Blogging

I regret to say that I think I have misunderstood the concept of blogging. I initially ventured into the blogosphere as a means for expressing my thoughts for all to see and hear. At the very first I suppose this was a means for me to share with the family back home the experiences in Peru and other assorted places to which I have had the opportunity to travel over the years. I never intended to develop a readership, nor advertise on this site, nor do anything that would in any way benefit me, whether financially or in terms of self-esteem. I do not know that I went into it with the wrong ideas in my head, or whether perhaps some of the other writers in the blogosphere have it wrong. What am I to do? I wonder as to making money at a trade that consists of converting one set of words to another set of words, only that the first set is unintelligible to the readers of the second set, and vice-versa. I suppose it is only that I have a hard time financing my life with work done purely on a computer, and work whose effect I hardly ever get a chance to see. I have a high respect for the freelance translator who does nothing more than translate, and I also cannot understand sometimes how we can benefit financially from something that we compose in our minds and throw up on the internet. Should we benefit from such things? I feel at times as though everything in this world is going a hundred miles an hour and I cannot slow down to enjoy one instant of this rapidly passing time. I have these moments where I vent, center, and then move on to live life once again, but I don't know that it is possible to truly live a life of continuity that does not at some point require a stopping and a reorientation to what I want out of life.

Sometimes I pine for the simplicity of youth, for the days in which success was measured by the number of apples you could gather from the orchard, or how long you could stay in the mud-pit that you deemed a lake in the back pasture. When did life become so complicated, and why? I have been fortunate to experience many things in my young life, and I know that they are all combining to lead to a fulfilling adult life, but I cannot yet make the leap. It is as if I am stuck in neutral, and am waiting for that push that will allow the engine to start and life to continue in the way that I have both dreamed and imagined it!

Christmas is a wonderful time to be home with family and friends, and I truly cherish every moment. I wish that days could be as simple as this, and I suppose that this is always an option. To settle down right next door to mom and dad and work and live life in this way, but my heart calls me onward to something more. I yearn to return to El Salvador and Cuba and to go across the world! My heart is restless for adventures that can be neither expressed nor read in written words. I long to feel alive again, to experience fulfillment in my heart by giving to someone else on the other side of the world. By climbing that mountain, by not waiting to achieve the dreams that I have dreamed! I want to wait no longer, I need to do this. My heart is ready, and in short order so will be my circumstances.

Writing

You ever have those days when the words seem to flow in all that you do, you sit down to journal over that first cup of coffee and the words literally leap onto the page? The mind is racing so fast that neither the hand, nor the keys on the keyboard can keep up with all the things that you have to say! And then the day moves on and the ideas slow down to the pace of your hands, and then fade to the point that the mind can no longer keep up with the hands. There is this window of time, at least for me in which writing flows and goes and I do not question what I write, but later reflect on it and find insight in what I wrote. Sometimes I think it is like that comedy in which Homer gives a wonderful presentation or platform for some political campaign, wins, and then wakes up from the coma and asks what happened. Writing is sometimes like this, that you cannot control or regulate it when it comes but must allow yourself to be the lightning rod by which it flows onto the page or computer screen. I wish that so many things in life could be more explicitly explained, put into a box and sold, but this is not one of them. This is a gift from God, the ability to allow your body to be an extension of the mind that lives and breathes and contemplates within us, ever refining the thoughts that sometimes shoot out like this, that fill the page, that form the static that we must wade through every day of our lives, or the words of wisdom that free us from the chains of bondage, or enlighten us to try another way, to seek something new. Words are the most powerful instrument in the world, if they are well strung. Like a piece of music that can uplift or destroy our resolve, such power do words have as well, and I want to let them flow, want them to take on lives of their own and inspire each one of you to live to your greatest potential and to never let go of the dreams that first inspired you to do anything in this life. No dream is too crazy, we always have hope no matter how hopeless the situation may seem, and above all have no fear! BE NOT AFRAID! All fear will do is prevent us from reaching our fullest potential in this life. And each one of us can achieve so much if we just let our gifts flow and give them where they are needed. Let us use each day to help us better understand how we may take up this role in the world! And if you ever need words of inspiration, you know where to look!

End of Finals Week

Fatigue and confusion threaten to overcome me at the end of what has been a whirlwind past couple of weeks. I still have much to do, including grading the volumes of student exams that remain in my possession. After administering them this afternoon, there was both the levity of the end, and the weight of grading them that still bears on my mind. And yet I suppose that the end has come for the time in which we had opportunity to give our all, to learn, to discover and to implement the new skills we gained. Is the real world truly this way? Do we simply cram things into our minds long enough to pass an exam and then promptly forget it all? I question the nature of our education. Perhaps there are some, even many that can learn in this environment, but I find it toxic to my own learning. I learn of course, and these thoughts are by no means a reflection on the quality of my professors, whose gifts continue to impress me more by day. I am left simply reeling at the sheer volume of work that those in academia are expected to process and produce. I struggle to organize myself long enough to endure a semester. Is it the nature of this school only? Or is this the nature of academia across the country? Are all people so divorced from society and their own personal lives due to the time required to be a good professor/instructor/graduate student?

My mind is still a mess with regard to all of this, and I think it will take some time for me to get my bearings. Sleep would be a good place to start. But I simply wanted to throw out some questions at this moment. I suppose that I have benefited quite a bit from the system, which may take some of the wind from my sails, insofar as I cannot very well critique something from which I have gained so much. Education I will say and always will defend is a great opportunity, a gift that we should all treasure. For truly, our knowledge is one of those intangibles that can never be taken from us, that remains despite any action committed against our bodies or any other part of our physical reality. At the same time, are there better ways of educating ourselves?

I wonder at the difference in education across the world and the type of students and individuals created as a result. Certainly scare tactics and indoctrination are not the best course for education, however I know plenty of people, born and raised outside the United States, who know the geography of North America better than I could have ever imagined was possible for a student in the US, much less for someone from the other side of the world. What are we seeking though? Wealth? Hope for a better life? At what cost...that of someone else's poverty, or the loss of our lives and relationships because we lose that fragile balance that allows us to work hard and yet maintain friends and relationships. What is life truly about? Why are we here? Is it true that we make ourselves? And if so, how is this done?

I am intrigued as ever, by the answers that Christianity has to offer. I believe that in the absence of Christian ideals for which to strive, life offers little other than banalities to distract us from the fact that we have no direction in life. Only endless pursuits of temporal things that will not last beyond this life. What do you want your life to be for? How do you want to spend the finite amount of time you are given upon this earth, in this world, this existence in a vast, glorious and beautiful universe.

Choose wisely, and this life can be fulfilling for you and those around you. And always ask questions, for they lead us to the truth that governs all, and shows the path to true freedom, and thereby true contentment in this crazy world.

Merry Christmas! Go home and spend time with those you love. You deserve it and so do they. And thank God for all that He has given you. For no matter how little or much you have, you are blessed in that you live. In that you have the opportunity to make a difference in this world, in that your life could count for something, could mean something, could change the world. Fear not, and follow your heart, and let your life be phenomenal!