Today's sentiment: Aspiration.
I'm not sure why the idea of the subway thrilled me so much as a kid. Just sit on the subway and read books! That's definitely not something I do, now that riding the subway is a daily occurrence. I had all sorts of childhood dreams that I didn't really have a way to fulfill, but now they're all within my grasp, and I waste every one of them. Maybe it was just that Baltimore didn't really have a subway system, just a single line that always felt empty. Going to Beijing was in part about going to a place with a massive subway system. I’d never lived in a big city before. I wanted to get lost in it — not the city, but the land beneath it. Now I'm not sure what it feels like to get lost in a subway system. The interesting part is the stations, but once you're actually on the subway, you glide by every station without a chance to see the inside.
When I was in Beijing, I felt like I was abusing the subway, using it towards purposes it wasn't designed for. Around me on all sides were commuters, people with destinations, and I just sat there going nowhere, sometimes falling asleep. I'd take line 6 back and forth because it felt the emptiest, sleeping 45 minutes at a time. It was nice having nowhere to go. Any time I wanted to sleep I had to fight for the opportunity. It was such a contrast to the life I’d be living otherwise, always indoors, trapped in my tiny room, where sleep is always moments away.
Now I’m stuck in some middle ground — the same middle ground half the world is stuck in. Well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. I only have two days a week that I have to be anywhere at any particular time. Other than that, I things to do, but no fixed time I need to do them. Somehow I’ve ended up accepting the same schedule that is enforced on all the sad people with their 9 to 5s. Not that I work 8 hours a day. Let’s not talk about how much I actually “work”, and let’s not even touch on the specifics of what my “work” could possibly be.
I write these sentiments late at night, so when it comes to deciding the sentiment that defined the day, all I can think about is how sleepy I am. It’d be no fun if every sentiment was “Sleepy”.
Xiaoxi has a DJ set tonight (she’s trying on clothes as I write this), so unfortunately I can’t just write this then go to bed. I have to journey deep into the night, bump into strangers, and hopefully arrive upon thoughts about this world that I wouldn’t have otherwise.
One of my aspirations (I am filled with aspirations of all sorts) is to be the sort of person who is out and about exploring the establishments of recreation during the hours others are at work. There’s nothing like the feeling of the subway at 12 in the afternoon on a Tuesday. You can actually get a seat. No one’s rushing to work. There’s a feeling of cleanliness, especially in late spring after its rained and every tree is exploding in greenness. The subway of course is not strictly speaking a place of recreation. If I truly want to fulfill this particular aspiration, I should start hanging out at the arcade and play King of Fighters during my late mornings and early afternoons. This would be so incredibly easy. All my childhood dreams could coalesce at once. So why haven’t I done it already?