A Simpler Happily Ever After

You know, it's a pretty unnatural thing to look down at our feet. We walk looking straight down the path ahead, we drive looking much further, and when we get to the summit of a mountain we look into the vast beyond. There is so much in the world and so many places to go, so many options for the future, that we often forget about the decisions in the present. Not the kind, "what will I eat for dinner tonight?" but of the assortment "left foot, right foot." The steps we take, the ones which get us where we are going, can easily slip into the subconscious, and nearly always do. Unfortunately, if you translate this illustration analogically, you will discover life is prone to demand an opposite manner of us.

Now, I've got absolutely no idea where I'm going. This uncertainty is appealing to me, however, because it has so many horrible and wonderful potential outcomes. I might be a dreamer, but I've always considered myself more an individual of action. I like to do as much as I possibly can, I like to be as great in the well-rounded manner, magnificent in the big picture, that it's sometimes the details that slip me by. It's true for English grade and it's true for my life in general.

Returning to the walk I lead, these activities can best be compared to the contents of a backpack. The more I have, the slower I walk. The more I have, the more prepared I am for the class I'm going to. Am I always in a hallway then? Am I always heading somewhere, but never getting anywhere? Is that the life we all lead? Is that the right way to go?

Returning once again to the contents of a backpack, we might consider what must be done should it have been chose what I should have done should junior graduation have remained an option. I would have taken things out of my backpack in order to walk faster. I would have needed to drop football with hopes of coming back to pick it up later. I would have needed to consider dropping the ability to sleep in until 7:20 and make it school on time. These things would have allowed me to walk faster to my class, my destination, junior graduation.

So that's basically where I'm at right now. Two hands clinched. It was funny this morning, actually, Mrs. Levy said she has been reading me as a kind of intense guy, while I've never thought that way of myself at all (should you drop the fact that one of my career possibilities is strikingly similar to Jack Bauer). That reminded me that certain people in our lives only see us at particular moments, in certain moods, or acting out a requisite but alternative persona. It's mildly depressing to me, that certain people I've had this kind of impression on in initial relationship might never know me proper. People I knew strictly through baseball, people I knew while at SUMMA, and now the people solely involved in the planning of this junior graduation. However, these things have granted me a unique understanding of other people, even if at the cost of a missing one for myself.

When you adopt an alternative persona, you're essentially an actor without the security of a stage. People will actually respond in an uncontrollably honest manner, no longer a dependent of the progression of life. This allows for a totally operational sociology lab, one which can hardly be found anywhere, anyhow else. While maintaining suit, you can plant certain stimuli you could never believably deliver anywhere else. Such experimentation, while coming at a certain cost, has certainly taught me essential lessons on human behavior which I've been able to use in a positive and constructive manner elsewhere. What has given me additional advantage is the extra people I've had the privilege to come across, growing up around the nation.

One youthful lesson I've abandoned at times, even if temporarily, is that of being yourself. Which has come at its cost.

I've got no idea how this story ends. There a thousand things that could happen with my life, as I've said before, but this is one idea that has only truly struck me today.

Living with or without a college degree, teaching English in Costa Rica until I've worked enough money to open a crab shack or surf shop, and living forever after totally, inherently, and permanently simply.

The simple life -- if happiness is a price I'm willing to pay.
How does that sound?

Why does it always end up in the future? Why can't my eyes stay grounded at my feet? Why don't I write about the present? It's not because it sucks, I love it, but it's because it really is unnatural. There are other parts to a walk though -- sitting on a bench (with a friend and) looking how far you've come, taking a minute to take the pebbles out of your sock, five to eat, ten to relax, or a night back home. It doesn't always end at the peak. It doesn't always start at the base. Even while climbing, we're not always moving up.