My Dilemma

Sorry it's been so long since I posted, but I really haven't been able to come up with anything insightful or interesting, and I don't think this post will break that streak, but here is something I don't understand: love.

What is it? An emotion? A scientific reaction? A spiritual connection between two people? Why is it so hard describe? And why are there only certain people who make you feel it? Why will people give up their lives for the ones they love? Has it always existed? Do any animals other than humans feel it in the same way? What is love without all the romanticized connotations attached to it nowadays? Is it more than friendship even if you take away the sex? What makes love toward family different than love toward a husband or wife? Boyfriend or girlfriend? How can you love more than one person at once? How can you fall in and out of love? Or rather that seems to be more understandable, so how can you love one person for your whole life? When did marriage become based on love?

I seriously don't even have any hypotheses to answer these questions. I'm just getting to that point where I'm honestly curious for some answers, not having had much time in my life to gain experience in the love area.

Of Politics & Prose

I was at a bookstore today--not a chain, for once--and it was such a nice atmosphere. The motto of the bookstore is

"So many books, so little time."

AND IT IS SO TRUE. I haven't even read all the books in my room, let alone my house, let alone having time for the ones that I am constantly buying or want to borrow from the library. There are the classics, the new fiction, the international authors, the non-fiction new research books, the ones being made into movies that you rush to finish before the movie goes out of style...you get my drift. Especially with the Internet and TV, my time for curling up on a rainy day (or sunny day) with a good book has really disappeared from my life, to the extent that I ever did that. And I really regret it. I am not bringing a TV to college, so hopefully that will kind of reduce my time spent staring at a screen and increase my time spent reading actually printed words. I have always had a thing for printed books and newspapers over the Internet (often at odds with my urges to save paper), so I really would like to make considerable progress on books and MAKE time for them in the next month or so, a habit which I will form and then continue in college or at least in the summers. I have to remind myself, and urge everyone else, to make time for little pleasures like ...reading. And other things. Make time for you in the midst of your life. Don't let it just string you along.

And just because it fits so perfectly, I'm going to quote some lyrics from a song called "It Was a Great Day" by Lori Kelley, a local artist who is kind of country/folk and has a knack for capturing the most basic moments in life. She sings,

"It was a great day for a ice cream, but I didn't have time, no I didn't have time.

It was a great day for a daydream, but I did not have the time.

It was a great day for a silly wish, but I didn't have time, no I didn't have time.

It was a great day for the perfect kiss, but I did not make the time."

Sad but true. So make the time.

If you're alive, you can do it

A birthday card I once got from my aunt said,

"If you can walk, you can dance. If you can talk, you can sing."

I love to dance and sing. A lot. But I've never been anywhere close to "the best" at either, yet I still really, really enjoy these things, and I've long since decided that I don't really care if people think I sound bad, or good, or if they don't notice my dancing one or the other at all, because the point of those activities often is to have fun and express yourself. If someone else doesn't like it, well let me take you back to one of my earliest posts--they don't matter. Obviously, this card doesn't work if you want to go pro, because in that atmosphere, you have to do a little better than mediocre to get paid. BUT. That shouldn't stop you from doing what you love whenever you can.

Okay, so now that I've experimented with three posts based on what I didn't expect of myself, I'm ready to get back to my normal shtick, which is hopefully more inspiring/thought-provoking topics, rather than the kind of dark turn my "unexpected" series took...unexpectedly. I'm a little frightened by what I wrote, but...moving on...

Mark Twain once said, "I never let my schooling get in the way of my education." Quite a witty man, don't you think? Well, I love him, and I'd forgotten that quote until Sporcle recently reminded me of it. I think this quote is very clever, although I don't think schooling and education are always completely at odds. But I wanted to remind everyone of this quote more than ramble on about my opinions, so there it is.

