Jane:  A figment of the hopeful imagination 

Holden:  A work in progress

Are there all these words here inside of me that want to come out?

I don't know.  It feels like there is.  I feel like I need to write to let 

something out.  But... I must do homework instead.

...

What?

Why?

You think that just because the world is torn like this that you will fall apart too?

All the sad loneliness in you that you know shouldn't be there still is.  

You know the loneliness is just the forgetting of what is there.

You know it is there but you don't let it be enough.

You want for something more. 

Something you don't need.

The real problem is so childish and silly.  

You wish you had someone to love, but you don't.  

This makes a poem ruined and sappy.  

Phony, because it is typical.

But maybe it's not phony.

Maybe it's typical for a reason. 

Maybe it's real.  

But wait...

Why?

Why is it real?

maybe it isn't.

Maybe that's just what you do because you are silly.

Why do we so much need this other crap?

Why are we so passionate about feeling sorry for ourselves?

When we have so dang much to be thankful.

And all we think about is the fact that we don't have a "love interest" 

Well, poor me, I am a kid and I don't have someone I will love for the rest of my life yet.

Stop thinking about that now.  

Just stop letting that become something to be sad for.  

The time may come.

For now play outside and dance and help your parents with work projects and

do everything with passion and joy, in contrast to sitting and encouraging your tiredness.

There is so much life we miss out on because our stupid selves are in the way.  

phony

Oh man...

I have recognized phoniness before.  I really have.  A lot.  But I don't give it the power to take over me like a class A fungus mold.  It is so very hard to get around phoniness that you must not let the notice you have for it ruin you.  This has happened with Holden.  He can not appreciate anything about anyone.  He doesn't give them any chance. He forgets that even though on the surface those people are annoying and phony, there are actual human beings under there-- who feel and are complex and have an existence spent as themselves.  

A note from the taxi drivers...

So I wuz uh given some random guy off the street a ride, right, that's what I do, give taxi rides and stuff.  Anyhoo, this guy wuz like 12 or something, and he uh wanted me to give him a ride to somewheres and then changed his mind.  I didn't really care, but has to go and make a big fuss about the ducks, right?  I hate them idiots like that who make a big deal of things that don't even matter.  I mean, this is a nice example of what I hate.  I don't really give a rip about all that stuff that doesn't make no difference.  I mean all that really matters is I wanna survive, right, so I drive a cab around so I can eat some food and get a good, comfortable sleep.  Why should I worry about some ducks?

So I was driving my cab.  Of course I had to have another one of those guys who asks me questions all the time, stupid questions that are obvious, or... actually, questions that are the wrong questions.  Why would you like to know about the ducks (who cares) when you already have the answers to a better question-- what happens to the fish.  You see, my father always told me about how the fish would freeze along with the ice.  I was all intrigued when I was a tyke, but now it's just one of those facts that I know.  All you need to know is the facts.  Why do people have to get so interested in something that is just a nice fact? 

Holden sees himself as looking old enough to pass off as over 21 for drinks, yet everyone he talks about getting drinks with questions his age quite a bit.  Maybe Holden has a little of his peeves in himself.  He thinks he's more of a hotshot than he really is.  

Holden is childish in his ways of not being able to handle and deal with his anger.  He is adult-like in his hopelessness.  He doesn't have the childlike innocence.  He knows things that are going on, and gets mad about them.  He thinks bad thoughts and doesn't have the  joyace and simplistic mind of a child.

A struggle I face in this transition into adulthood is that I don't want to go sledding as often.  I remember a couple years ago when one of my friends stopped wanting to go sledding as much as she used to.  I thought about how that was not going to happen to me.  I was not going to get sick of the fun things in life.  I was going to be someone who didn't grow up as much as other people.  I wasn't going to care how cold it was outside, and how comfortable it was inside, I would have fun! (lame)

     But sure enough... the sad day I'd dreaded snuck up on me. (but I hadn't actually dreaded it because I never thought it would happen.)  This winter, I often preferred staying inside because I didn't feel like getting dressed in snow clothes and going into the cold, so I didn't much at all.  

That's adulthood for ya.  

Judgments on Holden (words that could be possibly associated with him)

Slacker

Dull

Joy-less

Weak

Judgmental

Harsh

Brash

Rude

Observant

Hyper

Silly 

Easily-amused

Bored

Careless

Unsociable 

Jokester 

Sad

Unimpressed

Searching...

Sympathy, Empathy, or Judgement?

 I would have to say that I mostly feel empathy.  A lot of the things he talks about that really bother him are like perfect articulations of what I think about sometimes.  I love it when that happens.  When you think "yes, thank you!  someone understands!"  

I also obviously have judgement.  It's hard not to make judgments, and they are often subconscious.  At the beginning, I expected that he was not a kind boy. I had that presumption because for one thing, he is failing his classes, and he is also kind of sarcastic in his manner of speaking.  It's easy to forget that just because someone doesn't care about some things, doesn't mean that they don't care about other things.  He is actually a lot nicer than a lot of teenagers, because he is thoughtful about things.  He notices when something is happening when it is not obvious, like when he is so concerned with the professor feeling the fault of Holden's failure.  Holden noticed that was happening.  Many teenagers only think about the obvious things because they don't care enough to try to discover other things.  They go through life just caring about their own thoughts and feelings, because that is what affects them.