to scales we can tolerate

It's funny how when you're little life is broken down into polarities. Right and wrong. Good and bad. Mean and nice. It's so black and white... and I guess it has to be that way to some extent- when you're young, when you're learning and growing up and figuring out how you're supposed to be. Life has to be comprised of these 'this or that' choices when you're young partly to make your parents' lives easier, and partly to help you get a sense of the world as quickly as possible. So we set up these boundaries- a sense of beginning and end comes first and then we fill in the gray betweens.

And then when you're older life feels more saturated in the gray areas. So much of this life feels ambiguous and complicated these days. And I think it's because we're still so focused on those end points- of the goals, the final product, or the actual somewhere, that all of the process of getting to somewhere seems to be more confusing. So then it becomes a question of whether it's our focus that alters our perception of how complicated or gray life truly is, or whether clarity just seems to lie in the definitive moments and less so in the in between. Or, do we just arbitrarily assign said qualities to certain points and passages through life and forever expect them to be that way? And essentially perpetuate the notion through our own behavior and preconceived ideas?

I guess I'm not really sure. I don't know if life ever stops feeling like this time line or tracking of benchmarks from one accomplishment or significant change to the next. And we all want things. We want to have relationships and careers, families, adventures... the list goes on. But how do we negotiate attaining the larger things we want out of life without compromising our ability to enjoy the ride of life itself? Isn't there a difference between the life propelled by making plans and achieving goals and making specific decisions and the life propelled by impulse, emotion, spontaneity and the beauty of the moment? How can we have both? Or are these two lives already combined- we're just more focused on one than the other?

I don't really know what all that means. It just feels like we're always playing it safe. Things are so calculated and colored within the lines that they begin feeling plain, boring, complacent... And that's no way to be living at all. Not to say that everything has to be outrageous or ridiculous or so spur of the moment... but maybe if we could punctuate these focused and goal driven lives with more of that... maybe we'd be more content or just more interesting people. And maybe it's because things are changing for me. And I don't do well with change most of the time. I'm starting to pack up my apartment. And I'm starting to realize that I only have a little time left with certain people who have become my best friends, my life lines... and I don't know. It's enough to make you feel like you're crawling out of your skin because you don't want to move forward and face the inevitable, but if you don't, then you're left standing completely still... which is far worse.

Not to mention I turn 22 on Saturday. How did that happen? I don't really know how I feel about that.

Well, enough for now.

Until next time... I'll leave you with a piece of The Way by Albert Goldbarth:

"The way our language scissors the enormity to scales we can tolerate. The way we gild and rubricate in memory, or edit out selectively..."

I don't know... something about that just resonates.

Later Gators,

L