Lesson Nine: Don't underestimate the Universe.

Can it really, really be almost May? Oh Time, at what clips you do fly. Four months of 08 come and gone... and what does it mean? Right now you're 8, and before you know it you're 22. Or, right now you're 22, and before you know it you're 36. Hmmmm. Hmmmmm.

I hope you'll pardon me; the universe has just thrown me another interesting curve ball and I'm still coming to terms with it. It sure does have a divine sense of humor, doesn't it? But what would life be if it always went they way I expected it to? Rather dull, I'd like to think, because really, the workings of my own imagination really couldn't even begin to compare with the genius crafting of the sequence of events of the past few months. (This is why I couldn't be a fiction writer.)

So I've been reading a bunch of Salinger lately, and there are a couple of interesting points that come up. In "Teddy", Teddy says that he loves his parents and hopes that they'll enjoy themselves, but that his parents don't love him and his sister in the same way, but rather try to shape them into something else instead of letting them be who they are, sometimes loving the idea of loving them more than they love him and his sister themselves. In "Raise High the Roof Beams, Carpenters", a quote from Seymour's journal is as follows:

" ... my beloved has an undying, basically undeviating love for the institution of marriage itself. She has a primal urge to play house permanently. Her marital goals are so absurd and touching. She wants to get a very dark sun tan and go up to the desk clerk in some very posh hotel and ask if her Husband has picked up the mail yet. She wants to shop for curtains. She wants to shop for maternity clothes. She wants to get out of her mother's house, whether she knows it or not, and despite her attachment to her. She wants children--good-looking children, with her features, not mine. I have a feeling, too, that she wants her own Christmas-tree ornaments to unbox annually, not her mother's.

"... But are [her marriage motives] despicable? In a way, they must be, but yet they seem to me so human-size and beautiful that I can't think of them even now as I write this without feeling deeply, deeply moved."

Don't you find that interesting?

What is the point of this life, anyhow? Oh, the eternal question. Does everything we do always have to be laden with such great importance and consequence? Can't we just enjoy ourselves while we're here, so long as we're not offending anyone else? Or should we concern ourselves with chasing after lofty and highly virtuous, impressive goals lest we be labeled Harmless but Silly Good-for-Nothings? Why should we look down on others who are different and who we don't understand, and why should we idolize those who do what we can't because we lack the specific abilities and qualities that they possess in abundance?

I'm being very general and vague here, though I have certain specific examples in mind... perhaps you might, too?

Maybe truly being alive means having a passion.

Or maybe it means having understanding or insight to the degree of transcendence.

(Don't ask me what exactly I mean by that, because I'm not sure I could explain it to you.)



Moving on to an entirely topic now, however... my design teacher loved my latest assignment, even though I had been stressing over the imperfection of the painted lines and corners I had to make with acrylic. I wasted so much paint, because I haven't gotten used to how much is needed to paint how many square centimeters of area. Next assignment? A CD cover. My pick is Stevie Ray Vaughan. I just picked up a CD over the weekend and I'm loving it. Oh yes, I'm excited.