Back in the Saddle
No, I have not fallen off the face of the earth.
lannifn: so whats up with the lack of blog entries? seems very un andy like
Limin8tor: Eh, I've just been very busy. I don't seem to have much time to sit and whine anymore.
lannifn: it wasnt all whining. sometimes its good not to think so much though.
I cannot tell you precisely why I have not been updating over the past two months or so. Some subconscious or semiconscious desire not to overthink things may indeed be the culprit. What’s more, when I let writing entries go for a sufficient length of time, at a certain point, it feels as though I have so much ground to cover that the task of writing about it all seems insurmountable. Certainly, a great deal has happened between my last legitimate entry on July 6th, and today. I finished my work for The Congressman, I managed to make it through a very intense session of RA training, and the summer of Kate has come and gone. So much has happened that I will not begin to try to describe it all at the moment. It’s just too much. The best I can do is talk about what’s going through my head right now, and hopefully in the future I will slip in the occasional detail about what presumably was the last summer I experienced as a college undergrad.
As I write this, I am a senior in college. NYU has put me semi in charge of fifty other students, in the hopes that I will somehow be able to guide them through these years of growth and change. Growth and change have seemed to flow all too swiftly lately. Perhaps it’s something about being away from home, and exposing yourself to a new environment. Despite the training wheels provided by the residence hall system, and the larger “NYU Bubble” there are a number of new things to become exposed to and experience in one’s time in a university - some fits of joy and triumph, and other bumps and bruises along the way, both of which shape us immensely.
It’s funny, I remember very clearly in the days leading up to my leaving for college, one afternoon when my dad said to me, “You know, this is an opportunity to reinvent yourself if you should so choose. No one up there will know you.” It struck me as kind of strange, the very idea felt quite foreign. Prior to that point, the thought had not even crossed my mind. I very much liked the person I had become, and I think I still do. Yet, it is undeniable that through no intention of my own, I have developed into at least a somewhat different person than I was those brief two years ago. Whether I changed for better or for worse, I cannot immediately tell you.
Surely, to remain static for two years would be a folly. Yet, I find the fact that this change was a wave that washed over me, rather than one that I commandingly rode until it faded gently against the shore, troubles me, just a bit. I asked Kate P. how she thought I had changed in the time she’d known me and she replied, “You’re sadder, more mature.” I do wonder if that carefree joking smart alek who pestered an innumerable quantity of people in my high school years has departed, or at least has a foot outside the door. I do think that I can still be irreverent, lighthearted, maybe even blithe at times. Even more importantly, the truth is that, as the archives of this journal can attest, I have always had something of a brooding side; I am not all sunshine and smiles, nor do I think I have ever been. The question is whether this aspect of my personality has consumed, or at the very least overshadowed the rest of it.
Abby seemed to think that my time studying philosophy had a great deal to do with it, and I am hard pressed to disagree. Studying such big, overarching questions, I could not help but gain some perspective. My ethics class in particular led me to question a great deal about how I live my life, as a whole and on a daily basis. Epistemology and Central Problems in Philosophy made me question who and even what I am, and moreover what role I play in the grander scheme of things. It’s hard not to feel insignificant when dwarfed by the range and depth of western thought over the past few thousand years. Faced with these immense, unanswerable questions can leave one just a bit troubled.
But it could also be something much more personal than that. As has been repeated time and time again, growing up, realizing that not just you, but the world as a whole, is not all sunshine and smiles, and can in fact be a very cruel place on occasion, is a difficult process. I wish I could say whether this is something I’ve realized or experienced more in the past two years than I have previously, but like the past two months, it all just seems like one tangled ball of events, thoughts, and feelings, impossible to separate and organize into some coherent method of understanding. That may really be what bothers me most lately, the enormity of it all: my life, my future, the world. Who can begin to make sense of all that?
That’s a big reason I started writing this journal in the first place - to have some place to struggle to organize my thoughts, and maybe, just maybe, make sense of some things. It is at difficult times like these, times of great change and transition that I think I need some such understanding the most. That could be what’s drawn me back, and has me writing again. It almost feels like I am back at square one.
“Now you don’t have to be content, but you do have to get on with it.”
It’s a quote from a Bright Eyes song that has seemed especially poignant to me lately. And I try to do as it recommends. I try to live this life to the best of my abilities, and as usual, one’s mileage may vary. I have definitely been feeling something to the effect that I am just spinning my wheels to some extent. I’d like to think I’m getting somewhere, but I don’t know. Often times I feel there is something grander, some calling or some task of great meaning that eludes me. I’m not sure how to pursue such things, and I guess that’s why having something safe and comfortable means so much to me at times. It’s easier to search the unknown, to struggle, to move forward despite uncertainty when at the end of the day you’re still connected to something warm, welcoming, and understanding, forgiving of your faults and follies. I don’t know. Maybe it is time for a change.
lannifn: so whats up with the lack of blog entries? seems very un andy like
Limin8tor: Eh, I've just been very busy. I don't seem to have much time to sit and whine anymore.
lannifn: it wasnt all whining. sometimes its good not to think so much though.
