Future Plans

BLARGH I'm sorry it's been a week.  The past seven days have been extremely hectic, but I've been itching to just write again.  So now that I finally have the chance, let's get to it!

I went out to lunch with Zero and GoldenEye yesterday--we have a little tradition of grabbing some pizza between classes on Wednesdays.  The week before, I was unable to go with them so I had asked about what it was I'd missed.  Then, they exploded.

They explained their plan.  They have a plan that maps out the entire rest of their lives--they're to go into business together after they attend the same graduate school, formulating their mega-corporation the whole time while they are near and freshly educated.  Their corporation will do "everything.  Literally, everything."  It will have thousands of employees and hundreds of branches; it will be the biggest thing to hit America.  And every Wednesday, they would take all their interns out to lunch for pizza and discuss business, the future, politics, economics, etc.  They were formulating traditions for their futures, mapping out their lives, placing themselves years away with a crystal clear image.  It was wishful thinking and high hoping, but they knew exactly what they wanted and they were ready to go get it.

It hit me right then.  This is life, and it's coming at me way faster than I want to accept.  I don't have that clear picture, I don't have a direct path I intend to take.  I have no post-graduate plans.  The extent of my life is in school, and that's all I've got.  And I can't tell if I love that or hate that!  LIFE is so close... this is it.  This is the final stretch.  Everything is the final stretch... and there's never any stopping and going back.  Ever.  Life carries on.  It can end in an instant, it can last forever.  It can end up the exact opposite of how you always imagined, it can go exactly how you want it to.  It can take a million unpredicted turns, it can be mapped out any which way in the garden of forking paths.  But Life is facing me head on.  Whether I'm curled up in a ball or running at full-speed, Life is straight ahead.  Life is staring me down.

It's kind of terrifying.  It's kind of exhilarating, too.

This is a little spacey and a little out there--it doesn't really make logical sense.  It's just a stream of consciousness because I have a lot of difficulty channeling these thoughts and feelings.  So, I'm sorry about that.  But hey, it's what's on my mind!

"Contemplate" by TheSophiaPark (http://thesophiapark.deviantart.com/)

Rambling,
The A.S.S.

Thanksgiving 2010

It was a quiet Thanksgiving.  We slept in, had some bagels and coffee, flipped through the channels, and never changed out of our sweatpants.  No extended family came, we never left the house, we didn't cook laboriously for endless hours, we kept it much more low-key than usual this time around.  And I was okay with it.  An hour or so after dinner, we put on a movie and tossed in some popcorn--we were feeling adventurous.

I adore Thanksgiving.  I think it is a beautiful holiday, including of everyone (when looking past the genocide aspect and focusing solely on the notion of being thankful), and a time that truly calls for some inflection.

A Sign I Couldn't Let Slide

I'm a big believer in signs.  I feel that when something pops out at you and catches your eye because of something on your mind, that wasn't there coincidentally.  Especially when it happens time after time after time and again.  And there have been plenty of signs over the past few weeks that keep pointing me to Drifter, but this one was pretty blatant.

It was two nights ago and I was taking a walk down a street I'd never been on before.  I had just left my place and had contemplated writing that last post over and over.  I wanted to get it out, put it down somewhere, and of course, stay true to my mission statement.  But I didn't want to curse myself, jinx anything, or just generally be too pathetic in a public sphere.  So I took a walk to listen to some music, see some New York, and gather my thoughts.

As I strolled, my mind was just flooded with Drifter.  How everything seems to be pointing towards something more, but I could just be horrendously misinterpreting it all and forcing myself into an unnecessary emotional roller coaster.  How he and are I surprisingly perfect for each other and more compatible than anyone else I've ever had an interest in, but is that just my gut and heart trying to convince my mind?  What on earth are his intentions?  Does he understand what my intentions are?  Am I being too aggressive and pressuring too much? Oy, my mind was just reeling.

I came across a bit of construction and the thinly walled wooden border had been doused with graffiti.  I love graffiti, so I made sure to take note of as much as I could as I passed by.  Walking down, there was so much to see, so much overlapping and so many pieces competing for their space to be noticed.  But there was one spot where no one was competing--there was one sentence in an open space, completely unobstructed by anything else.  As if everyone else had decided to respect it.  As if it was a supreme word.  It simply read:

"Write about love."

