I wear longing well · 8:05pm Oct 9th, 2014
Yanno, I've never really taken New Years Eve Resolutions seriously. I don't even bother making them any more.
But I'm going to this year.
I'm going to be away from my family for the entire year, probably; and, well, I want to make myself better.
Frankly, all I know how to do is write.
I'm... adept in it, in my opinion. But naturally, there is room to grow. But I want to make myself more well rounded.
I want to learn how to draw. Make my own cover art, and cover art for anyone who wants it.
I want to learn how to play an instrument, or two. I have a brand new freaking guitar that I've never once strummed in my life. I want to strum it. My brother got a keyboard last Christmas that sits in our living room and is ignored. I want to put it to use.
I want to learn how to speak Russian again. It angers me and saddens me that I've lost my first language.
I want to learn Japanese, too. Their language is beautiful; they have words that represent things that it would take English speakers entire paragraphs to describe. They have words for ambiguous feelings. Here's one I found particularly interesting:
Arigata-meiwaku (Japanese): An act someone does for you that you didn’t want to have them do and tried to avoid having them do, but they went ahead anyway, determined to do you a favor, and then things went wrong and caused you a lot of trouble, yet in the end social conventions required you to express gratitude
You just don't find words that mean that in the English language. It takes my breath away, as a lover of words, that words for this types of feelings exist.
I want to see an opera. Like, a real one. My grandmother plays opera tracks in her car all the time, and I want to be in the same room as a voice like that; I want to see it being produced from an actual person; I want it to be in a language I don't understand and yet, I want to be able to understand what it's talking about because of the emotion the singer puts into their performance.
I'm such a boring person. I've realized that today. I want to change it.
I want to be a champion of creativity. I want to make myself proud of myself; proud of the fact that I can carry on a conversation about more than just ponies and writing.
So that's what I'm gonna do.
I leave for Japan on Sunday, and maybe that is the reason I'm seeing things in such a different light, but mark my words, I will be a different person when I come back.
I've never been able to end these blogs in a graceful manner,
Sleepy
Oh, you're going to Japan? Awesome! I haven't been there myself yet, but it's been my dream since I was a little kid. I hope you enjoy your stay there.
Also, just so I'd stay and chat for a while... I've been studying Japanese for some time now and I have to agree that it is a really beautiful language. One thing I love about it is how poetic it is, like when one delves into the meanings of the kanji characters and so on. For example, "fireworks" in Japanese is "hanabi" which is written with the characters for "flower" and "fire." Perhaps fire blooming on the night sky or something?
2521479 Yeah. The Japanese are a very symbolic and clever people. I respect them greatly for their culture and history.