Posted on February 20th, 2008 at 10:10 pm by ckuch8ms
I have a tendency of really losing myself in thought walking back to my room after class on Wednesdays. Mostly because I find I’m the only one heading back to a dorm room instead of an apartment. But it never ceases to amaze me how quiet it can get after the courtyard door swings shut behind me, killing the partial conversations of my classmates still in the stairwell. And suddenly there’s only me, the dark windows of Klein Theatre and the brick path leading me back to Ball. I sometimes even dread reaching the Nest area because I know there’s always people whose own paths I have to come into the vicinity of. I like the silence, I like the solitude even more.
There was a lunar eclipse tonight and I stood out in Ball Circle for a handful of minutes, just watching it because I seemed to be the only one who noticed. But then students started trickling out with their cameras, loudly proclaiming to their equally noisy comrades that they didn’t know what they were seeing, but seeming interested by it nonetheless. Diane said it made her feel small, when she joined me outside, and I playfully reproached her for her cliché. All I could think about as I watched the moon disappear was how much I had once wanted to be an astrologer.
I think that’s what truly petrifies me when I think about my future; not just the thought of sewing for the rest of my life, but the thought of doing ANY ONE THING for the rest of my life. I have too many interests that I keep fearing I will never be able to develop because I feel I’m expected to find something I enjoy and then settle. It was good enough for my parents, why isn’t it good enough for me? Because I’m claustrophobic? Because the very thought of being trapped or out of control of myself will send me into a panic attack?
I want to live each day as it comes. I want to study the stars, I want to dig for dinosaurs, I want to swim with killer whales, I want to search for buried treasure, I want to see the seven wonders, I want to climb ruins, I want to create worlds with my words, I want to dance my way through life, I want to eat good food, be in good company and yes, I want to make art.
I want it to be distinctly my life, fudged by or compared to no one else’s.
Link Here | February 24, 2008,
Welcome back to posting. I always think about these things too. I came to school wanting to be an architect. I love your list at the end because its almost a timeline of the things you want to do from the day you realize that you are going to be something when you grow up. I like it because its easily related to. I picked up a book last year on boat building, a few months prior, I bought a book on making guitars. I was once really dead set on singing, then songwriting, then acting, then musical theatre, then musical writing, and finally where I am today, wanting to be a producer. But all of the things that came before are still things I want to do. But its not going to be guitar or boat building.
I think that this liberal arts education that you’re getting is the perfect thing for a mind like ours. You don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to, and you can do almost anything that you want to. The unfortunate circumstance of it all is that we have to pick and choose sometime. Or maybe we don’t…I don’t know. But if we definitely do, I can understand the fear, and so can most people in our shoes.
Comment by Jon
Link Here | February 24, 2008,
Layton, I also really like the list of your aspirations at the end of your blog post. It is always good to have hopes, goals, dreams, and desires. I admire that. It is never too late to pursue someting that makes you happy or drives and motivates you. I agree with Jon that sometimes that hindering factor is that you have to pick and choose, but that can just be in the realm of one thing at a time and not necessarily cutting out your other prospects, but making time for them when you are able.
Steve
Comment by steve