Blast from the Past

As the end of the year approaches, I wanted to relive a little of my past... oh how trite those worries once were:

Saturday, April 29, 2006

I really like life. I may be sick, almost not passing Econ102, and feeling like I gained a little weight in the last nine months... my face may not be as clear as I wish it was, my bank account may not be as full... but my time is so precious and I really need to focus on these last few days here at school... 20 and counting... it is midnight, on April 30th, and I leave the 19th of May... *sigh*

I have met some wonderful people that I plan on hanging on to if they decide they want to stick around.

I want to focus on me, on my emotions and feelings and experience and breathe in every moment and savor it because this time could very well define my next few years, and this time... well it may be the best of the best.

And though I know I need to sort some things out in my life, and I am the only one in the world who knows the whole depth of these problems... though this is true...

I will cross that bridge when I come to it.

I wrote this a couple days ago. It doesn't mean much but it was on my mind.

“To stand in awe of nothing, is perhaps the one and only thing that can make a man happy and keep him so.” Horace, in Epistles.

We’ve been afraid to step off the path, we can’t travel too far or for too long, we can’t fall too deeply in love, we can’t explore our true dreams, we can’t become friends with strangers and strange people. “We may be on a conveyor belt, but it’s worse down there on the filth-strewn floor. So don’t sound off, don’t blow your chance...” (Mark Edmundson). Don’t leave this world that has been created for you, or you can never come back. The people of our world won’t tolerate a step of that path, or you won’t manage to get back on once you’ve done a little exploring. Too many people, to small of a chance. If we stay out in the forests, will we lose ourselves, or will we find ourselves? If we are on our own, do we find we are who we want to be? Some would rather be themselves with the inclusion of all that has influenced and affected them, they would be lost without the ideas of others to guide them and mold them and shape them and create them. Some are a product of everyone else, the friends, the markets, the television, the media, their mothers... We all are to some extent, more than in the past, and more than we even realize. There are few who foster their own ideas, who make their own path, who find themselves alone in the forest, and don’t mind it. They are not lost.
We all follow a story of life, and one we don’t even realize we follow. It’s there in every breathe we take, every step and every moment in our lives. We breathe this story, we play out this story like a script, though there is none in tangible existence. It’s the one we have grown up to know and understand, and play out, as if in its enactment, we will ultimately find out purpose for living.

I don’t want our world to be full of one-dimensional people. I can’t live for easy pleasures, I want adventure and surprise and amazement and faults. I’d like to work to build my comfort, not have it be handed to me in the form of electronic appliances and television dramas with no unpleasant endings. I don’t want to believe in God and Jesus only as a safety net, I don’t want to look at the sunset and think nothing of it. I want to be surprised at things. I don’t want to take things for granted, and I don’t want to forget the good things I have in my life. I don’t want to live my life like I’ve been cast on a sitcom, I don’t want to have calculated words and steps, and I don’t want to have to watch what I say when it’s my thought that I thunk. It’s an original and a beauty and created for expression. I never want to second-guess myself again. I want to always believe that there is more to find, and I am not finished yet. I don’t want to be judged for uniqueness and I want to step off this path because I can’t see over everyone’s heads and my feet are tired and dirty. The forest may be quiet and lonely but it’s green and peaceful and full of opportunity and new experiences, things to be found and learned. I shouldn’t be scared but the people keep pushing, and I keep losing my chance...