6.8.13, 3:36 PM

Dear Der,

It’s late. You know that already. I woke up at 12:30. And why not?

I intend to work all day even though it’s Saturday. Why? Everything else bores me. I want to write a long email. I will take my time.

There’s a nice part about Manhattan. I like walking everywhere. The only times I don’t walk are when I have to meet people I don’t want to, i.e. anyone not within walking distance.

My least favorite part of the city is the prevalence of what I like to call the “nouveau hipster,” a species which shares a common ancestor with the more elusive transcendental hipster. However, the two’s beliefs couldn’t be less similar.

The members of the former species have perfected the art of attitude. But it’s the only art they truly admire. Which is fine. Not everyone needs to admire the nobler arts. I think it would be nice if everyone did. But it’s not necessary.

In a way, transcendental hipsters are no different from divorce lawyers, who wish everyone married young, never signed a prenup, made a lot of money, divorced, and wanted to cause their ex as much pain as possible. Deep down, each of us wishes everyone shared our passion.

Unfortunately for divorce lawyers, some rich couples stay together, and many poor couples divorce. Transcendental hipsters’ passion is for truth and beauty. Unfortunately for them, not everyone joneses for these things.

Despite what they’d have you believe, nouveaux hipsters aren’t crazy about these things. Nouveaux hipsters like to attend monotonous parties and drink microbrews.

Typically, transcendental hipsters also enjoy microbrews. Some like streets that are lined with trees, so they can stare at the blossoms and smell the changing seasons. Via the cyclical growth of the trees, they experience the constantly unfolding and refolding and unfolding again tale of humanity.

Although both species wish to enjoy parties and the company of people, where the one finds pleasure and comfort, the other finds only boredom and depression.

Why this is, it’s hard to say. Perhaps the parties have too many people who aren’t as awesome as the other wants to believe everyone truly is on the inside. So nearly every party is a magnificent letdown.

That said, she forgets her tragic disappointment the instant she learns of a case that confirms her faith in humanity.

Dostoevsky believed real faith is that which is constantly questioned and tested. Faith isn’t faith unless there is doubt.

But faith in what? That is the question.

I am a hopeless romantic. I see only the worst in people. I believe only the best.

I think people think I’m weird.

I rarely go to parties, but I mostly like them when I’m there.

The world is full of material for my fiction.

Most of the time I’d rather be making art. I also like taking in art, or talking to my friends about truth and beauty. They are my religion.

I am suspicious of people who speak in perfectly wrapped sentences. I suspect everything they say has been memorized and will be repeated.

My favorite parties are when I witness an encounter between a transcendental hipster and a nouveau hipster. If the other engages the one in a conversation on the subjects of truth and beauty, the one will think that he is being called out or that the other is trying to prove how smart she is.

Really, she is oblivious. She has been very moved by something that, most likely, a dead person created. She has found someone else who has apparently experienced the dead person’s creation. Oh, how lovely! Someone else!

She has gotten used to the milky glaze that forms over everyone’s eyes whenever she talks about what she wants to talk about. She has learned to steer her conversations to more conventionally suitable topics.

But not now! She has found someone who knows what she knows! Just look at this person’s clothes! This person must be as weird as she.

She falsely assumes that the other hipster is her sibling in the most sacred way. This view of hers is myopic. Usually, she is very conscious about harboring no myopic views toward any -one / -thing / -place / race / color / creed / sexual orientation / sexual preference / literally anything.

But this particular myopic view has escaped her ken. It has been internalized to such an extent that she never suspected herself of such dogma.

She should know by now that not all art affects everyone equally. But it’s more than that. She should know that most people haven’t had that mystical experience. It’s like the trees blossoming on the sides of the street.

Most people like art mostly out of deference. They like art because people whom they look up to have told them to like art. And respect for respectable people is a fine thing. They place art on a pedestal, which is also fine. But they have never truly experienced it, which is strangely beautiful.

I think the key to reaching a certain level of maturity as a reader is learning to see how this mystical totality arises in infinitely different ways. It can be brought forth to pierce our experience by means of many mediums (visual, literary, musical), and many individual works of art, composed in any number of styles.

Each historic stylistic school has its successes. Learning how each school succeeds is more important than learning why I personally think one particular school succeeds over another.

I will no longer judge the stylistic school I do not like based on the merits of the one I do.

In other words, I won’t say, “School A is successful because it uses such and such a tactic. School B does not; therefore, school B must be a failure and not worth my time.”

In the same way, comparing authors like DFW with Tolstoy or Nietzsche with Skinner is not useful. No, that’s not entirely true. It can be, but only if I’ve had the mystical experience with both.

This is why reading books from the past is nice. I don’t have to read with the constant question, “Is it worth it?” I know it is. Worthy men and women have said so.

I don’t have to worry about whether I’m an accomplished enough reader or in the right mood or too tired. The book is good. That has been settled.

All I have to do is discover why. In other words, my only job is to enjoy.

What was I talking about, again? Something to do with hipsters. Oh well.

xoxoxo

-st