It's a little windy out this morning, a little chilly, but the reason I notice might be because I'm up earlier today than I have been in the past, oh, four months or so? I had to set my alarm for 6:30 today in order to make my Astronomy 209 exam, which I, in all likelihood, just failed. It's alright, though; my first year was a write-off, a free ride, paid for by the scholarship money I earned from a lifetime of sitting around with nothing better to do than earn good grades in a cushy home schooling environment--so, not really earned. What I did earn were my life experiences this year. I fought tooth and nails for those, wrested them from people who would much rather see me safe and sheltered, stunted and antisocial and culturally illiterate than taking risks and learning about life in tangible ways, growing up and growing out.
In the past year, I've been drunk twice, despite my father's desire that I should stay stone-cold sober for my entire college experience. I've experienced altered states of consciousness. I've sat in classrooms of 200 students and felt my mind being opened like a flower blossoming to the sun, enlightenment streaming in in response to the passion of my professors and hundreds' of years worth of work in the name of knowledge and science. I've fallen in love, though I didn't stay there. I've made good friends. I've made bad friends. I've made best friends, whose gift of faith will strengthen me for the rest of my life. I've stumbled upon dark and terrifying truths in my simple quest to live my life the way I want to live it, been presented with one of the scariest challenges a middle-class white girl will ever have to face.
I'm still here.
The miserable, home schooled, sheltered girl I was would've trembled in awe of the experiences I've had over a nine-month time span. I'm so far away from where I started I can no longer imagine what I would've felt if I could see into the future and know what experiences awaited me. I am euphoric that my life has spiraled out in so many tremendous ways.
I don't intend to stop now.
Thursday 28 April 2011
Tuesday 26 April 2011
Late Night Introspection
Why are late nights so conducive to introspection? In the relentless restlessness of our Western society, where time is packaged into neat little squares, perfect little rounded numbers cordoning off our existence and named hours, minutes, seconds; in this merciless atmosphere where our lives are ruled by the digital clock, early in the AMs is the only time when North America finally fucks off, and it's the perfect opportunity to sit alone with your thoughts. When the last generation, the one that keeps telling us our lives should be measured and parceled off in neat little squares and carefully planned out in our daytimers until the day we die, is too old and too tired to stay awake is the same period, the sacred late/early hours when we can reclaim our youth. Do like we did when we were young and naive to the concept of clocks and just... live.
What's the opposite of introspection? If introspection is when you peer deep into the dark yawning caverns of your own soul and try to fish out meaningness to your existence and your identity, what's the word for when you dance into the darkness of experience hoping it'll sear itself across your skin and brand you forever like a scar in the shape of a lesson, of your purpose? Students of the universe throw themselves before their teacher, prostrating themselves, begging for him to bestow some wisdom upon them, bless them with meaning, help them understand his unknowable mind in attempts that can only ever be shallow and subjective...
I'm sure there's a word for it. I'll call it "outrospection", because I like mine better.
So much of my outrospection took place in the great empty hours of the late night and early morning. I remember how the lights of the city trembled under the might of the big black night sky, a tender ocean of light and promise shimmering and spread out before me, pregnant with potential. I hungered, I thirsted, I lusted for adventure. I still do. To throw wide my arms and know the unknowable, to peer into the mind of god, my greatest challenge in this life is to stare into the darkness without blinking.
There are those who would shelter me from it. And there are those who have taken me by the hand and by the heart and led me into it blindfolded, eyes wide open. These are the people I will love forever, in the only way that anything is forever, in that time is an illusion, and love dies only under its power. Meanwhile, I've sewn my experiences with them into a patchwork blanket that I can wrap around me from time to time when I feel cold or lonely.
You know who you are.
What's the opposite of introspection? If introspection is when you peer deep into the dark yawning caverns of your own soul and try to fish out meaningness to your existence and your identity, what's the word for when you dance into the darkness of experience hoping it'll sear itself across your skin and brand you forever like a scar in the shape of a lesson, of your purpose? Students of the universe throw themselves before their teacher, prostrating themselves, begging for him to bestow some wisdom upon them, bless them with meaning, help them understand his unknowable mind in attempts that can only ever be shallow and subjective...
I'm sure there's a word for it. I'll call it "outrospection", because I like mine better.
So much of my outrospection took place in the great empty hours of the late night and early morning. I remember how the lights of the city trembled under the might of the big black night sky, a tender ocean of light and promise shimmering and spread out before me, pregnant with potential. I hungered, I thirsted, I lusted for adventure. I still do. To throw wide my arms and know the unknowable, to peer into the mind of god, my greatest challenge in this life is to stare into the darkness without blinking.
There are those who would shelter me from it. And there are those who have taken me by the hand and by the heart and led me into it blindfolded, eyes wide open. These are the people I will love forever, in the only way that anything is forever, in that time is an illusion, and love dies only under its power. Meanwhile, I've sewn my experiences with them into a patchwork blanket that I can wrap around me from time to time when I feel cold or lonely.
You know who you are.
Tuesday 19 April 2011
inception
What you are reading is what I intend to become a loose chronicle of my life, a record which (I tentatively hope) will help me to chart my evolution through my college years as I continue to learn, to grow, to expand in all directions, and perhaps to figure out how to operate in the real world in a way which bears some resemblance to what most people would call normal. The name of this blog is an homage to the song "Lateralus" by alt-rock band Tool, from which I draw a great deal of inspiration...
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