Take a jar, a piece of paper, a pencil, and some scissors. Write down something on that piece of paper: a line, a paragraph, an essay, but make it something that makes sense and means something. Maybe it took you seconds to think of, minutes, hours even to put it together, but its on paper now and its a coherent masterpiece. Now, take your scissors and cut out your writing into fragments, whether they be sentences, words, phrases, even letters, and collect the pieces. Put all the pieces in your jar, close the lid, and shake violently. Now open the jar and spread the contents out on the table face up. What do you have?
A mess.
What you have is a bunch of letters, words, or phrases that in their current form are utterly useless and incomprehensible but were once something coherent and practical. What you have is a depiction in the physical form of exactly what happens when I take something I have thought of in my head, or even written down in part, and try to communicate it verbally to someone, particularly a group of people. Call it a bodily reaction to public speaking or a minor form of autism. Whatever it is, I have it, and it's driving me insane.
I can't wait for my communications class next fall...
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Monday, March 24, 2008
Conflicting Analogies
I find it ironic that my blog pretty much died with the poem "Death be not proud". That might have been the saddest thing ever (I'm sure), but fortunately I don't plan on an end to this blog coming soon. The space between these posts has merely been a long interlude. For that, I apologize.
I remember writing numerous posts in the past about roller coasters. Roller coasters, I thought, were the perfect analogy to describe my life. In the midst of constant struggle, my life would either be on the upswing or the downswing; at the top of the incline awaiting the fall or in full descent awaiting the flat line. But now that I thing back on it, the whole analogy is in another respect totally and completely flawed.
A roller coaster is in its essence a vehicle. It moves you from one place to another. But unlike other vehicles, a roller coaster is uncontrollable. It doesn't have a steering wheel or a winch and doesn't give or turn when weight is shifted. Furthermore, it doesn't actually take you anywhere, it merely brings you back where you started or to an exit right next to where you originally got on. This creates a problem, because life is not a circle. However much someone may try to persuade you otherwise, life does not go from simplicity at birth to a climax at growth to simplicity at death. It is a journey (excuse the cliche).
Saying my life is a rollercoaster condemns my life to one in which I have no control, and in which I have no purpose. If my destination is right where I started, then there's no point in what I do in the middle of it anyway. If I can't change anything anyway, then the inclines and pitfalls are inevitable and I might as well just do whatever I feel like, because non of it changes anything. But this is far from the truth.
I've realized over this Easter that the life God has given us is what we make of it. Even if predestination is true in its fullest, nobody knows their destiny except for God, and thus all we can do is live our lives to the "fullest" in the eternal sense of the word. Despite what my mind tricks me into thinking or what others might say, there is so much good that I could be doing right now and so much stuff that I need to get right in the midst of where I am now. And nothing is going to happen if I'm on a roller coaster. What I need to do is get myself out of that ride, out of that theme park and into my car, where I can take those roads and hills head on with God in the driver's seat.
I remember writing numerous posts in the past about roller coasters. Roller coasters, I thought, were the perfect analogy to describe my life. In the midst of constant struggle, my life would either be on the upswing or the downswing; at the top of the incline awaiting the fall or in full descent awaiting the flat line. But now that I thing back on it, the whole analogy is in another respect totally and completely flawed.
A roller coaster is in its essence a vehicle. It moves you from one place to another. But unlike other vehicles, a roller coaster is uncontrollable. It doesn't have a steering wheel or a winch and doesn't give or turn when weight is shifted. Furthermore, it doesn't actually take you anywhere, it merely brings you back where you started or to an exit right next to where you originally got on. This creates a problem, because life is not a circle. However much someone may try to persuade you otherwise, life does not go from simplicity at birth to a climax at growth to simplicity at death. It is a journey (excuse the cliche).
Saying my life is a rollercoaster condemns my life to one in which I have no control, and in which I have no purpose. If my destination is right where I started, then there's no point in what I do in the middle of it anyway. If I can't change anything anyway, then the inclines and pitfalls are inevitable and I might as well just do whatever I feel like, because non of it changes anything. But this is far from the truth.
I've realized over this Easter that the life God has given us is what we make of it. Even if predestination is true in its fullest, nobody knows their destiny except for God, and thus all we can do is live our lives to the "fullest" in the eternal sense of the word. Despite what my mind tricks me into thinking or what others might say, there is so much good that I could be doing right now and so much stuff that I need to get right in the midst of where I am now. And nothing is going to happen if I'm on a roller coaster. What I need to do is get myself out of that ride, out of that theme park and into my car, where I can take those roads and hills head on with God in the driver's seat.
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