Without seeming redundant, I find myself coming back to this topic again... The meaning of life - in particular, my own life. Make no mistake, I love what I do - love playing the violin, love using that gift to make people happy. I love being kind, and I love loving others, and seeing how happy it makes them - making the world a better place, in small ways. But I find I am still missing something. Some people have such a simplistic view of life that it irritates me. I always end the conversation feeling like I was a 'downer'. No doubt they hated that I basically shot down everything they said, in regards to how they get through life. What can I say? I'm a dreamer; I hate the mundane-ness of everyday life. I don't need to 'wake up to reality'.
Perhaps, instead, they need to wake up to a life beyond what the fickle eyes can see, and the fickle skin can touch. Such people have no imagination whatsoever - or, what they do have, is wasted on trying to make reality a different thing. I admire that, to a certain extent. It must be difficult - using such an unlimited resource as the imagination, corralled to function only within such a limited existence as this world's reality. Myself, I find reality to be riddled with frustrations, blocked roads, and a to-do list that never dies (really - have you ever thought about that? There's always something else to do.). So often I find myself hating all of the things I have to do. Day in and day out, we adults go to work (and if we're really lucky, we might enjoy it), get a paycheck, come home, cater to whatever the people in your life need/want, hopefully get someone to tell you they love you (and mean it), go to bed, and start the whole shebang over again the next morning. Work, the schedule, the to-do list... They are only a means of further organizing time - specifically, the time in which we plan to live. All I'm saying... is that there is so much more to life... than concentrating on getting check-marks.
Of course, reality does have some beautiful moments - and those are the moments I find myself reveling in long after they've happened. They are the things that inspire me to dream... To dream of what life could be, if only... Ah, if only.
Perhaps the best fiction writers in history thought the same way. For that is what fiction is - a way to explore what can never be real; to live in a world not our own, and to maybe - if only for a few moments - be someone else... Someone else completely different... Or maybe someone even more like ourselves than we are allowed to be in the day-to-day. Ultimately, I find that reality is what we make it - and mine entails a lot of time spent in the un-reality. That doesn't bother me; I don't know why it should bother anyone else. They say I am letting my life pass me by - but am I not also accomplishing many good things in the day-to-day?
I think life is often encapsulated in the desires that are greater than life - not the ones that fit within it. Have you never wished to be a hero? Someone that people remember, as being a person with great courage and heart? It's not the legacy that matters. It's that you made a real difference. In real life, you hold the door for someone, you compliment them, maybe even help them get through a difficult situation. And these are wonderful things - don't think I am belittling them with this talk of mine. But have you ever saved the world...? Ever saved someone's life - maybe thousands of lives...? Even if you're a doctor or someone in a position to do so, the glory is lacking. Blood, sweat and tears make reality what it is - painful... maddening... maybe even devastating.
'Reality', in my terms, is the pain of life; the things that make life mundane, painful, and difficult to live. Yet most people live as though this is all there is to life, end of story. They settle for thinking that 'this is all there is; thus, I should concentrate on getting through everything, and then I'll be all right'. What a waste. Why do such people claim to believe in God, and in Heaven, if this is how they talk and think and speak? Clearly, these people have lost sight of what is really real; not the life we see before us. But the life that is to come. I'm not a survivor. I don't believe in just gritting my teeth and getting through everything that comes my way. That's far too simple, and far too heart- and soul-killing. I live for the 'what could be'.
And even if it never comes to be in the next life, I don't feel my imagination has been wasted. Perhaps someday I'll write a great work of fiction - one that will resonate with people for centuries and generations to come; or maybe not. But somehow, I feel I was made for more than just 'surviving'. Because in my opinion, if you're 'surviving'... You're not really living.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Introspective
Today I went to a masterclass here at IU, given by my former teacher from Oberlin Conservatory of Music - Milan Vitek. And as I was smiling in remembrance of all the wonderful time I spent studying with him, it suddenly hit me: he'll never be my teacher again. That time, that I went to his office for weekly lessons, and went to studio class in Kulas Hall... is gone forever. Along with so much of my youth.
And don't give me some lecture about how "I'm still young". I'm well aware of that. And yet... I'm also aware that I'm not young anymore. The responsibilities that come to rest on my shoulders grow in number every single day. The real world is finally knocking at my door. And all I want to do is run like hell.
I live every moment with the knowledge that in just a few minutes - just a few hours, days, years and even decades - it will live in my mind only as a memory of a time long past that I cannot go back to, that I cannot revisit, except in vague pictures my mind can sometimes recall. Some moments I will never remember again. Moments of great beauty, and even moments of great joy... Lost forever, to the cruelty of my terrible memory.
Sometimes I think life is awfully anti-climactic. You pray and hope and wish and weep for what you most desire, perhaps for years or even a lifetime... And then, maybe you get it; maybe you don't. If you do get it, it's never quite in the beautiful, elegant, or spectacular way you imagined. And if you don't get it, all you can dream of is getting it. Life is incredibly mundane, in that way; the transcendence we crave can only be found in the un-reality of movies, books, and music - and perhaps sometimes the beauty of nature and the world around us. And a part of me has not yet come to terms with the mundane-ness of life. I want more, and I don't know how to 'settle' and be content with this life.
