Summer.
The glorious distance set between yourself and the bars of the schoolhouse door. Miles in fact. Miles that can mean the difference between sanity and the barely sane.
How do you measure a break? A break in song can add depth and understanding. A break in conversation can add awkwardness or alternatively, meaning or a view into an abyss of subsequent feelings that go unsaid.
Taking just two classes this summer and not working has lead to one of the most interesting and frankly odd summers of my life. We cannot stand idly by as our life passes forth, but it is this exactly that I have found myself doing this summer.
Idle.
Neutral.
Moving without direction and more importantly without a real reprieve in action. I am not really as relaxed as I make myself out to be. I am still taking classes (even if they sometimes seem more like a joke than not) and I am still trying to get up and make something of myself each day. However, what is the feeling of getting home in the evening, after errands and class, that makes one think the day is merely wasted? Is it contempt? Is it a lack of purpose? Maybe it is more a lazy mixture of sleeping dog and wallowing, muddy pig-like tendencies that have me being the opposite of productive.
I find myself bored with day-to-day tasks and anything not to do with my future. I day dream constantly. I have even caught myself talking to myself more than usual. I’m not suffering from a mental disease or anything, but I know that talking to myself more than just in the shower should be cause to wonder, “what’s up?”
“A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.” – Oscar Wilde
I have a purpose. I have a want to move forward. I have an ache that lends itself from deep inside to be a better person each morning I wake up. Is this my “dawn” that Wilde makes mention of?
But, I have no control over those feelings.
The car has a sticky gas peddle and I’m tied up in the trunk.
Two way streets are quickly forged into single, narrow ideals founded in a warped sense of what is right in the world and what is wrong with it.
Maybe there is a sense of surprise. Where did these feelings and outlooks on topics come from? Did I set myself up?
William Faulkner said, “I have found that the greatest help in meeting any problem is to know where you yourself stand. That is, to have in words what you believe and are acting from.” So I must write down what I believe and am acting from in and amongst myself.
I believe in understanding what others want just as much as yourself. Even if I have not the means or opportunity to afford these people of their wants, I strive to know what they are.
I believe that one’s faults are not to be described in great detail during a quarrel with another. These words merely ruin later, more amicable conversations.
I believe that a promise to do some thing in the future should be left right where it was promised: the future.
I believe that a man is always more confident when he is erect. Men should stand up straight and not slouch.
I believe that happiness is not a feeling or a thought, but rather a state of depression. Without it, depression would not exist.
I disagree that we are all the same. Our differences are what make life tolerable.
I disagree with the notion that there are “haves” and “have nots.” There are only those who can afford not to care, and those who care not to afford.
I disagree that smoking, drinking, or other “sinful acts” are bad for you. I disagree with sin taxes.
I don’t care what you do in your living room, just don’t howl at the moon in mine.
I believe that Faulkner was right when he said, “To understand the world, you must first understand a place like Mississippi.”
I am sure there are other things I should write as being personal beliefs, but maybe this is enough for now. I will work on this list and see where it takes me.
~YJ_SL
