Spinning

I feel like I'm falling apart right now. I watch the moon through the trees and consider the manga that I have up in another tab and try to forget about how my heart hurts in this moment.

I need a good argument, a good conversation, a good hug and something to drink that will wake up the taste buds on the back of my tongue. I need to be able to release all my energy with my own effort.

Maybe I should start running again. Just need a low traffic area where I will be visible (just in case) and won't get distracted by random stuff going on in the background. Even thinking about it makes my knee tighten a little of its own accord though, so maybe not.

I feel the scar there, and think of the less defined one on the other knee. Life leaves scars on people who go through it. One or two of my invisible scars have been tightening lately too.

My invisible scars aren't hard to find. You will know them by my reaction that is not unlike how I react to when people touch my tangible scars. I pull away and go from my usually relatively mellow state to ready to fight if that area is further irritated. I fight for my friends, I fight for my family and I fight for my scars, that others may be saved from enduring them.

I'm backed into a corner now though, and the only thing anyone seems to want to talk about is those scars and what to do about them. Sorry folks, rubbing Vitamin E on the tangible scars didn't make them disappear, and four years of college won't magically solve all my job frustrations. Thanks for the advise though, really.

I know its my fault though. I keep pointing out my own scars and leave them in the open for you to poke and prod at. Who can resist doing something about what is right in front of them?

So, make a decision, my inner voice orders. What am I going to do? Right here, right now. What is it that I am working towards because if you aren't working towards it you are just wasting time and ultimately working against the very things you claim to desire.

I want to cook. I want to write. I want to see the world.

1 of 3. Unacceptable, and that only part time at that.

So, I must cook or travel. Not later. Not a year from now. Not 6 months from now. Now. This moment is when my fate is decided (if you can call anything that one has so much input in fate). My mind spins like a sword on its handle.

I'm sorry my friends, for when the sword lands I will have to meet my own expectations of myself. Everything else is just excess.

Song of the Open Road by Walt Whitman (part 5)

From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of limits and imaginary lines,
Going where I list, my own master total and absolute,
Listening to others, considering well what they say,
Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating,
Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that
would hold me.

I inhale great draughts of space,
The east and the west are mine, and the north and the south are mine.

I am larger, better than I thought,
I did not know I held so much goodness.

All seems beautiful to me,
can repeat over to men and women You have done such good to me
I would do the same to you,
I will recruit for myself and you as I go,
I will scatter myself among men and women as I go,
I will toss a new gladness and roughness among them,
Whoever denies me it shall not trouble me,
Whoever accepts me he or she shall be blessed and shall bless me.

The Path I'm Going Down

Amid my parents' questions of my maturity and readiness to deal with life, I long simply to sprint off in a direction that has been becoming increasingly clear to me through the voices of writers both near and long since gone. It has been almost half a year since my heart to heart with God in the Ford fountain, but the cryptic words of that night keep coming back to me: "Wait and listen and the road will make itself known."

Yeah, you try explaining that to your parents and see what they say. Some things are simply beyond explanation. You have to see it, to hear it, to understand.

Over this brief break from academia, one idea has keep coming back to m

e again and again. The idea of true education. The fact that what we know is only loosely tied to such publicly acceptable institutions as colleges. How little knowledge of truly great importance is taught between those oft hallowed halls frightens me. Of course I know very little and my knowledge is admittedly quite meager, but this fact does not frighten me. What frightens me is those who claim to have vast knowledge of the world and all that is in it (which is an ostentatious claim at any age).

What has happened to travel as education? Why is someone who wanders through Roman ruins for several months, talking to tour guides and seeing the places where great events occurred, put on lower footing then someone who studies the contributions of the Romans in a college? Why is it more important to know about different economy academically then to talk to people in countries with different economies in person? Why is the piece of paper all that matters?

What is it that we learn in college that makes us better then someone with a little bit of real experiences (work or otherwise) under our belts?

But again, I digress into the college thing...

I guess, ultimately, I just want the chance to experience the world more fully and give that experience to others as well. Not everyone can pay for a full semester's education just to receive 3-12 hrs of credits while studying abroad (which are the main options I've observed in colleges). I want to share the world with my friends by giving them an intimate knowledge of it in the only way that such knowledge can be gained: by seeing it and experiencing it in its full beauty and ugliness, its diversities and similarities.

I want to give this generation a chance to possess the world. (Buddhist arguments about reality and possessing anything aside.) As I once read, you possess only what you know. We must know the world, that we may truly come to be, as a generation, the ones who take ownership over this great place where we live and all the influences that have made us who we are. In short, I want our generation to take ownership of ourselves, fully and completely.

Can we afford to accept anything less from life?

Song of the Open Road by Walt Whitman (part 15)

Allons! the road is before us!

It is safe--I have tried it--my own feet have tried it well--be not detain'd!

Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, and the book on the shelf unopen'd!

Let the tools remain in the workshop! let the money remain unearn'd!

Let the school stand! mind not the cry of the teacher!

Let the preacher preach in his pulpit! let the lawyer plead in the court, and the judge expound the law.

