Useless Adages

They say that time heals all wounds and that distance make the heart grow fonder yet out of sight is out of mind. That familiarity breeds contempt and that it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

Some of these things I've found to be true and some not so much. But I've learned a bit about each.

I'm not so sure about the time thing, though I'm sure there's truth in it. I'm not sure it's a complete healing. It's just stemming the blood flow, a scabbing over. I think that a large scar will often be left if it's a real wound. I think that I will be adding, and have been adding more and more scars to my collection.

Distance I think will be very good. Hard for sure, but distance is needed. Not the extent of out of sight out of mind, but I certainly tend to focus most on the immediate. I'm not one to miss people terribly, not one for weepy nostalgia. But I do still feel connections to the past, ties to people and places far from me.

In some ways familiarity does breed contempt. I get along with people really well, but that doesn't mean that I'm immune to this. Sometimes just because I know a person so well, I can be easily irritated by that person. Sometime because I know the person, I can easily be an irritant. In this way, unfortunately, change is good. Distance, time.

As for the last phrase, I think it's bullshit. Yet I wouldn't change it for the world.

Of course this expostulation means very little in the scheme of things, but these phrases have been running in my mind of late and I wished to shove them to my needs. Or something like that.

(desperately writing to live)

The world spins, right? Life goes on. Time and distance dull the aches and pains. But there are aches and pains that remain, hidden under years and miles, waiting to reappear in all their former glory. And this is life. Hiding behind smiles. A facade of happiness to cloak the pain. We laugh because it hurts and laughing somehow relieves the ache, even for the tiniest moment. If smiles and laughter are hard to find, we turn to methods with which they can be induced. Drugs, alcohol, sex. Only further perpetuating the deepest pain. For loneliness is the deepest pain. We are placated by work, TV, movies, the internet, but the connections are lost. We miss the people as they pass. Our words are hollow, hurried, harried. With our actions we tell one another there is no time for you, only me. We don't really want to know how you are doing, how the kids are. We only want return to our menial tasks. Our routine. The routine that increases loneliness. It is the disease we rarely know we have. Sure, it springs upon us after a breakup or a death, but we seldom realize that it is caused by our society. Always hurry. All about money. And fun. But you cannot buy someone's love, their time, a deep connection. That takes time and patience and pain. It is not fun. To truly know someone we must become vulnerable. We must trust. But we are cowards. We hid behind our bluster, defining ourselves by what we do. We lose who we actually are. We lose sight of the things that matter. We are emotionally dead. Or is that just me?

Forrest Gump, Iggy Pop and being Twelve

Life, as they say, is like a box of chocolates. But I'll draw the simile out differently. You see, life is like chocolate. And I crave chocolate. Any kind really. It is my addiction. My love. It also has the tendency to give me a stomach ache because I cannot stop eating after I've started. Life is like that. I have, like Iggy Pop, a 'lust for life.' At least I like to think so. I love to experience different aspects of life. I love to experiment. I love to go through the changes. However, it often hurts. Way more than chocolate.

As a recent graduate from a conservative Christian university, I feel as though I've been trapped in a box. There is little I can do with my degree. In fact, I haven't had a job all summer. I just sell DVDs on Half.com. This will change though.

Last week I moved out of university housing for the 5^th and last time. It was actually rather painful. I spent four years of my life there. I met many good people and left behind a few great people. We always say we'll keep in touch. We still live in the same metro area. But we all know how hard it really is. Classes and jobs get in the way. The distance is further than the person down the hall, less accessible.

This summer was both the best and worst of my life for reasons I will not detail here. I'd like to say I grew up. But if that's true it happened despite a constant desire to be twelve again. Yet here I am, living in a house in Denver. I haven't had to ask my parents for anything more than a mattress. I feel like I can do this whole 'real life' thing. Perhaps I'm just cocky or high on paint fumes. But I feel confident (today) that I can get a job, pay rent, hang out with all the important people in my life, and even maybe write a little.

Tomorrow, I will probably be sobbing, wishing I was twelve, and resisting even beginning to think about starting to look for a job.

Did I mention it's weird as hell that for the first time in 16 years I'm not preparing for school to begin?

Realism is Depressing

I feel so overwhelmed by the pessimism that surrounds my studies. Not studies in general, but my area of study. As a Global Studies major, I am inundated with the statistics. Millions starve around the world. Human rights are constantly violated. Wars erupt. Corruption is rampant.

And here I sit. Affected only through study. I feel useless. I can do nothing. I cannot help. And sometimes I wonder if I should. Sometimes I wonder if it is not just for the best that humanity annihilates itself.

I get too much negative. I know all the bad things. But I do not know how to help. I feel that I cannot possibly help in light of the numbers. Nothing I ever do will dent the statistics. I am powerless.

