File under: Things To Aspire To
Edited to include:
the lost art of writing,
and grammar,
and the rules that must first be known before broken—
the lost appreciation for:
the intricacy,
the historicity,
the age old symbols,
the sign system of human society
wrapped in the colors of thousands of tongues—
the lost acknowledgment of the power
of a word,
of a letter,
of a single ink deposit on a wholly blank sheet of white
an epitaph specifically for:
the star-struck lovers of mismatched prepositional phrases
the displaced, and misunderstood: words
the (mis)arrangements of clauses
the purposeless statements, abandoned and confused
and an epitaph, most importantly for:
those who will never know the most delicate finesse of words and language and every which kind of communication,
(reserved by God to distinguish us from the animals)
those who do not perceive the force of a tsunami behind a single utterance,
those who will never know—or even care to know—the structures and the structureless subtleties of purposeful delivery,
—in which lies—
the greatest power.
I have a problem. I am not grounded. I am not down to earth. I am not like my brother who befriends easily with meaningless chatter; I don’t like small talk and I don’t get caught up in the details.
But where I am is, I am stuck up there, way way up there, looking down at this marble of a globe, self-appointed to my own god station and isolated in my own little society of acquaintances: meet Life, Death, Happiness, Love and God. I forget to be a person of persons— at the end of the day I am always up there, thinking about the future and life after death and morals and society and these other big and intangible clouds of daunting ideas.
I always, always, always forget that I am living. That I am living a life. It gets dull after a while, constantly snapping myself to the here and now, to the finite and the (beautifully) mundane.
Do you get what I mean?
I find that what I am actually doing is finding out who I am. This sounds more simple than it really is.
Language is complex. Languages are complex. The basic human language (that covers all languages) is a dynamic interaction, and in large part has to do with what I say, and how I say it.
Every day I learn the lesson of the god of words. Words are the atoms in atomic bombs; their potential is terrifying and devastating but also divine. That is why God is the Word. Every day I regret having said something, and regret having said something a certain way.
I am starting over again, under not a strict censorship but a godly mindfulness to use words for good. I hope to avoid foolish anger and criticism without love; this is a learning process.
Slowly but surely, Lord.
Last Day Of Classes.
The typical Duke kid’s favorite day of the year! But see, drinking for 12 hours straight only seems like a good idea before you’ve gone about halfway, and with Natties, at that.
Tomorrow morning, if I dare venture onto West before 10am, I will see the devastation wrought by the best of Duke. There will be beer puddles and maybe even puddles of other bodily fluids. The quad shall be glittering with blue and silver aluminum crumples. Few people will see this, as most are still sleeping off their hangovers since no one has classes anymore, but I saw it last year.
For some reason I think I will avoid West today.
Its 1:24 am and there is a confused bird outside my window chirping away.
