(no subject)
I was unaware that my girlfriend checked my LiveJournal for updates, but today she asked me why I don't post anymore. It hadn't occurred to me that I'd ever actually stopped. On the contrary, it's just been a long time since I've had something to say that I felt needed saying. Or perhaps more accurately, it's been a long time since I've had something to say that could be said. It's a phenomenon I've written about before: The complexity and requisite components to the most interesting parts of my life do not lend themselves to a simple telling. If anybody but me were authoring a post with such a flowery introduction, I'd probably sigh an exasperated sigh and stop reading it entirely. Hey, perhaps in the future when I reread this, I'll do exactly that. Anyway, there's a contradiction that grows out of this problem, and it is as follows: When my life is interesting, my journal is not.
An example of this contradiction is a three month old beautiful baby girl sleeping 6 feet away from me. Of course you all want to know who she is and where she came from, but I can't bring myself to begin a post that does it justice. In the mean time, be settled with the knowledge that her name is Zoe and she's occasionally ticklish. And of course, she leads us back to the first line of this post, my girlfriend Dani. You apparently read this, so hello! You're also pretty cool.
The present is hard to quantify. To write it down is to presume to know which details will remain relevant, and which will fall away into obscurity. I have no skill to do such, as I've never been able to correctly predict where I'm headed or how I'm going to get there. A simple glimpse at the basic trajectory of my life is proof of that. For the most part, I'm pretty happy with this. For that reason, I'm not a photographer. I don't carry my camera with me when I go on adventures. It's often hard for me to think about a future in which pictures would serve a purpose. Only in the most abstract sense can I imagine that tomorrow's going to actually happen. A year from now...?
That being said, I respect photography, and I have friends who do beautiful work. I was investigating some of it yesterday on thefacebook, and was confronted with the reality of how far my life has gone in what seemed like a short period of time. I realized how many rooms I've been in filled with some of the most remarkable and interesting people on the planet, and how many of them I can proudly refer to as friends. And I also realized that even a small town in a small state is endlessly dense. I mean it when I say that I don't ever want to go back to Orono as long as I live (I'm sure I will, probably within a month), but I must not forget how much of my life was lived there, and how much I owe it for facilitating contact with the various people who have altered my flailing trajectory. My life contains such a vast net of people, and with few if any exceptions, I can't even imagine where I'd be now if any one of them had failed to show up and play their part. Maybe I'd still be in good shape, but it's not hard to imagine that I'd be somewhere else entirely.
So I guess what I mean to say is, "Thanks everybody."
I do have stories to tell. But at this moment, I'm not sure that many of them are set in the present. The present is treating me beautifully. I'm as happy with my life as I probably ever have been. Those curious of the day to day aspects can and probably already do check my facebook and talk to me one-on-one. As far as writing essays goes, however, I don't want to insult the present by pretending to understand it's methods.
An example of this contradiction is a three month old beautiful baby girl sleeping 6 feet away from me. Of course you all want to know who she is and where she came from, but I can't bring myself to begin a post that does it justice. In the mean time, be settled with the knowledge that her name is Zoe and she's occasionally ticklish. And of course, she leads us back to the first line of this post, my girlfriend Dani. You apparently read this, so hello! You're also pretty cool.
The present is hard to quantify. To write it down is to presume to know which details will remain relevant, and which will fall away into obscurity. I have no skill to do such, as I've never been able to correctly predict where I'm headed or how I'm going to get there. A simple glimpse at the basic trajectory of my life is proof of that. For the most part, I'm pretty happy with this. For that reason, I'm not a photographer. I don't carry my camera with me when I go on adventures. It's often hard for me to think about a future in which pictures would serve a purpose. Only in the most abstract sense can I imagine that tomorrow's going to actually happen. A year from now...?
That being said, I respect photography, and I have friends who do beautiful work. I was investigating some of it yesterday on thefacebook, and was confronted with the reality of how far my life has gone in what seemed like a short period of time. I realized how many rooms I've been in filled with some of the most remarkable and interesting people on the planet, and how many of them I can proudly refer to as friends. And I also realized that even a small town in a small state is endlessly dense. I mean it when I say that I don't ever want to go back to Orono as long as I live (I'm sure I will, probably within a month), but I must not forget how much of my life was lived there, and how much I owe it for facilitating contact with the various people who have altered my flailing trajectory. My life contains such a vast net of people, and with few if any exceptions, I can't even imagine where I'd be now if any one of them had failed to show up and play their part. Maybe I'd still be in good shape, but it's not hard to imagine that I'd be somewhere else entirely.
So I guess what I mean to say is, "Thanks everybody."
I do have stories to tell. But at this moment, I'm not sure that many of them are set in the present. The present is treating me beautifully. I'm as happy with my life as I probably ever have been. Those curious of the day to day aspects can and probably already do check my facebook and talk to me one-on-one. As far as writing essays goes, however, I don't want to insult the present by pretending to understand it's methods.