It's funny.
I spend a lot of time watching other people do things that I want to do. I'm not quite nerdy enough to write on the public interwebs that I would like to go questing or adventuring, and I'm far too wimpy to put myself in any real danger, but a lot of the satisfaction that I get from things like World of Warcraft and fantasy books, TV, and movies comes from imagining myself in the positions of the characters.
Watching people being active, fighting for something, having fun, being in danger, being excellent at what they do is all fine and good, but I feel like I'm becoming some raging voyeur of their lives. My life is so BORING. It seems like there just aren't many options for having fun. Well, there are options, of course, but you need money to do it.
Money.
[insert useless ramblings about the evil constriction of money]
And that is a useless argument because I know that it is not a reason, it is an excuse. I can not blame my lack of money on my lack of life.
And fun is not the only thing I need. I need purpose.
There is a disconnect between what I feel like "living" is and what I feel like I am able to do. I feel like I should have a destination, that I should be searching for something, that I should be working toward something. And I feel like "working" should feel like moving forward. I should feel the wind on my cheeks as I move.
But I am trapped here. I'm super-glued to my chair. I have no money. I have no confidence in my skills. I am afraid to jump into the deep end. But it is more than that. I don't know where the deep end is. I can't find my way to the pool. How does one begin living?
Okay, first, I know I have to get out of the house, physically. But go where? Where am I welcome with no money? Where can I get on foot?
The library? The park? Where does life happen? Bars? Starbucks? Work?
What do I do? What do I want to do? How do I do it? What is meaningful?
I am lonely. I crave friendship. But how do I make friends? It seems instinctual, easy. But I meet people, and I do not get close to them. I like them well enough, but it has been a long time since I have felt friendship form. I have many acquaintances, but very few of those acquaintances change into friendships.
It seems as though everything is a sham. I feel like I need to dive into the earth. Find something real. Find some happy medium between material girl and hippie.
I feel the need to run. Drive. Get out here. Find something worth finding. Do something worth doing. But what would that achieve? Is that living?
Maybe the season inspires my restlessness. Discontent. Spring should bring things of value. I feel like I'm bursting with restlessness. I didn't sleep last night. Not until this morning, until I was exhausted. Slept through the day, woke, watched TV, plated some WoW, ate Chinese food, read a book. It's night now and Gordon is asleep on the couch.
Another day wasted.
Perhaps I'll have better luck tomorrow.
Showing posts with label driving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label driving. Show all posts
4.01.2011
10.25.2008
The Burning
Earlier this month, while driving around in my big ole SUV (which I love and inherited from my cousin, who is off in Germany being a good little wifey-poo) I noticed that the the tops of many of the trees were a gut-wrenching orange-yellow-crimson cocktail of fall color. It's been a while since I've experienced a West Michigan fall, and I think I actually moaned at how pretty it was.
Of course, my Great Escape, the fantasy story I'm writing, was hovering over my shoulder. I turned to it, and said, "You know, Torin's from a tropical area. When he gets farther north, I bet it's fall. I bet the people there call it 'The Burning' and have really wild harvest festivals. I bet they have death rituals and lilting dances to haunting melodies."
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how ideas come.
A few days ago, my dad locked his keys in his car at a Meijer in Lowell. I'd never been out to Lowell, and on the way back, we took back roads along farms carved out of the woods. It was about 6pm, and had that nice honey-colored late afternoon sun that seems to last all day in the fall. I took out my phone and took a video of the drive. And now here it is, for you!
Of course, my Great Escape, the fantasy story I'm writing, was hovering over my shoulder. I turned to it, and said, "You know, Torin's from a tropical area. When he gets farther north, I bet it's fall. I bet the people there call it 'The Burning' and have really wild harvest festivals. I bet they have death rituals and lilting dances to haunting melodies."
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how ideas come.
A few days ago, my dad locked his keys in his car at a Meijer in Lowell. I'd never been out to Lowell, and on the way back, we took back roads along farms carved out of the woods. It was about 6pm, and had that nice honey-colored late afternoon sun that seems to last all day in the fall. I took out my phone and took a video of the drive. And now here it is, for you!
10.21.2008
Ring-Around-The-Rosie Traffic
This is an accurate representation of how I feel lately. Like a storm of despair with a shot of beauty running through it. If I concentrate hard enough on the rainbow, I don't feel the fear of the storm.
