shifting leaves will ever be real again - or if will I pack them into a dusty, old cardboard box and store them in my mind. Just a memory. In time I'll push it further and further back, stack new boxes on it and cover it up.
"Can I have the lighter?" JaySun asks?
"Huh? What? Uh, I don't think I have it."
"Oh, do I have it?" he asks, fumbling through his hoodie pockets, "Yeah, here it is."
Our pipes are dying and we keep re-lighting them. I take one long final pull and tap the ash out on the sidewalk.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Five Dolla
I went to Greenville this weekend.
On the drive home I had this brilliant story I was going to write up that was going to be a joy to read. Unfortunately, I arrived home almost an hour later and I am much to tired to actually write it.
Hopefully I'll get around to it tomorrow....
or sometime soon.
On the drive home I had this brilliant story I was going to write up that was going to be a joy to read. Unfortunately, I arrived home almost an hour later and I am much to tired to actually write it.
Hopefully I'll get around to it tomorrow....
or sometime soon.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Novel Idea
Earlier today I got the idea that I should narrate my life in Biblical style. I don't know why.
Here is the past week of my life as written by one of the authors of a Biblical era book.
And it came to pass that the one who was responsible for shooting the video went to the land of Chapel Hill to continue his work. When he arrived, those who went with him led him around the campus of UNC. There were many people upon the grounds of that campus, and they marveled at their own existence. Nathan filmed them saying,
"Surly this footage will show the people of North Carolina that the time has come for them to support CCF."
It was not long before Nathan and his coworkers returned to Wake County where there was much work to be done. There was good food and the smells of the wolfline in the air. Nathan grew weary of Raleigh and rejoiced at the prospect of revisiting Chapel Hill, for he thought -
Raleigh is busy and urban
my life could use relaxation
other places are more suitable for this.
The day following, he did just that.
On the next day he slept.
On the first day of the next week, Nathan rose and spoke with his parents saying,
"I must leave tonight, but I will return Wednesday and I look forward to seeing you then."
He then left an returned to the land of Raleigh where he stayed for a number of days playing ping pong, working at a computer and talking to people about the things that came to his mind.
Here is the past week of my life as written by one of the authors of a Biblical era book.
And it came to pass that the one who was responsible for shooting the video went to the land of Chapel Hill to continue his work. When he arrived, those who went with him led him around the campus of UNC. There were many people upon the grounds of that campus, and they marveled at their own existence. Nathan filmed them saying,
"Surly this footage will show the people of North Carolina that the time has come for them to support CCF."
It was not long before Nathan and his coworkers returned to Wake County where there was much work to be done. There was good food and the smells of the wolfline in the air. Nathan grew weary of Raleigh and rejoiced at the prospect of revisiting Chapel Hill, for he thought -
Raleigh is busy and urban
my life could use relaxation
other places are more suitable for this.
The day following, he did just that.
On the next day he slept.
On the first day of the next week, Nathan rose and spoke with his parents saying,
"I must leave tonight, but I will return Wednesday and I look forward to seeing you then."
He then left an returned to the land of Raleigh where he stayed for a number of days playing ping pong, working at a computer and talking to people about the things that came to his mind.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Some Notes on Reading
When I graduated college I decided that in order to make it as a successful writer and intellectual, I was going to have to start making myself read constantly. I didn't have a problem with this as a student because my professors made sure I had enough literature in front of me at any given time, (whether or not I read this literature in it's entirety is information I shall choose to keep to myself).
Perhaps you've noticed the little box at the upper right side of this blog that says "Currently Reading." I ripped this idea off of my friend, Jaysun's blog and decided it would give me a constant reminder to keep reading.
Perhaps you've also noticed how those same books have been on the list for quite a while, especially "Life of Pi." I started reading Life of Pi at my friend, Jeff's, recommendation. I've heard from him, and others, that it is a very good book. Unfortunately, I found the entire first section incredibly boring. I don't like the writing style and I can't get into the whole "incredibly brilliant young boy" aspect of the story. It just seems kind of lame. People tell me that the point where I'm at right now is right where it gets interesting, and I'll either verify or discredit this for myself in the coming weeks, but the problem is that I just can't seem to make myself read it lately because of how disappointed I was with the first third of the book.
As far as the other two books go, Jesus for President is really cool but I have to read it on a schedule with the rest of CCF staff, and Good to Great is a book of Joe's that I can only read when I'm over at his house.
Maybe I should stop writing for a while and start reading.
P.S. My sincerest apologies for what I consider to be one of the most boring posts I've ever published.
Perhaps you've noticed the little box at the upper right side of this blog that says "Currently Reading." I ripped this idea off of my friend, Jaysun's blog and decided it would give me a constant reminder to keep reading.
Perhaps you've also noticed how those same books have been on the list for quite a while, especially "Life of Pi." I started reading Life of Pi at my friend, Jeff's, recommendation. I've heard from him, and others, that it is a very good book. Unfortunately, I found the entire first section incredibly boring. I don't like the writing style and I can't get into the whole "incredibly brilliant young boy" aspect of the story. It just seems kind of lame. People tell me that the point where I'm at right now is right where it gets interesting, and I'll either verify or discredit this for myself in the coming weeks, but the problem is that I just can't seem to make myself read it lately because of how disappointed I was with the first third of the book.
As far as the other two books go, Jesus for President is really cool but I have to read it on a schedule with the rest of CCF staff, and Good to Great is a book of Joe's that I can only read when I'm over at his house.
Maybe I should stop writing for a while and start reading.
P.S. My sincerest apologies for what I consider to be one of the most boring posts I've ever published.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Shutter-y
In the past week and a day I have been to UNCW, Topsail Island, East Carolina, back to Raleigh, and ended today in Chapel Hill. I've been on the road shooting this video for CCF for quite some time and as you might imagine, it's kept me busy enough that updating my blog has been a no-go. Thankfully, the dry spell is up and I have been nearly divinely inspired with an artistic vision to share with the world.
I just don't know what, exactly, it is yet. Rest assured that when I do, it will be well expounded upon in a post on this blog. In the mean time I'll write a little haiku about UNC Chapel Hill.
everyone walking.
the campus is somewhat nice.
Lenoir is tasty.
Other than my overall sense of arrogance increasing by 78% while I was there, I don't have much to report. The shoot went well and I can't wait to get into the editing room and see it all come together. I just wish it wasn't going to make my head hurt as much as I know it will.
I just don't know what, exactly, it is yet. Rest assured that when I do, it will be well expounded upon in a post on this blog. In the mean time I'll write a little haiku about UNC Chapel Hill.
everyone walking.
the campus is somewhat nice.
Lenoir is tasty.
Other than my overall sense of arrogance increasing by 78% while I was there, I don't have much to report. The shoot went well and I can't wait to get into the editing room and see it all come together. I just wish it wasn't going to make my head hurt as much as I know it will.
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