Camerado, I give you my hand!

I give you my love more precious than money,

I give you myself before preaching or law;

Will you give me yourself. will you come travel with me?

Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?

What am I doing?

So, for all my talk about how I'm not at Berry this semester, I ended out deciding to make a visit on the first day of classes.  It was nice to see everybody again, even if half the people I saw thought I was still at Berry.  Ha ha.

In a way, I felt almost guilty knowing that I was there actually having fun while everybody else hurried to go to class, bought the overpriced books and came to the startling realization that their "fun class" had a 12 page syllabus.  I've been there, got the t-shirt, won't be going back.  

The unanimous questions among friends seem to be: Where have I been going this summer? And where am I going in the future?  

Big questions, and what can I say?  This summer I updated my blog about half as much as I did during the school year, but I still feel good about those posts that I did make.  I got a job with zero prestige, but I'll be making more this year then I was previously figuring on making with a degree.  (Money isn't the only consideration on the job though, presently the job is funding my artistic pursuits, and the funding is always low for such things.)  Besides that I've basically cooked a little and tried to catch-up with friends whenever possible.

So basically, I've been doing what I was trying to get away to do: I got away from the stresses of school for a while and sat down and asked myself some important questions.  What have I found?  Basically what I already knew more or less on some level anyway.  What I want to do with my life is make something beautiful that will change the world in a way that will help people to be better people.   Now, I just have to narrow that down from Milky Way sized to, oh I dunno, the size of Jupiter. 

I've been trying to figure out a direction, and while I still don't know where I'm going, I'm trying to do the next best thing and go with the decisions that feel right.  I have made some pretty good intuitive decisions in the past, and in the face of the one large generalization that I have about what I want to do with my life, intuition seems best.

So, what are my plans?  Short term, I'll continue to write, paint, cook, plan the wedding and get together with friends as often as possible.  Long term, I'll... do something that I can be proud of.  I just hope that I can meet my own high expectations of myself.  I am my own harshest critic and my own biggest fan.  As such, I refuse to do anything less then incredible with this short time that I have on this little blue, green planet.

"Be the change you wish to see in the world."  -Mahatma Gandhi

Hitting the Target

Funny, somehow it seems that earning "my keep" at home may be becoming the number one thing standing between me and finding what it is I need to do.  Then again, there is always something.  

*sigh*

Yesterday I learned how to shoot a hand gun.  Sort of, anyway.  The funny part was my dad was sitting there coaching me and coaching me.  Finally I told him to just be quiet for a min. so I could try it my way.  I hit a little high on the target, but at least I hit it....

Maybe I need to say the same for my life too.  

"Just a min, dad, let me try it my way for a bit."

A Comment on Society

I just felt the need to make a comment on some of the more recent "news" that is making headlines.

Susan Boyle is taking the world by storm, and while she may not be the prettiest woman on the planet, I don't think that is the real news of this whole affair.  The real news is that someone who doesn't look like an extra from Sex in the City has won over the world with her talent.

Congrats Susan.  You even made Simon act nice.

I have a map... I just don't know where I am.

Frankly, not only do I not know where I need to go right now, but I don't even know which way is North.  I've been doing the online applications thing of late, but I don't even know what I'll do when I find a job.  

I feel like a round peg.

The "normal" 9 to 5 work week is a square hole.

College is an triangular hole.

I don't fit in either, but what is a round peg to do?  I have to fit in somewhere, but all the things that I really enjoy doing seem to leave me with the idea of putting starving artist or hobo on my next W-2.

The good news is I've finally actually sat down to write a book.  It is idea 12 of 139.4.  It seemed like the easiest one to flesh out though, and I am a semi-expert on the topic, so this may work.  Or maybe not.  It is hard to say at this point.  All I have thus far is a massive outline and about 5 pages from the first section.  It is in severe need of editing, but it is out on my laptop.  It's a start.

Small steps...

Oh, and more good news!  My fiancee now has a blog, so go by and visit some time.  I think it's awesome, but then again I'm kinda biased. :P

What do you do with a BA in English... or Communication for that matter?

First off, props to Avenue Q.  It has some great songs. 

Secondly, I bare news.  I have decided to stop putting off the inevitable and go try to do something with my life and my talents.  (Limited though they are.)  So, I guess I may never know what one does with a B.A. because I'm opting out of the process in favor of doing something that I love.  Once I actually figure out a plausible way to make money from sketching, writing and acting as an unofficial tour guide...

The best part of the whole thing is the role reversal though.  For the last year or more I've been asking myself what the **** I was doing in a hyper structured system while the family told me how wonderful it was that I had submitted myself to that system.  Now the family is asking me what on earth I'm thinking to leave the well paved path, but I'm practically (and sometimes literally) jumping for joy to be able to move in the direction of my dreams.  

It's not much but it's a start.  And as my fiancee reminded me as I pulled out of Berry's parking lot, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." (Lao Tzo)  This is my first step.  I'm scared to death, and excited beyond reason.  This is going to be one hell of a journey.