"My hands, my precious hands..."

There's something mysteriously archaic about my essence. I always felt that I would have been better suited living a few hundred years earlier. Maybe during the enlightenment, when there was an inspiring synergy struck between pragmatism and romanticism. I'm convinced I would have particularly thrived in late Tsarist/early Soviet Russia, during the great social upheaval of the time. You see, I have always observed human struggle as the ultimate catalyst for beauty and creativity. A catalyst that of course meant different things to different artists. To my dear Rachmaninoff for example, it was the very notion of love that provided his personal point of contention. A contention that drove him to create the monumental compositions and conductions that have become such a pivotal point in my life today.

But I digress. No, I'm not saying one must be an artist to appreciate this point of view, and it's not even so much the struggle I am trying to identify with. But there was a certain primitive authenticity to the way the shapers of society functioned at that specific point in time. The last vestiges of chivalry, mingling with the coming of a new age of scientific and social exactness. It's all just seems so right to me! Theirs was the manner in which true gentleman should behave. It is unfortunate that the best we have to offer today is just a twisted bastardization of their former correctness.

Sure, you could say there's nothing wrong with change. You could even go so far as to say that it's dangerous to be socially stagnant, and cling to the same ideals... An organism of any nature or complexity is either evolving to meet the criterea of a world constantly trying to best it, or it is on the path to extinction. Just consider any number of past civilizations. In very much the same way the romantics I speak of could not have possibly continued in their fashion for long. But were they really so wrong in their discourse? Is love not the ultimate ideal?

What better system do we have to cling to today? The machination of accumulation! It is a sad truth that in today's world, financial considerations seem to take precedence over everything else. And then there's the stress involved with being in an economically precarious situation. The list of grievences go on, and we are all well-attuned to their nature. I don't think I have to convince you that we live in vain times. But you can see how all this input could distract one from the romanticist's ideals.

It's difficult, being me. I would like to emulate the great romantics as much as I could... But ultimately, I try to be realistic with myself, and to put myself in as much of a current context as I can. It brings me great consternation, living detached from the actual occurences of the world. What this means is that I have to absorb as much of our vainity as I can stomach. I wish I could be uncompromising, I really do. There was a time when I was. But it didn't work out too well. I feel like I lost out on three of what should have been the most exciting years of my life. It just makes me wonder how other people get along doing it. What's the trick to being happy and in love? Can the two really coexist, especially if taken in their purest forms?

Well, yeah. But that age has come and gone. The devices needed to facilitate such an arrangement are not in place in our time. It wrenches my heart, to realize this sad fact. Love is dead. You could say otherwise, but any example you point to today is, by simple virtue of my previous point, impossible.

I'm in the wrong century...