stuck in the past

http://stuckinthepast08.blogspot.com/2009/09/eric-clapton-461-ocean-boulevard-1974.html

Music is timeless. Rock n' Roll, most certainly, as they embody the soul of legendary musicians.
This is a blogpost on some of the low-key albums of Eric Clapton during the seventies.
No doubt, I was not alive when Clapton was playing these songs on the radio, when hit singles
like Layla were topping the charts and frizzy hair was the hip-est thing in town. But listening to these songs gives me a vicarious experience of those old days. Snazzy guitar solos, raw vocals and heroine shots defined the Clapton era. His charisma still persists today, as he attracts young listeners like me to press play and listen to his songs that were made decades ago.
So am I stuck in the past? In a way, yes.

Our penchant for 'relic-ing'

Are we caught in the whims of our past?
Why do we deliberately tatter our denim, and tear out our sleeves?
It is a phenomenon that elicits my curiosity; yet I would be lying if I had said that I do not have any ripped jeans sitting in my closet. I know that for me at least, this kind of 'old' clothing lends to something of a social statement; that I am young and wild. Yellowed- shirts and torn-out jeans are much more fashionable and casual among the people of my age. In a sense, this trend represents our vitality as teenagers by showing that we reject the social norm that has been thrust upon us. But today, you will no longer find people who will point to a hoodlum wearing faded jeans and say that it is unwarranted behavior. Matter of fact, wearing old tattered clothes has acutally evolved into a kind of a norm among us teens. If your jeans aren't faded, you aren't cool.

But what still enlivens my curiosity is how these kinds of clothing has become 'acceptable' and 'fashionable'. There is now actually a name for this kind of fashion style: vintage clothing. It is no doubt a recent modern-era phenomenon. Even on television, we see rock stars wearing shirts that look like it has been washed in mud, baked in the desert, run over by cars and what not. Is it a mere human tendency? I do not believe our ancestors were fond of this style of clothing. Here, are some of my reasons as to why we choose to 'relic' our clothing.
Number one, it is unique. as I have demonstrated above with the teenage hype over faded jeans and shirts, wearing these kind of clothes make you stand out from the crowd (not so much today).
Number two, fine materials. Modern garments, compared to the old, lack quality. Fabrics of old clothes are much more durable and long lasting.
Number three, a little bit of a stretch, but our appreciation for the past.
Lastly, for investment.

Word of the day: Yongmin

Here's the word of the day: Yongmin

Yong-min [Yóngmeén] n. A keen, eager, good-natured young man with great talents and awesome powers that inspires progressive change and action from the people around him.

A nice, well defined definition of me. Now, I could get really creative and turn me into an adjective, verb, or even an adverb, but I'll leave that up to you. But, as I look over this concise, rather terse definition once more, I find myself shaking my head. Yes, the phrase above may be the way others perceive me. This may be the person that my parents want me to be. This may be the person that I want to be, nonetheless I can't help but to deny that I am not the person that the phrase describes. It is an idealized, unattainable image shrouded in a veil of fluffystuff.
So, here's a new definition.

Yong-min [Youngmín] n. 1. a seemingly keen, happy, satisfied lad who secretly belies a feeling of insecurity and vulnerability under the veil of sugarly goodness. His sense of insecurity emanates from his itinerant lifestyle, lack of self confidence, and inability to permanently belong to a place. 2. A pushover. 3. A shy, clumsy, and awkward walking talking piece of flesh and bone.

Now I feel satisfied. I feel less vulnerable. I feel like vindictively pointing my finger at my dad and going "Ha! This is the real me! In your face!" But at the same time I feel my shoulders loosen. This is not the person that I want to be and I know it. I hate that I'm so sheepishly timid and unconfident, I hate that I am so shaky on the inside but appear to be the opposite, I hate how others try to define me to be someone that I am not. So, let's do something about it.

Defining yourself is not as easy as looking up a word in a dictionary. As you can see, there is a clear discrepancy how you perceive yourself and how others perceive you. How do I deal with this? Destroy it. Eliminate the gap. Pull the 'how others define you' from the other side of the spectrum and drag it over to the side of 'how you define yourself.' I, like everyone else, have a vision of the kind of person I want to be. I want to be charismatic, confident, inspiring, intelligent, humorous, and sexy. But not everyone is born like that (at least not me). Nonetheless, I strive to reach that image, that definition, how idealized and unachievable it may be. Ignore what others say about you. If you want to be that person, then be it. In the end, only you have the power to shape yourself, as an artist mends his clay mold to perfection. Fortunately, that clay mold stays nice and moist throughout our lifes; we can always change.

Yongmin. It isn't just a word of the day. It's a word that will be with me my entire life, and time and time again, I will try to define it.