Unexpected (part III)

It was the middle of the day
A stranger looked my way
A look I'll never forget
Blinding me with a threat

Something that couldn't be undone
Declaring my disbelief of the One
So many faithful followers rely
on something that I called a lie

A useful deception, necessary, but still
a presence that only exists based on will
Traditions passed down, from long ago
Robbing inheritors of the right to truly know

I said it aloud in my manner, my walk
Never really intending to talk
But it all stems back to that one glance
More of a glare, for my taking a stance

Either way, there's no proof
Just steadfast belief in one truth
I rejected their advice for how to live my life
and now they warn of the unfortunate price

Unexpected (Part II)

Today is the day when I write about something I wouldn't expect of myself, which is quite a task because everything I think of immediately seems like something about which I would write normally (go figure). My topic for today, which I don't think I usually talk about, is my guilt. As you may or may not know, for the past two summers, I went to El Salvador for three weeks to a village, Cacahuatal, for community service. I had the time of my life. I loved the people, the language, the manual labor (well, not really, but it was good for my spoiled brat attitude), and just had a fantastic time while also, you know, helping them. But even though I call El Salvador a "life-changing" trip...

I don't know if it was. I don't live my everyday life differently. I collect donations to send there instead of somewhere here, but is that really better? I tried to get people to contribute to a scholarship fund for two students there, but I haven't done a very good job this summer of organizing events (though to my credit, I am organizing a yard sale for August 14th or 15th, proceeds to the scholarship). Will I ever go back? I don't make an effort at all really to keep up with my host family because writing letters there is difficult, I tell myself, and even those I can email/facebook, I don't have very much to say. I'm not very outgoing in Spanish, less so than people who know less of the language than I do, and I just feel rotten when I think about it. I tried to purge my room for this yard sale, which is semi-successful, and I want to do something socially useful with my life. But when I get an email in Spanish that is too difficult for me to understand, or when it's been a while since I got incensed about the injustices going on there, I just...forget about it. It's always there, but I can't actually make myself DO anything. And I hate it. I despise myself. I despise the excuses I make for myself. I despise the fact that I let people comfort me into thinking it's okay, but I do. And I won't change. I've always been like this, about many issues, and I probably will always be like this. I don't have enough discipline to change the parts of me I don't like, but then I hate living with them. It's a vicious cycle and I don't know how to get out of it. I don't think I can.

I'm not usually that hopeless or dark. So... a blog I didn't expect to write. There you go.

Unexpected (part I)

I was at a loss yesterday for what to write. I was feeling busy and had a lack of inspiring/interesting quotes off the top of my head, so I broke down and asked a friend for assistance.

He said "Do something you wouldn't expect of yourself," in an unusual burst of helpfulness (just kidding, he's often helpful).

I said, "Write about that or do that in choosing my blog topic?"

"Both...either...mostly topic, I guess, because I guess you should write like you."

He actually brought up a third option--I could now write about this quote, write about something which I wouldn't usually write about, or write in a style that I don't usually use. Since this is my blog, and I can pretty much do whatever I want because my friends will probably read it anyway, my next three posts are going to explore all three of those options (this being the first in the series).

"Do something you wouldn't expect of yourself" is an interesting thing to do. In all this talk of being yourself, there is also some merit to pushing yourself, exploring your boundaries, and, at the risk of sounding cliche (like this entire blog isn't cliche), expanding your horizons. There are a million hackneyed metaphors out there for stepping out of your comfort zone (oh look, that's another one), but they all convey the same meaning. So at what point does one cross the line between trying new things and becoming someone else? It might be in the motivation. That darned peer pressure, for example...if you start trying new things for someone else, instead of for your personal satisfaction, that crosses the line. But it's not always that clear, and it's a hard balance to maintain.

Even in college, I thoroughly do not expect myself to go partying and get drunk. This is something that I have been pretty avidly against throughout my life, for whatever reason. If I suddenly decided to "try" it, it would be because of someone else, and that is not acceptable. It's not me. I also imagine that I will never try out for a musical. If I did this, however, I would be putting myself up for humiliation in front of many better singers than myself...voluntarily. Singing is always something that I have loved, and I feel like this would just be pushing myself rather than changing my fundamental makeup. If I then became a "theater person," however, the stereotype of the diva backstage, camera whore offstage, star onstage, is that changing who I am or just bringing out another side of me? I have no idea. But I think at some point I would realize that isn't who I am or want to be.