Even the idea of life as a road that I'm following, though cliche, is quite accurate.
Driving and traffic, I've noticed lately, have their own strange beauty to them. I recently got my own car, so I'm driving much more than I ever have before. It occurred to me yesterday, as I rushed on to the expressway on my way to kung fu, that it would be hard to program a computer to simulate traffic. For example, I merged on to 131-South behind a slow semi and in front of a Fed Ex van. Usually, I'm terrified around semis, but my big old (1993) Ford Explorer can't accelerate fast enough to pass the thing quickly, so I slowed down and left it some room and it pulled away from me. I moved a lane to the left. The Fed Ex Van stayed in the lane to my right, and then jumped into my lane, one more lane left, sped past me, and then crossed over again to exit. At first, I thought, "Did you have to ring-around-the-rosie me before you exited?" But then I noticed, as I got closer in to town, that many cars, vans, and even a pick-up truck with a trailer, all do similar seemingly pointless (and dangerous!) manouverings. I supposed that I did them too. I mean, we've all had that conversation with ourselves: "Okay, better pass this guy...isn't that lane closed up ahead? Well, let me squeak in here. Oh shoot, the exit's on the left!" and zip-sip-slip, we're jogging all over the highway, playing ring-around-the-rosie with all the other drivers on the road. It's like a well choreographed dance, except none of us know it. It's a natural kind of chaos, and I suppose it has its own patterns.
I find it, sometimes, a strange coincidence that everyone I see on the road near me is on the road at exactly the same time I am, going the same direction! What are the odds, if you really think about it, that a particular person will be in a particular place at a particular time? And as one by one, each car peels away from me and heads in its own direction, its driver thinking his own thoughts, I am left alone on my route. All of us, maybe six or seven cars, came from different places, converged for a while on a road, and then scattered off again. I wonder, if you watched from above, if these convergings happen noticably, or repeatedly.
I'm sure some civil engineer somewhere knows exactly how these traffic things play out, and all of my new discoveries are in fact old, but traffic and patterns are a safe place for my mind to wander. And it never hurts to see a little beauty in a mundane thing.
Even the idea of life as a road that I'm following, though cliche, is quite accurate.
Driving and traffic, I've noticed lately, have their own strange beauty to them. I recently got my own car, so I'm driving much more than I ever have before. It occurred to me yesterday, as I rushed on to the expressway on my way to kung fu, that it would be hard to program a computer to simulate traffic. For example, I merged on to 131-South behind a slow semi and in front of a Fed Ex van. Usually, I'm terrified around semis, but my big old (1993) Ford Explorer can't accelerate fast enough to pass the thing quickly, so I slowed down and left it some room and it pulled away from me. I moved a lane to the left. The Fed Ex Van stayed in the lane to my right, and then jumped into my lane, one more lane left, sped past me, and then crossed over again to exit. At first, I thought, "Did you have to ring-around-the-rosie me before you exited?" But then I noticed, as I got closer in to town, that many cars, vans, and even a pick-up truck with a trailer, all do similar seemingly pointless (and dangerous!) manouverings. I supposed that I did them too. I mean, we've all had that conversation with ourselves: "Okay, better pass this guy...isn't that lane closed up ahead? Well, let me squeak in here. Oh shoot, the exit's on the left!" and zip-sip-slip, we're jogging all over the highway, playing ring-around-the-rosie with all the other drivers on the road. It's like a well choreographed dance, except none of us know it. It's a natural kind of chaos, and I suppose it has its own patterns.
I find it, sometimes, a strange coincidence that everyone I see on the road near me is on the road at exactly the same time I am, going the same direction! What are the odds, if you really think about it, that a particular person will be in a particular place at a particular time? And as one by one, each car peels away from me and heads in its own direction, its driver thinking his own thoughts, I am left alone on my route. All of us, maybe six or seven cars, came from different places, converged for a while on a road, and then scattered off again. I wonder, if you watched from above, if these convergings happen noticably, or repeatedly.
I'm sure some civil engineer somewhere knows exactly how these traffic things play out, and all of my new discoveries are in fact old, but traffic and patterns are a safe place for my mind to wander. And it never hurts to see a little beauty in a mundane thing.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)