emotion

I think the seasons bring about so many emotions at their change because they make the familiar become exotic. The first snow is magical because we are so unused to it having been without it for so long. We become numb to our surroundings until they change. We are excited until be become numb again. Of course, there are memories attached to these changes. The fall is such an evocative season for this reason. The scents, especially, bring back memories, but for some reason it is a different kind of memory – not a visual or aural memory but a deeper kind of sensation. A feeling of nostalgia and melancholy. The sense that something significant once happened of which you aren’t certain but can only feel. Melancholy because you are now distant from those people and times.

I once read some filmmaker saying that nostalgia can be so overpowering that he had to limit its strenght in a particular work. I find this interesting. I seek melancholy music and books—I think for the very reason of their power to stimulate feeling. Books like A River Runs Through It, which changed my mood for nearly a week, it was so emotionally engaging to me.

Emotions are a strange thing. Some people consider them the opposite of logic, but I disagree. I think emotion is a perfectly logical and even practical thing to experience. Soldiers in Iraq, for instance, are now trained to pay attention to their emotions as they try to decipher who might be potential suicide bombers or where someone may have tried to hide explosives. Those who are successful at this often cite emotions as their indications that something was not right. Rather than being irrational, then, emotions are a deeper part of our senses and decision making. One of which we are not fully aware and cannot always interpret but that still guide us.

worth a minute of your time

Stawberry Swing

I know, I know

So call me bipolar, but I'm over the post-thesis boredom. I have been bitten by the McCarthy bug again - actually this time it's the read-everything-I-can-get-my-hands-on-because-now-I'm-free-and-I-can't-get-enough-learning bug, and it is consuming me to the point that I have started writing out of pure desire for language and emotion. I'd never fool myself as to think I could write like McCarthy, but I can't help trying.

Seriously is this some kind of disease? Is there a cure? because it only seems to gain strength. Maybe if I ignored it for long enough that would kill it.

Here's a line I wrote this morning. Go ahead and laugh. I'm only learning:

The volcano erupted, and in the darkness, its inner parts laid open pulsed with the heat and life of a dying planet to become forever cold. Light dissipating into space never to return nor be received.

Silly, I know - like a grown man teaching himself to play the violin. For what? Let's just say an itch I don't know how to scratch.

boredom

It's interesting to watch myself as I make this transition from student to employed man. I have this vague sense of fear and anxiety about what comes next--fear that I will be discontented with my life now that I don't have something like school to pin my dissatisfaction on. I'm realizing that that is what I have been doing my whole life: it has always been looking forward to what comes next and explaining my stress in terms of my current situation, believing that I will be happier when I reach the next phase: graduating high school, going on a mission, getting home from a mission, getting to graduate school, and being done with school and free to make money and do what I want (okay maybe I never thought going on a mission would relieve stress). I guess the next phases I will anticipate will be getting married, having children, getting my children on to productive lives, and then retirement, and (dare I say it) death.

This transition is unique, though, in that it marks the first time that I am transitioning to something indefinite. A mission or school always has an end, and it's usually pretty clear when that will be, so it's very easy to look at your feelings and say "I am stressed and dissatisfied with my life because of school, and in a year when I am done with this program, I will be happier." In this case, I can't really do that, and so it forces me to confront my feelings in a new way and take control of my life in a dimension that, to this point, I haven't even been aware of. I am, at this point, having to confront the reality of where I am. I have no more excuses for dissatisfaction, so I either need to change my circumstance or change my attitude by realizing that it is my own choices that have brought me here. One or the other. No more procrastinating dealing with my own negative feelings.

I realize that in saying this, I may come across as an unhappy person, and this is not the case; I do, however, feel poignant boredom at times. The difference now is that I have no more excuses.

thank you

I feel overwhelmed today with feelings of gratitude and joy - not just because I passed, but because of what my education means to me. My mom and dad took me out to dinner to celebrate, and as I spoke with them, I couldn't help but recognize how fully I have been blessed - so much that I can't help but want to extend my blessings to other people who don't have as much just so it's not so unfair.

Thank you to anyone reading this blog who has ever been my friend and even shared an evening with me or offered me an encouraging word. I could not feel more grateful for the life I have been given - literally given - by God and by the people I have known. Thank you, all. I will try to pass it on.

Thesis

I submitted my final draft tonight. Interesting feeling to be in the library on a summer Friday night as I was stapling the copies. Calm and quiet. Reflecting on my time at BYU - how I have spent my opportunities there. I'll be honest, I wasted some good ones.

I learned too, though. A lot. I got exactly what I needed.

Now for the defense.

Parents

I attended my grandmother's funeral today and traveled to a small town in central Utah for her interment. Of all the precious moments, the most poignant for me was watching the love and kindness radiating from my mother's face as she spoke of her own mother. Seeing her as a child and feeling the love she feels for and from her mom somehow made me view my relationship to her and my dad differently. I couldn't help but consider the inevitable days when I will stand and pay my tribute to them and face the remainder of my life without them. I can't help but want them to know now how grateful I am for them and how much I love them. I feel moved to pay my tribute while they are still here so they can live the remainder of their lives and die with the knowledge that they are loved and that their efforts were not wasted and will not be forgotten. What else can you offer to the people who have already given you everything they have?