I am generally an idealist. Envisioning a bright future. Vowing to love where I can and do everything I can to help everyone. (When my apathy does not take over.)

But I know I can never love enough. I can never change the world.

My head knows that a little helps. Perhaps I cannot help everyone, but I can help someone. I can change the world for one person.

But it is hard to reconcile my head and my heart. My heart is sore. My heart mourns and will not listen to reason. My heart is heavy and dragging me down.

How do I reconcile realism and idealism? How do I affect the world positively when everything tells me the world is going to hell?

How do I move past this?

The Problem of Evil: God's Justice in the World

I have had doubts that God is all together good. I have been to one of the largest slums in the world. I have seen the suffering in the eyes of children and adults alike. Evil is allowed rampant in the world.

I have wondered "why is God doing nothing?" when children suffer, when tribes war, when bombs drop.

Recently I have come to the realization that, as a Christian, I am part of God's body. The church is the extension of God on this earth. It is not that God cannot act, or will not act, it is that his people will not care enough to act.

So the question becomes "why are we doing nothing?" and even "why am I doing nothing?"

We sit in our luxury, theorizing about God, justice, love; complaining about everything from the temperature of the t-bone to the corruption of the government of any given nation. We sit, we think, we complain when it is our responsibility to carry out God's promise to everyone.

I hope to continue in this vein at a later date. So, more to come, hopefully.

Kenya et al

Current events: US primary elections, feet of snow, school starts Monday, payday on Friday, oh, and Kenya is falling apart.

I'll start at the beginning and then skip to the end.

The US Presidential campaigns sicken me. It is important to hear from those that wish to bid for the role, but why so much money is needed is way beyond me. The amount of money spent by each of the candidates during the period before the actual election is more money than many smaller economies produce in a year. Millions of dollars, gone. What do we see of it? Only a few people raised above the rest for everyone's consideration. I'd like to care, but it sickens me. I think I'll vote for Bono.

So while this goes on, and on, and on, Kenya just underwent an election. Sort of. Well, the people voted all right, but the votes were apparently not counted correctly and the incumbent president will not give up his power. All those people who eagerly voted became a bit angry when the tantalizing options offered to them were suddenly taken away. They became violent. It's in the news, sometimes. I do not have television, but I've seen it in a few local papers, in the middle section, the two pages of world news. Kenya had a fourth of a page one time, with a photo. The violent, upheaval type of photo.

That is not the Kenya I know. The Kenya I visited last summer was far from perfect (what isn't?), but was a sort of home away from home. It was not the peacefulness, because I did not consider it. It was not the comparatively good economy that only allowed for small margins of corruption. It was the people. They are who I think of. They are the home I found there. I do not so much worry about the tribal violence that has ensued. I worry about my friends who are forced to stay indoors where it is safe. They are unable to venture out for food and other necessities. The inflation in Kenya has taken off as well, making whatever money they do have worth so much less. For people barely making enough as it was previously, that is very nearly a death sentence. I think of the small businesses that The 10/10 Project has helped to establish. I know these people, scraping a living from the poorest parts of their country. Helping their community, strengthening the bonds of humanity. That is all shattered now. People, torn from one another; forced into hiding. Many dead. Homes and businesses burned and looted. It rends my heart.

The Kenya in the news these past weeks is not the Kenya I know. The Kenya I know is comprised of the many faces of lovely people who eagerly welcomed me into their homes; who fed me until I could eat no more; who loved me, and taught me to love.

Life is pain. Love is pain.

These are the things I've learned in college.
These are the lessons imprinted on me.
This is the lens through which I now look.

Relationships of any kind (here I mean casual acquaintance, good friendship or romantic) involve trust, honesty and love. The depth of the relationship is determined by how much of each is employed. Trust involves opening up, being vulnerable. Honesty includes being honest with oneself. And love, love is something I know not how to define. It is what comes both before and after the other two. It is what binds two people together.

It hurts to lie to somebody. Most of all, perhaps, oneself. It is painful to hurt someone, and, of course, to be hurt. The test of love is not to love without hurting. We are human, and that is impossible. The test is instead to love, and be loved through the pain.

Love cannot possibly be achieved unless it has first been tested. Love is nothing without the hardship that must accompany it. To be free from the pain of life is to be without love. In my opinion, that is much more painful.

writing on writing

'With writing we have second chances.' -- Everything is Illuminated, by Jonathan Safran Foer

I don't write anymore. And for a student who originally attended college thinking to become a writer, that's disappointing and even depressing.

I will now define what it means for me to write. Writing is more than words on a page. Writing is discourse with oneself and any who read. This post can only barely be considered writing.

