nothing in particular

it's been awhile since my last update...

is kind of a meta statement--too self-referential to be really meaningful.

so that's not how i will open this post
I can't believe I'm leaving Paris so soon--1.5 weeks, and I'm back in NYC, back in school, in a world so totally different from the one I now inhabit that i can barely comprehend it. Change is an interesting thing--sometimes we yearn for it, want nothing more than a change of scenery, are totally ready to plow into the unknown and experience something completely different, no matter what it may bring. Other times, like scared children, we cling to the present, or the past, unwilling to release the bird in our grip for the potential two in the brush.

Change is the genesis of transformation.

The only real question is, "are you ready?"

And the answer, as always, is elusive.

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All of my friends went on vacation at pretty much the same time, leaving me in a bit of a difficult spot. A social person, I feel somehow empty inside--maybe the word is lonely--when i don't have others around to share my experience with. Being suddenly without the group of friends I hang out with primarily makes me feel somewhat confused. Too often, my entire identity is defined by how other's perceive me. WIthout that mirror to hold myself up to, without others to communicate with, it's almost as if I don't really exist at all...

Of course that's not literally true. I continue to think, to be, even to strive. But when the meaning my actions contain is only the meaning I assign to them, it's as if the cup is half empty.

If hell is merely other people, then heaven is, too.

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I went out tonight with Chris, a friend I met recently, and who just moved to Paris 13 days ago. He's trying to get a job, but the French code makes it very difficult for a non-EU worker to get a work visa, so he might have to move back to Berlin if he can't find an employer who's willing to help him get one. We got a couple beers and talked Philosophy while sitting in the courtyard outside of the Centre George Pompidou, then went to an Irish pub for a couple pints of Guiness.

I spoke English with someone for a change, and got into topics so abstract that they are really impossible to communicate in a language one isn't fluent in. I found it refreshing to have an intellectual conversation with another person who was just engaged in it as I was. It's always a recurring theme for me--the best times I can remember all involve one other person, and an infinite number of ridiculous tangents going off into no-one-knows-where, in-depth examination of the very world in which we immerse ourselves. Thinking back, it makes me nostalgic for similar times I've shared with friends in the past.

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Well, this has turned into a bit of a silly post, with lots of nonsensical introspection and not much content.

Cheers.