wanted: professional day-dumper

it's really too bad that there aren't jobs out there for people who are just really good at killing time. and i'm not talking manslaughter here. this is first degree. it would be an ideal position for me, considering i have a general studies b.a. and am getting a bachelor of philosophy. at the end i'll be pretty good at thinking of most stuff, generally.

unfortunately, people don't want you to philosophize about their car troubles. they want a mechanic. in the same way, my coursework right now doesn't want me to sit here and philosophize about doing it, it wants a real bona-fide student to sit down and do it.

Victor Hugo wrote,

"One is not idle because one is absorbed. There is both visible and invisible labor. To contemplate is to toil, to think is to do. The crossed arms work, the clasped hands act. The eyes upturned to Heaven are an act of creation."

John Milton put it this way:

"They also serve who only stand and wait."

Both are beautiful sayings, and there is truth to what each says. Unfortunately, they're both also highly impractical. Thinking is not going to get me a good mark on my midterm. Sometime I'm going to have to put something down on paper. It has also been said that idle hands are the devil's workshop. Even then, in a twisted way, something is reportedly being done. No, I think I'm just a plain old unaccomplisher. Perhaps it's time for me to stop potentializing and start actualizing. Perhaps it's time for me to stop crapping diem and start carpeing it.

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Bye-bye Bible

Perhaps we should all be Jedi Knights. Their principle of non-attachment, which is strikingly like the Buddha's attempt to rid himself of earthly desires, is very appealing. "We will have to find out the cause of sorrow and the way to escape from it. The desire for sensual enjoyment and clinging to earthly life is the cause of sorrow. If we can eradicate desire, all sorrows and pains will come to an end." This makes a lot of sense. Actually, it makes perfect sense. He is right. It can be scary admitting Buddha is right, because what if he's right about everything? Well, even in this case, perhaps he is only right insofar as what he says is true. Does that mean his route is the best path to take on the proverbial road to enlightenment? Right now it might appear that way. You see, I realized recently that I became very attached to something I owned. It's my Bible. Or, was my Bible. (Give me a moment to regain my composure...) I had my NIV study Bible for at least ...

smelly things

remember those scratch-and-sniff things? of course they still exist, but i haven't smelled one in a while. now all we have are those horrid cardboard car scents: those leaves of aesthetic tragedy. the one i'm thinking of has a strawberry scent. it might have been strawberry shortcake - that little red-headed girl with strawberries painted all over her ginormous hat, a hat ten times the size of her head. this reminds me of those markers you can buy that smell, too, often like berries of some sort. i can remember the blueberry ones the best. which scents do you remember? when Jodi and i (and sometimes Justin, Dan, Kaia or some other participant) would take empty milk jugs and stealthily place them on Mark Vust's doorstep (our Resident Director), i would sometimes smell the rotting milk. it didn't smell good. i'll give you that. but it was certainly a powerful scent. smelling things reminds me of how much i love life. like when i'm in a forest ...

random anxieties of existence

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