And my Lord, I was struck down to my bones.  I had been thinking of Drifter all day, but I didn't want to call it love (I still don't), and I didn't want to jinx the magic I was (and am) feeling.  Yet here it was, staring me in the face.  "Write about love."  I couldn't help the feeling that the universe had brought me here to see that, that this wasn't a coincidence.  So I went home, thought some more, got a good night's sleep, and woke up with a crystallized story to tell.  And that's why you see yesterday's post--because I couldn't let that sign slide.

Taken from http://bvswimmer33.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d2v0cjm

Writing about love because

"I may already love you,"

The A.S.S.

The See-Saw Effect

BLOODY HELL.

It's starting.  My life was going SO well for such a long run that I was thinking I was finally doing everything right.  But now, as per usual, the universe has turned and bad luck is following me everywhere.  I had a wonderful summer and the beginning of school was amazing.  Everything was great and grand and I felt just generally awesome about life.

But the shit started happening again.  It began with me losing my license on the subway when I brought it as a precaution to avoid problems.  Then, I poured expired milk on my bowl of cereal. Then, I go through a week of insomnia.  Then, something I've been waiting to buy myself is FINALLY restocked and as soon as I FINALLY get it, it breaks on the walk home.  Then, when out at a lovely dinner, I get this horrible headache that just will NOT go away and keeps getting worse and worse until my vision is blurring, I lose all appetite, become terribly lethargic and apathetic, and my entire body starts shaking.  Then, I lose my room key in class.  Then, I get violently ill for a few hours at home.  Then, I completely misread my midterm assignment and have to restart it all over again.  ACK!

It's what I can only think of calling the see-saw effect.  Life seems to go in these cycles for me--a bout of good and a bout of bad.  What's weird, however, is that the magnitude is generally always equal.  So, since I've been having such a good, decent time and lifestyle over the past few months, I suppose the universe decided that my time was over and I needed to be brought back down.  My good side of the see-saw had peaked and I needed to swing low, bringing the bad side up.  And quickly.

I just hope that the rapidity of the bad things--though each small but sharp pangs--will equate to the lengthiness of my decent months, and this down swing will lighten up soon.  I'm okay with an alright life.  I just hate this part right here where everything seems to suck ass.

Taken from http://jerzeykat.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d4dcp7

Waiting for my upswing,
The A.S.S.

We are Stardust

My professor today was singing Joni Mitchell as he was getting ready to start the class up. I'm not all too much of a fan, so I was unfamiliar with the lyrics, but one line stood out to me.

"We are stardust."

As cheesy as it is to focus on something so metaphysical, it truly caught my attention.

I love space and have always been fascinated by our universe. I find it so impossible to comprehend in every way--how we got here, what lies beyond the boundaries, where the boundaries are, the sheer magnitude of our universe, life beyond our tiny speck of existence, etc. Although I'm sure I've forgotten many of the things I was once told, several have stuck with me to this day. One thing I remember being taught is that every atom in existence, every part of our being, was one part of a star. The air we breathe, the food we eat, our skin and bones and heart and brain, all of it. Everything we know was once part of that celestial sphere we see as so intangible and so distant.

How can it be that the most incomprehensible, unrelatable, distant things are what created us? Stars, those massive burning superclouds are the same as us, and we are the same as them. It's just something odd to think about.

Additionally, the line is so simple. So definitive. There's no doubt, no logic that leads to it--just the statement. And I mean, it IS a fact that we are the particles of stars, but we never think of ourselves that way. And so many of us, when thinking about the universe, look at ourselves as these tiny, infinitesimal grains with no significance. But I feel that this lyric can inspire just the opposite.

We are stars. We are that which has mesmerized and stunned and fascinated billions of people for millions of years. We create solar systems and galaxies. We shine and when together, we can create something truly beautiful and truly magnificent. We are worlds within ourselves. We are our own worlds. We can learn every corner of ourselves, yet we are also bigger and more than we can ever comprehend.

I guess my message is this: screw the rest of the universe. Focus on your own world. The people you meet, the lives you become a part of, those form a universe. And our existence is more than we can imagine. We are not infinitesimal. We have the power to form worlds and change lives and shape futures and create true beauty. If I had never had just one of my siblings or one of my friends in my life, I know I would not be the same person. Every person is powerful, influential, consequential.

So when in doubt, think of one inside joke you have with your best friend. Think of one home video your parents filmed. Think of one present you gave someone. Remember the memories you've been a part of and know that you have contributed to a universe bigger than you know. We don't have to be world famous to be important or significant. We are stardust.