I cannot tell you precisely why I have not been updating over the past two months or so. Some subconscious or semiconscious desire not to overthink things may indeed be the culprit. What’s more, when I let writing entries go for a sufficient length of time, at a certain point, it feels as though I have so much ground to cover that the task of writing about it all seems insurmountable. Certainly, a great deal has happened between my last legitimate entry on July 6th, and today. I finished my work for The Congressman, I managed to make it through a very intense session of RA training, and the summer of Kate has come and gone. So much has happened that I will not begin to try to describe it all at the moment. It’s just too much. The best I can do is talk about what’s going through my head right now, and hopefully in the future I will slip in the occasional detail about what presumably was the last summer I experienced as a college undergrad.
As I write this, I am a senior in college. NYU has put me semi in charge of fifty other students, in the hopes that I will somehow be able to guide them through these years of growth and change. Growth and change have seemed to flow all too swiftly lately. Perhaps it’s something about being away from home, and exposing yourself to a new environment. Despite the training wheels provided by the residence hall system, and the larger “NYU Bubble” there are a number of new things to become exposed to and experience in one’s time in a university - some fits of joy and triumph, and other bumps and bruises along the way, both of which shape us immensely.
It’s funny, I remember very clearly in the days leading up to my leaving for college, one afternoon when my dad said to me, “You know, this is an opportunity to reinvent yourself if you should so choose. No one up there will know you.” It struck me as kind of strange, the very idea felt quite foreign. Prior to that point, the thought had not even crossed my mind. I very much liked the person I had become, and I think I still do. Yet, it is undeniable that through no intention of my own, I have developed into at least a somewhat different person than I was those brief two years ago. Whether I changed for better or for worse, I cannot immediately tell you.
Surely, to remain static for two years would be a folly. Yet, I find the fact that this change was a wave that washed over me, rather than one that I commandingly rode until it faded gently against the shore, troubles me, just a bit. I asked Kate P. how she thought I had changed in the time she’d known me and she replied, “You’re sadder, more mature.” I do wonder if that carefree joking smart alek who pestered an innumerable quantity of people in my high school years has departed, or at least has a foot outside the door. I do think that I can still be irreverent, lighthearted, maybe even blithe at times. Even more importantly, the truth is that, as the archives of this journal can attest, I have always had something of a brooding side; I am not all sunshine and smiles, nor do I think I have ever been. The question is whether this aspect of my personality has consumed, or at the very least overshadowed the rest of it.
Abby seemed to think that my time studying philosophy had a great deal to do with it, and I am hard pressed to disagree. Studying such big, overarching questions, I could not help but gain some perspective. My ethics class in particular led me to question a great deal about how I live my life, as a whole and on a daily basis. Epistemology and Central Problems in Philosophy made me question who and even what I am, and moreover what role I play in the grander scheme of things. It’s hard not to feel insignificant when dwarfed by the range and depth of western thought over the past few thousand years. Faced with these immense, unanswerable questions can leave one just a bit troubled.
But it could also be something much more personal than that. As has been repeated time and time again, growing up, realizing that not just you, but the world as a whole, is not all sunshine and smiles, and can in fact be a very cruel place on occasion, is a difficult process. I wish I could say whether this is something I’ve realized or experienced more in the past two years than I have previously, but like the past two months, it all just seems like one tangled ball of events, thoughts, and feelings, impossible to separate and organize into some coherent method of understanding. That may really be what bothers me most lately, the enormity of it all: my life, my future, the world. Who can begin to make sense of all that?
That’s a big reason I started writing this journal in the first place - to have some place to struggle to organize my thoughts, and maybe, just maybe, make sense of some things. It is at difficult times like these, times of great change and transition that I think I need some such understanding the most. That could be what’s drawn me back, and has me writing again. It almost feels like I am back at square one.
“Now you don’t have to be content, but you do have to get on with it.”
It’s a quote from a Bright Eyes song that has seemed especially poignant to me lately. And I try to do as it recommends. I try to live this life to the best of my abilities, and as usual, one’s mileage may vary. I have definitely been feeling something to the effect that I am just spinning my wheels to some extent. I’d like to think I’m getting somewhere, but I don’t know. Often times I feel there is something grander, some calling or some task of great meaning that eludes me. I’m not sure how to pursue such things, and I guess that’s why having something safe and comfortable means so much to me at times. It’s easier to search the unknown, to struggle, to move forward despite uncertainty when at the end of the day you’re still connected to something warm, welcoming, and understanding, forgiving of your faults and follies. I don’t know. Maybe it is time for a change.