Trust

What I have realized, (and many thoughts fly in my head when I exercise - somehow the creative fermentation process works as though in a dream, fitfully, without direction, with great emotional intensity), is that one's voice is unique and should never be compromised or sold. It is a tragedy that we must conform, shrink our natural burning brightness into halogen lamps that shut on and off on command, that produce tired thoughts and hackneyed arguments, that create efficiency but not understanding.

Lately/all my life/ I have been struggling, stuck in a lockhold where two strong and opposite passions collide. Sometimes out of necessity one triumphs over the other, as with time-sensitive decisions such as where to study, what opportunities to take, and so on. Other times the struggle is personal, and not institutional, and I have been stuck in the lockhold for years - important life decisions like what do I believe about making a living, who God is, what direction should I point my life in, and so on. For so long I have tried, have sweated for the answer, for the simple decision that flows naturally and rings with certainty of the truth. Only then, I reason, will I be able to walk decisively towards the goals I have set, assured of who I am.

Try as I might, it is hard to shake off the myth of linear progress, because there is some truth in it (and so much falsehood and simplification that leads to disappointment). Perhaps it is time for me to move beyond that, and reconcile myself to the possibility (I hesitate to say fact) that the patterns of life and meaning are much too dense for any one person to understand, their multi-dimensionality utterly incomprehensible when viewed through the limited prism that we operate in; but on the large scale, beautiful.

Wading through Days of Mud

That's how it feels like, struggling against the tide of everything that's coming my way. Like it or not.

Slowly but surely it's been affecting my personal relationships as well. I don't know what I feel about that. Uneasy, for sure.

I'm telling myself that I can get through this, it's only a couple of weeks more until the semester is over. And there is a break in between.

But at what price does this achievement come (this slog seems much less grand)? Am I learning anything of use when my days are full of meetings and work and class, and when there is free time, long naps of oblivion? I live at the mercy of my moods. I keep grasping at branches that I hope can bring me up to the surface, but they turn out to be straw, or I decide that it's not worth the time.

White noise has become a fixture of my life rather than the exception. I don't want to deal with this anymore. I want peace, and quiet. Only in absence can I find my way to the present.

PS. I realized I broke my resolution to simplify my life and keep from doing too much. I have a habit of overestimating what I'm capable of doing and being happy.

PPS. Ah peace and quiet! It's 2am, but I have gotten it at last :)

Weightless

Going to the gym and working out has become easier, after less than a week of going regularly.

There's a period after the monotonous drag of step after step on the treadmill or pedal of the bike, after the flashes of pain shooting up your arms as you lift weights, after a whole hour spent watching bad/boring tv with endless commercials (yes, I do have to agree, after repeated exposure, that contemporary television is mind-numbing and brings almost zero value to oneself), that you pack up, leave the gym with its sweat-saturated air, and fill your lungs with the fresh outdoor breeze...

And you begin to run; truly, full of life, with love and wonder, weightless like a dream.