To Know Too Much

I think I have a problem with instant gratification. They have those studies that show that kids who, when given a choice to either recieve less or more ice cream depending on how long they are willing to wait, choose to wait longer for more ice cream, end up becoming more successful adults. I guess when I was a kid I was one of those delayed gratification kids, but I think the older I get, the less patient I get, the more I want things immediately and get bored fast and don't invest myself in anything and can't organize my time. I find it harder and harder to concentrate on anything for a long time -- like some kid who can't stand doing her homework, even if it's on her favorite subject. It's like for some reason all my discipline has unraveled and all I have left is a small handful of whimsy, ready to be blown away by a strong wind.

Help! I need to stop growing up and revert back to that old, diligent child who actually concentrated very long and hard on art and wasn't so hopeless and cynical about it. many unchecked neuroses. Epistemophobia: I feel I know too much, and I am afraid of the inevitability of knowing more.

I think the key is ... I need to get rid of the idea of extreme relativity, something that has plagued me for some time here. What I mean by this is, that I started getting this logic ingrained in my mind that things were either absolutely relative (no right or wrong) or absolutely dualistic (right or wrong only). No gradations / heirarchies. It's a weird meta-meta filter through which I started seeing things -- probably due in part because of the people around me and the semi-digestible, politics-heavy courses I took in school.

It was nice to be in a more objective state while I was in China, because I could reside in a system where there are, in a strange way, clearer edges but more fluid borders between Good and Evil, or where these two ideas are ebb and flow of the same waters, and I felt like I understood this, and it gave me peace. I guess that's a lame way to put it ... but, anyway, there seems to be too much chanting of Good and Evil here in this power-charged country, which makes it easy to feel it is extremely relative (and simultaneously full of fear!). I am easily affected (demoralized) by it. I'm ready for a real change of perspective.