Yearly Archives: 2003

Go

It’s dif­fi­cult for me to imag­ine being done school, that I can start liv­ing as a free per­son. I’ve been in school for so long that I begin to expect anoth­er term in the near future. Yet I’m done (as long as I did­n’t fail any­thing) and I have a great deal of options. But what would I real­ly want to do with my life? A uni­ver­si­ty diplo­ma will only help me get a tiny part of what I want to achieve.

Odd that I live so day-to-day, yet have a few goals planned for decades in advance. Even if I haven’t achieved a sin­gle goal by the time I die, I’ll feel decent­ly sat­is­fied. I enjoy being able to appre­ci­ate every­thing I do each day. A great deal of think­ing needs to be done before I keep going. And while the future seems uncer­tain, while the world seems to be turned upside down, I feel com­fort­ed.

It’s under­stand­ing and real­iza­tion that bind my world togeth­er, that bring mean­ing to any­thing I do.

Complacent With Complacency

I was walk­ing through the mall today, when I saw some­one who seemed to be alone. His face was ripe with Down Syndrome, and he moved with a air of emo­tion­al detach­ment, as if he had eas­i­ly accept­ed the cards he’d been dealt.

Of course, I make no assump­tions about his sit­u­a­tion. After all, I know noth­ing about his life, and my pseu­do-con­clu­sions (I almost nev­er make def­i­nite con­clu­sions) based on pure­ly obser­va­tion could be com­plete­ly wrong.

However, it made me real­ize how lucky I am to not only have a cer­tain amount of intel­li­gence, but to have lived the life I have lived. Although I agree that igno­rance is bliss, I have become quite con­tent with the lim­it­ed aware­ness that I pos­sess today. I’m grate­ful for the oppor­tu­ni­ty to have loved and…given up, and to have been loved in return, even if my giv­ing up of such things will mean that I may nev­er love again. I have lived a life of finan­cial secu­ri­ty. I am fair­ly (although not ful­ly) con­tent with the per­son I have been able to become.

What could I pos­si­bly have to com­plain about? Not much. Only about a few things unre­solved, from a past I’m still try­ing to under­stand.

Life, as it were, appears to be good. So why do I not feel as hap­py as I should? Perhaps a chem­i­cal imbal­ance of some sort, although I don’t want to be so arro­gant as to make such a claim with­out more sub­stan­tial symp­toms.

I believe the answer lies in the fact that the last few things in my life which need res­o­lu­tion are major enough to leave me only feel­ing com­pla­cent. The next step, past iden­ti­fy­ing such mat­ters, would be to resolve them.

But per­haps com­pla­cen­cy is the best one can do.

Talking To Cats

I had the plea­sure of tak­ing care of Nala while Trolley and Wheaties were home for the long week­end. She greet­ed me with loud protes­ta­tions, angry that her care­tak­er had left her alone in the house for two days so far. Alas, it was only me who had arrived, a stranger she had­n’t got­ten com­fort­able with yet. She fol­lowed me around at first, and watched as I filled up her food and water dish­es. After a while she real­ized that I was the only one com­ing. “Where is my slave?”, she demand­ed, and ran off to sleep under the kitchen table.

I tried to talk to her, to let her know that her com­pa­ny would be back in two more days. I asked if she was alright, if she was bored or sleepy or ener­getic.

It felt…a lit­tle odd…to be so ver­bose with a cat. I con­sid­er myself to be a sane per­son. At the same time, I real­ize that cats can­not answer back. A strange lit­tle para­dox.

I find myself in the same sit­u­a­tion around chil­dren. When a kid asks me a ques­tion to which the answer is beyond his com­pre­hen­sion, I don’t know what to say. I become rather embar­rassed that I’ve been placed in such a sit­u­a­tion. Do I tell this child the truth, or do I give a sac­cha­rine answer? Do I attempt to shed some con­scious­ness on a child’s life, or do I let him/her remain in a bliss­ful child­hood igno­rance?

Any deci­sion can be thought of in a bad way. I nev­er know what to say, so I gen­er­al­ly don’t answer back.

I still talk to Dolores though.

For there can be no judge­ment there.