I'm at Juilliard. Deluged by thought; I can't practice.

Nearly all thinkers in history have been influenced by their romantic life... Are we all the same? Think about Petrarch's poems, or Beethoven's late works, Dostoevsky's novels, Klimpt's and Rothko's paintings, Hemingway's novels - at the risk of ridiculous comparison, Brahms and Schumann's music (both hurt by a girl with whom I share a connection if only by first-name basis); the former who was driven to romantic pessimism and the later to suicidal and psychotic insanity. All of these artists; all of them affected by a girl; all of whose art was somewhat driven by a girl (or many); three of which were eventually driven to suicide by a girl.

What about us? Jeff the Analytic-Romantic perpetually struggling for moral meaning; Mikey the Existential-Nihilistic Romantic; Ran the Optimistic-Moralist; Esther the Spiritual-Impressionist; Stanley the Emotional-Minimalist; what am I?

Mikey and I sat down the other day to self-reflect. Ha, yes, we felt particularly post-modern that day. We figured that as we become exponentially better musicians every year, the more and more we start to really just suck at life. Like, really. Whereas once both of us were optimistic-moralists, now sadly, we are romantics driven by nihilism. Maybe we were Apollonian at some point; now we're ridiculously and hedonistically Dionysian. And we're in our fucking 20's.

Will that change? Is this worth it?

If I shout loud enough, I can hear my voice down three hallways.