And I know, I know - it's the next life we're supposed to get all the excitement in. Really? Really?? Wow. Okay, I guess that's great, considering the next life lasts forever, and this one doesn't. But, then, what to do with this life, and all its troubles and questions? Faith is simple and faith is beautiful and faith is nice - but even the Bible says that hope deferred makes the heart sick. I don't know what I'm asking for. I don't know what I'm waiting for, or even what I'm hoping for. And in a whisper, my heart says... more.
I want what I can't have. I want life to be transcendent. I want to fly above the trees, fight a sword and shield battle as a warrior of old, find out I have an incredible hidden power (instantaneous healing and claws like Wolverine would be diesel; or maybe if I could do the things Gandalf did in Lord of the Rings), save the world, be a secret agent... I want the love of a lifetime - romance in every form - and the perfect man (Whoops! Don't tell my boyfriend I just wrote that; he's pretty close, though...). I want dreams to come true... Not the half-disaster my life has turned out to be.
Who knew fear would be such a formidable enemy, that I could not defeat even with all the heart and strength I thought I possessed? Who knew that the people in my life would hurt me, cut me so deeply? Who knew that falling in love was more likely to make me feel like I was dying, than living...? Who knew it was even possible to worry about everything - while not even consciously thinking about all those worries? Before too long, you wake up in the morning and mistake the light for dark, because you're so weighed down with the dark things - anxiety, fear, anger, weariness - you carried yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that.
If I made a list of things I'd learned in college - hell, even in just the past year or two - it'd be longer than this post will be at its end. But probably the most important thing I've learned in the more recent past is that you're never too far gone for God - never too far gone for redemption. Every day can be made new. And since none of us know when today could be our last tomorrow, that's more of a blessing than we realize. I don't know how or when I learned this, but somehow I know better than to take life for granted. Maybe I hope that the people in my life who matter most will also realize this (because undoubtedly if I matter that much to them, too, they will spend more quality time with me). It's not life that changes who you are or how you think; for better or worse... it's you.
And don't give me some lecture about how "I'm still young". I'm well aware of that. And yet... I'm also aware that I'm not young anymore. The responsibilities that come to rest on my shoulders grow in number every single day. The real world is finally knocking at my door. And all I want to do is run like hell.
I live every moment with the knowledge that in just a few minutes - just a few hours, days, years and even decades - it will live in my mind only as a memory of a time long past that I cannot go back to, that I cannot revisit, except in vague pictures my mind can sometimes recall. Some moments I will never remember again. Moments of great beauty, and even moments of great joy... Lost forever, to the cruelty of my terrible memory.
Sometimes I think life is awfully anti-climactic. You pray and hope and wish and weep for what you most desire, perhaps for years or even a lifetime... And then, maybe you get it; maybe you don't. If you do get it, it's never quite in the beautiful, elegant, or spectacular way you imagined. And if you don't get it, all you can dream of is getting it. Life is incredibly mundane, in that way; the transcendence we crave can only be found in the un-reality of movies, books, and music - and perhaps sometimes the beauty of nature and the world around us. And a part of me has not yet come to terms with the mundane-ness of life. I want more, and I don't know how to 'settle' and be content with this life.
And I know, I know - it's the next life we're supposed to get all the excitement in. Really? Really?? Wow. Okay, I guess that's great, considering the next life lasts forever, and this one doesn't. But, then, what to do with this life, and all its troubles and questions? Faith is simple and faith is beautiful and faith is nice - but even the Bible says that hope deferred makes the heart sick. I don't know what I'm asking for. I don't know what I'm waiting for, or even what I'm hoping for. And in a whisper, my heart says... more.
I want what I can't have. I want life to be transcendent. I want to fly above the trees, fight a sword and shield battle as a warrior of old, find out I have an incredible hidden power (instantaneous healing and claws like Wolverine would be diesel; or maybe if I could do the things Gandalf did in Lord of the Rings), save the world, be a secret agent... I want the love of a lifetime - romance in every form - and the perfect man (Whoops! Don't tell my boyfriend I just wrote that; he's pretty close, though...). I want dreams to come true... Not the half-disaster my life has turned out to be.
Who knew fear would be such a formidable enemy, that I could not defeat even with all the heart and strength I thought I possessed? Who knew that the people in my life would hurt me, cut me so deeply? Who knew that falling in love was more likely to make me feel like I was dying, than living...? Who knew it was even possible to worry about everything - while not even consciously thinking about all those worries? Before too long, you wake up in the morning and mistake the light for dark, because you're so weighed down with the dark things - anxiety, fear, anger, weariness - you carried yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that.
If I made a list of things I'd learned in college - hell, even in just the past year or two - it'd be longer than this post will be at its end. But probably the most important thing I've learned in the more recent past is that you're never too far gone for God - never too far gone for redemption. Every day can be made new. And since none of us know when today could be our last tomorrow, that's more of a blessing than we realize. I don't know how or when I learned this, but somehow I know better than to take life for granted. Maybe I hope that the people in my life who matter most will also realize this (because undoubtedly if I matter that much to them, too, they will spend more quality time with me). It's not life that changes who you are or how you think; for better or worse... it's you.
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