When I was little, I thought the world was small. And in a way, I guess it has always been small. No matter where I go, who I’m with, or what I do I am where I am for the moment. The world seems to evaporate beyond my sphere…not in a self-absorbed way, just in an intense or passionate way. Even though I spend a large proportion of my time trying to ‘predict’ my future, it’s comforting to realize how much I live for the moment. Whether it’s taking two trains and a bus to climb a particular trail in the Dandenong Ranges or repelling down a three hundred foot cliff in New Zealand to celebrate my fifteenth birthday–the evidence is there, denying my anxiety about not living enough.
It becomes exhausting waiting for the future to manifest itself because it doesn’t exist…it seems like a theoretical and intangible idea. We don’t live in the future…and literally we won’t live in the future at some point. Saying ‘I will do this’ or ’I will do that’ is a little like saying the present moment is shadowed by an ideal we have for ourselves, that our present isn’t important in relation to that self we can create. But when you stop thinking about the future (and even the past, which can sometimes shock you into a morbid fear of change with its cruelty), maybe even stop thinking altogether and have a pause in thought, there is a moment of realization followed sometimes by inspiration. Creation doesn’t happen in the future. It is. It just does. It is in your being not in your ‘will be-ing’.
And yet, without having a future to strive for what we do in the present seems a little purposeless. Actually, we might not even know what to do with our present if we don’t contemplate the future. But what if…what if doing what we want in the present for the present (taking into account personal responsibility and consequences, of course) inadvertently takes us in the exact direction we would have otherwise wanted to go?
In the past twenty years, I’ve been ridiculed, ostracized, marginalized, attacked, felt one-of-a-kind (not in a good way) and small, and cried myself to sleep too many nights to count. Elementary school, high school, college, study abroad, college again–life goes by very quickly and still so slowly. Didn’t I just say I wasn’t going to think about my past? Maybe on your birthday it’s all right to reflect on the past as long as you realize you can’t change it and there’s no point to regret it. The greatest gift I received this year for my birthday was the realization that despite the pains and experiments and hardships of growing up, I made the choices that brought me to where I am today. Though the negative stuff has focused me, I never faltered in my intent. I never changed direction because it was easier or the course was smoother or it made friends or it made people stop making fun of me. In fact, I never even considered changing anything about myself to suit the whims of others. I’m pretty grateful that I’ve had the will and determination to live my life as I’ve seen fit while at the same time respecting the decisions and opinions of others. And, though I’m biased, I think it’s a good way to be and a good way of living for which to strive.
Seeing as this will be my last Spider Diary entry (because I will be a Junior this fall and the spot will be filled by a new Diarist), I thought it appropriate to go out with a statement. Although reading over what I’ve just typed I feel more like the writer of a fortune cookie fortune than an inspiring writer. But you know what? What’s wrong with a fortune cookie or two?
So here I go, out to make my fortune come true…by not thinking about it or worrying about it, by just being, by just trying…like that isn’t the hardest thing to do. I’ve had a blast sharing my experiences for the past two years with whoever actually reads my stuff. I hope I’ve made at least one of you consider your college life in a different way. I hope that your lives are as full as you can make them and that you are proud of your decisions on the long/short road of life. I hope you experience life in a new way every single day. I hope for you what you hope for yourselves. I hope.
Peace and Love, Truth and Freedom,
Jordan
forest of butterflies
Quotes of the week:
“Put your heart, mind, intellect, and soul even to your smallest acts. This is the secret of success.”
-Swami Sivanada
“Once you begin to acknowledge random acts of kindness - both the ones you have received and the ones you have given - you can no longer believe that what you do does not matter.”
-Dawna Markova
“Each of us literally chooses, by his way of attending to things, what sort of universe he shall appear to himself to inhabit.”
-William James
“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”
- e.e. cummings
“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”
- Dr. Seuss
“No creature is fully itself till it is, like the dandelion, opened in the bloom of pure relationship to the sun, the entire living cosmos.”
- D.H. Lawrence
“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”
- e.e. cummings