I've tried to figure out why I don't really write. I think it is because I've had to write too much. Too many papers that I've bullshitted my way though, pages of drivel for a meaningless grade. I don't want to write like that. I want to write something meaningful. It doesn't have to be fiction as I once thought my calling was. It doesn't have to be long. Only worthwhile.

So I write this as a plea to myself and to any who read. I need a muse. I need inspiration. I need to be out of school. Out of the pressure of writing what I don't care about. I want to care about something, but apathy is way to strong.

I've found many things about myself this semester. Some terribly frightening and some refreshing. I've figured out that the biggest lesson I've learned thus far at university is how to pass by doing as little as possible. Good. That should get me far. I've learned that I'm altogether too cynical. I need to begin to see the love in the world and stop focusing on the despair. I think my major plays a strong part in my cynicism, but it doesn't have to be this way.

Graduation is coming. All to fast, but also it is just so far away. I'm hoping to pass my classes. I wonder if my hope will be actualized. I couldn't be happier to get out of school, but being a 'real person' is pretty daunting. I've no idea what I will be doing in six months. So many things come into play. I must get a job to pay for living. My parents will not be taking care of me as they have since I was born. I've never been independent financially. I have to decide on which side of the mountains to reside. (Nice consonance, no?)

I think that getting out of school will greatly improve my writing. I will no longer be required to write papers that hold no interest to me. I will perhaps have less time than I now do, but I should also have less distraction.

The last question is this: do I even want to write? Why do I cling to that? And in answer I have only the feeling of feebleness and inadequacy when I cannot write. I want to be able to pour myself into my school work, but I cannot. I want to fill the blank pages of Word documents. But my mind does not acquiesce to my desires. Circular, dribbling puddles of words form. I have the ability to construct sentences, but nothing means anything to me anymore.

The only thing that makes sense anymore is music. And even that, not consistently. People confuse me, both generally and specifically. Time, culture, even God (especially) is not a bit clear. Everything is clouded, smudged, distorted. I don't know who I am, and I feel that only writing can free me. Yet I cannot write.

End.

Intelligence and Knowledge

Can one gain intelligence? I've heard that going to college makes you smarter. I think that's sort of a crap thing to say. Knowledge can be gained for sure. One can learn facts, cram them in. One can recite trivial information for days on end. But it is one's intelligence (unlearned) that allows one to use that information. Students should be taught how to tap that intelligence. Should be taught how to think and not what to think. What good is trivia to a person unless there is a place to use it?

I know very well how to summarize a book. I know how to summarize a book in many ways, one for each professor who desires it. This means I have not learned much about the books, only how to write for someone. I do not know how to read for myself, write for myself.

What I have gained at university is the ability to learn just enough of how each professor teaches in order to pass each test. The ability to write just well enough to pass each class. I've learned everything but the subject at hand. I've learned how to read people and learned what to expect from them and what they expect from me.

In my opinion, that is important. Oscar Wilde said that one must remember that no learning takes place in a classroom. I agree with him. However, in light of that, I think that schools, universities in particular, should open up the possibilities to the students. Allow students to use their minds. Tap into the intelligence that each posses. Allow it to be put to good use.

I feel that so many institutions are going about it the wrong way. They shove ideas at the students, forcing only certain viewpoints. The students learn facts and figures, but nothing important to life outside of school. We need to be presented with ideas, not facts. Ideas are things that impact us forever. Ideas are things we can make our own. Facts are only good on paper.

I know that I like to learn. But I also know that I hate learning what most people wish to teach. I guess I'd rather learn on my own. But if it was left up to me, my intelligence would dissolve in a pool of acidic apathy.

The biggest thing I've learned in school is how to pass by learning as little as possible.

A Hidden Beach

I dreamt I climbed where no others could climb (though they greatly desired to). The climb was arduous, up many dark, sharp rocks. Upon completing the climb, I found an ocean. Dusk was falling and the water was dark but glistening, the foam glowed as it sloshed about. I waded out into the water, torn that the others could not come, that I could not help them, and reveling in the freedom to be alone. I sat in the surf and let it wash over me, nearly to my nose. I let it tug at me. It was warm and refreshing and smelled pleasantly of salt. It healed the wounds I'd gathered from the climb and washed away the guilt I had of leaving my friends. I sat, but I could not for long. I could hear them calling me back. Wishing me too climb back down the treacherous rocks to join them on their way elsewhere. I woke up then.

I am still torn. I have no secret beach, no elusive hiding place. I rarely recall any dreams. I've never even been to the ocean. I have no idea how surf feels against my skin, how the salt smell makes everything clearer. But I felt it in the dream. I feel it now, the tug of my hindered and unrealized desires. My will versus the individual and collective wills of everyone around me. I do not know what to make of it.