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room: a nation
Feb. 11th, 2006 11:22 am"And if you get what you're after, what will you do then?...The pleasure of a dream is that it's a fantasy. If it happens, it was never a dream."
"Maybe you're right. But I still have to try."
(If you can tell me where that's from I'll give you the Nerd of the Year Award.)
So yeah. About this being in the Now stuff. How does that work again? Cause every time I try to focus on the present and what I'm doing at that moment I get tired, and I'm not talking psychologically. I mean I fall asleep. Can't keep my eyes open. It's only when I'm spacing out not doing anything productive or thinking about plans for the future that I ever get excited or can stay awake. I guess that's one of my problems with school, why I can't pay attention, why I learn better when I'm trying to do homework for another class or outline a book or something.
Maybe it is psychological. Maybe I get tired because I'm avoiding something. Or maybe I've set such high goals for the future that when I'm not thinking about it my body is, and is telling me to get some sleep cause I'm gonna need it- eventually.
I got a "message" from someone at the group Sarah and I have been going to in Lockport. He was focusing on other people, but he kept getting a persistant image of me working in a jungle somewhere. I know I told them I was majoring in anthropology, but I also told them I was going to switch majors, probably to linguistics. I have been getting pretty serious about applying to join the Peace Corps after undergrad school.
But the point of the quote above is that I've realized a concern in the past few years that I've put aside more and more and that has recently persisted in the foreground of my ever wandering mind: nothing is ever as amazing as you plan it to be. It's always the spontaneous stuff that works out best because you had no expectations- there was no time for them. But even on the plane to London I noticed a total lack of excitement. I was certainly in the Now then... you know what I mean. I was totally aware and present- and I guess it was so real to me I couldn't be excited. Maybe that was my form of excitement, it feeling very real. But going to school, living with friends, deciding a major and a career path... it all sounded so exciting back in the day when it was all in the future. Now it's a miserable mess.
Lessons learned aren't generally things to rejoice over. They're usually things to blush at and forget quickly, only to recall when you need to draw on that lesson for handling the current circumstances. The funny thing is when a mistake has been made, for me anyway, the first concern that comes to mind is "Damn I wasted all that time!" like, "damn I wasted all that time not educating myself because I didn't stay on top of the SUNY system and they lost my transcripts" or "damn I wasted all that time limping around when I should have been going to this doctor and preventing the damage to the extent that it is now, and now I have to waste more time fixing it" or "damn I wasted all that time in high school when I could have dropped out and gotten my GED and gone to Empire State as I did anyway and then transferred to UB. I would have graduated by now." Crap like that.
So when you achieve a long sought-after goal, are you ready to die? Or is it better to devote your life to an ever-expanding enterprise like spiritual evolution or something? Never quite fulfilled, but never without purpose.
Oh me oh my. Expect the worst and hope for the best, I guess. Not much I can do now but keep exploring my options.
"Maybe you're right. But I still have to try."
(If you can tell me where that's from I'll give you the Nerd of the Year Award.)
So yeah. About this being in the Now stuff. How does that work again? Cause every time I try to focus on the present and what I'm doing at that moment I get tired, and I'm not talking psychologically. I mean I fall asleep. Can't keep my eyes open. It's only when I'm spacing out not doing anything productive or thinking about plans for the future that I ever get excited or can stay awake. I guess that's one of my problems with school, why I can't pay attention, why I learn better when I'm trying to do homework for another class or outline a book or something.
Maybe it is psychological. Maybe I get tired because I'm avoiding something. Or maybe I've set such high goals for the future that when I'm not thinking about it my body is, and is telling me to get some sleep cause I'm gonna need it- eventually.
I got a "message" from someone at the group Sarah and I have been going to in Lockport. He was focusing on other people, but he kept getting a persistant image of me working in a jungle somewhere. I know I told them I was majoring in anthropology, but I also told them I was going to switch majors, probably to linguistics. I have been getting pretty serious about applying to join the Peace Corps after undergrad school.
But the point of the quote above is that I've realized a concern in the past few years that I've put aside more and more and that has recently persisted in the foreground of my ever wandering mind: nothing is ever as amazing as you plan it to be. It's always the spontaneous stuff that works out best because you had no expectations- there was no time for them. But even on the plane to London I noticed a total lack of excitement. I was certainly in the Now then... you know what I mean. I was totally aware and present- and I guess it was so real to me I couldn't be excited. Maybe that was my form of excitement, it feeling very real. But going to school, living with friends, deciding a major and a career path... it all sounded so exciting back in the day when it was all in the future. Now it's a miserable mess.
Lessons learned aren't generally things to rejoice over. They're usually things to blush at and forget quickly, only to recall when you need to draw on that lesson for handling the current circumstances. The funny thing is when a mistake has been made, for me anyway, the first concern that comes to mind is "Damn I wasted all that time!" like, "damn I wasted all that time not educating myself because I didn't stay on top of the SUNY system and they lost my transcripts" or "damn I wasted all that time limping around when I should have been going to this doctor and preventing the damage to the extent that it is now, and now I have to waste more time fixing it" or "damn I wasted all that time in high school when I could have dropped out and gotten my GED and gone to Empire State as I did anyway and then transferred to UB. I would have graduated by now." Crap like that.
So when you achieve a long sought-after goal, are you ready to die? Or is it better to devote your life to an ever-expanding enterprise like spiritual evolution or something? Never quite fulfilled, but never without purpose.
Oh me oh my. Expect the worst and hope for the best, I guess. Not much I can do now but keep exploring my options.
