I mentioned once that good writing turns me on. This is Jeremi Roux's, perhaps the wisest man I know.

The question of self discovery: "Who am I?" It is perhaps the most elusive and difficult one to answer. The problem becomes even more convoluted when one realized that the only possible answer is an oblique one; choice. In a world of artificial values, socially created and defined, the answer becomes sublimated, undergoing a phase change. You are who you are. This realization leads to a new understanding; the person you are, is the person you construct. "Who am I" becomes "Who do I choose to be?" Inherent in this is the understanding that the choice of self is guided by principles in turn created by the self you seek to define. Who you choose to be becomes contingent on the values you hold. "What do I believe" becomes as important, and yet, with the realization of the artificiality of those selfsame values, comes the realization that they could be otherwise. "Who should I choose to be" becomes unthinkable, for there are no moral imperatives except for the ones you create, the ones you choose. Inevitably, the question reduces to a statement ("I choose"), and the statement in turn leads to a choice. But it is one that is radically free. Unbounded by any constraints; any thought is thinkable; no answer, however terrible or socially reprehensible, can be ruled out. For, to be determined wholly by social values, as most individuals seem to be, is to be precisely the antithesis of the one truth that emerges. Whether or not we ever realize it, we are absolutely free. The truth, the sole fact of our existence is this: absolute freedom brings absolute responsibility. Human existence is singular. To abrogate this in order to cling to the middle position, to accept the answers generated by those around you without thinking critically, is to abandon freedom of thought and will. To not choose, or to allow others to choose for you, is to loose that freedom. Many might do so readily, accepting the demands of our culture, and in doing so they believe they escape that absolute responsibility. "I am, b ut I did not choose it! I am not responsible! Do not hold me to this!" they cry. They seek to lose themselves in the multitude, and thereby escape responsibility for their choice. And yet the most terrible aspect of the farce is this: they have sacrificed the freedom of their being, their thought, their will, and in return they have gained nothing. The absolute responsibly remains, even if they do not recognize it. To not choose is the same as the act of choosing. What the masses accept uncritically, without reflection, this easy solution, is not a solution at all. "Who am I?" is really "Who do I choose to be?", and that choice is made all the more terrible in the absence of guarantee. This is the existential form of the question.

I didn't tell him I'd put it up though. But the reason why I want to drop out, to leave everything is becuase I feel like I have no choice in anything anymore. I feel like I go day to day in a world that I do not define. I was rereading my xanga entries and realized that its mostly a rant about society. I hate society. And yet I keep striving to the best in it. I guess that realization is whats making me WANT to leave so badly.

I want to feel like I can change the world. I sit at meetings, thinking about the futility of it all. And people being inefficient. Everything feels so damn purposeless these days. The only thing I look foward these days are random lunches with people. To just sit and talk. I don't want to do anything else that I've obliged myself to this semester.

But moreover, I want to leave. I want to see the world. I want to see what MATTERS, whats important. I want to help people and it's not because I have big man syndrome. I know it seems childish to want to change the world and maybe its just a phase. But this is What I want to do. This is me. And right now, I feel like I have changed nothing. I feel like my existence here is not needed. It is a very demeaning thought.

Last year, I knew what I wanted to be. And then I became a shell. I didn't mean for it happen. I wanted to change the world, I want to make people smile. I wanted to show them a different life, or at least relieve them for a moment of theirs, just to be happy again. I think to some degree I made this happen, but I don't understand how I became a shell in the end. Why I conformed so thoroughly. Right now, I do not have a purpose. I still want to make others happy. But it doesnt seem enough.