Coming to terms with the idea that I’m going to have to live until I’m one hundred and fifty to make my rough attempt at an education worthwhile I continue to claw my way through the system with little regard for a pervasively natural inclination which selfishly justifies an apathetic world-view that, as Freddie Mercury put so well, “nothing really matters.” One could argue that I am masochistic. Why else would I continue to subject myself to such traumatic pursuits? I’ve accepted that I have problem. Going to school is merely a cry for help.
Sitting in class earlier today momentarily making a valiant effort to pay attention to my teacher, letting his words loosely shape my thoughts as I stared tired-eyed out of the window at the snow drifting off of the capped mountains in the wind whipped sky, and then below toward the students, each rushing to and fro to one place or another, I heard words. Whether audibly from my teacher or from the very nearly audible thoughts so palpably sounding in my mind and resinating throughout my very soul I couldn’t have been sure—it almost couldn’t be distinguished. “Who determines what is good?” it spoke, “how do societies make laws?” it continued, “how do we argue in ultimate terms?” and the ever present but nearly ghost like, goosebumps inducing “what is love?”
All good questions to be sure—to be sure—one’s that I feel everyone needs to contemplate every now and than. I’ve certainly spent a lot of personal energy pondering upon these things. For me, however, at the time these amalgamated terrestrial and ephemerally echoing questions were resounding throughout my awareness, they seemed to pale in comparison with one even more profound question that was wracking my mind and continuously deepening the furrow in my brow in unequivocal vexation. Why don’t those students step over that damned crack? Not one person over nearly two hours of observing, that I could see, stepped over a large crack in a sidewalk below me. Some almost missed it but either their heel or their toe would just barely touch it and it was almost as if none of those people cared at all whether they broke their momma’s back. Why on earth should that have been? You’d think that some, by random chance, would have missed the crack all together. But no. It was uncanny. I feel like I could have rolled a dozen sixes in a row ten times over before all of those students would have unknowingly all stepped on the same crack one right after the other. And by goodness was it bothering me. What immutable law pervading the fabric of the universe seemed to suspend the statistical likelihood that there should have been a varied distribution of crack-steppers and over-steppers alike? Appealing to my prejudice I’d vehemently assert that I was, indeed, totally suspending my interest in what the teacher was saying remaining engrossed for the duration in the observation of these students. But objectively, I must believe that there were students who did actually step over the crack, but for some reason remained unregistered by what I thought to be studious assiduity of these students on my part. I must have missed some, surely. There had to have been some who stepped over the crack within those hours. But it is almost as astounding that I should have remained utterly oblivious to them? I’m certain the answer to this enigma lies deep within the extensive phenomena suffusing the human psyche, paralleling to some degree the seemingly endless mysteries of the infinite cosmos. But, certainly, I am not prepared to elaborate upon the depths of those mysteries at this time. So, darling, let’s move on.
Changing gears just a tad, I’ll say that I’m actually doing well, though. In school, that is. And, I had the walk. You know, the walk across campus with a teacher where the conversation casually turns from class related stuff to more personal pursuits and interests, me being the one who ended the conversation. That means I’m going to pass the class. For the most part I quite enjoy remaining below the radar without having to reveal much about myself, but than again, when the universe flips the script I swoop in and make my presence known. And when I do, if I do say so myself, my powers are quite on par with those of any you’d see in the latest X-Men flick. That’s right, I am asserting that I am a mutant, wholly equipped with an explosion filled, heartrending origin story! But, alas, I’d feel bad if I didn’t let you all in on the secret—we are all mutants, courtesy of Paul Voosen, Senior Reporter for The Chronicle of Higher Education. Um. That would be 24, March 2014.
Shifting once again—it seems to be more than a feeling, this sense of needed change that in its rippling reflection soothes the soul, if only it does so in my dreams. Committing to inhibit for no more than only a few more Rants an underlying desire to spend a little more quality time with my thoughts in order to sculpt them into more academically approved, fleshed out essays, I unabashedly continue to write this rhapsody as free as a bird now. But this bird, in endless pursuit to understand the range of his freedom does, indeed, change, albeit slowly. But just enough for the endlessly glistening eyes of streaming eternity to look well upon. Though, merely through it, I ramble on as lost poet, a vagabond and a renegade, bumbling in stutters and repeated sentences with an urgently toned ferryman whom over less glistening but more troubled waters ushers me across. Imagine. It is all so surreal. The words accompanying emotions—symbols accompanying irrevocable decrees. The soul intertwining with the universe as one writes, all for the sake of what? A simple desire. I want to write. That’s it. And with those words I’ll depart, letting my original intent in beginning this fade from view as it is now lost in the limbo of unfulfilled ideas. Surely ultimate truths can be teased out of the fray holding this chaotic mass of sentient atoms together. But, perhaps they enjoy their solitude and at times the company of the few who seek them.
To goodness without expectations. Let the truth be told in every action you take. And let goodness follow from each step. I only want this dearly because I see all too well the deceit in my own makeup. It is nothing but darkness and suffering. To truth, kindness, goodness, and love.