Sunday, February 01, 2004

Sunday, the proverbial day of rest. The sun shining down on this day finds my body resting from the agonies inflicted upon it by my own high center of gravity, or as Jeremy pointed out, my body being genetically ill-equipped for the purposes of flight. I'll have to agree with him, I'm not made to run away, I'm definitely designed to turn around and fight. Even mentally, that seems to be my attitude. I'd like to believe that there is no time to get knocked down and not get back up. Somehow, I have a hard time believing I should just stay down. That might be why I have such a difficult time in many of life's endeavours because I can't quite say no. Anyway, other than this strange bit of self introspection, yesterday was full of equal parts joy and pain. The joy of the outdoors, the pain of the ground rushing up to meet my face. The joy of seeing the splendors of nature, the pain of realize that nature wasn't designed with me in mind. The joy of exploring a cave formed by thousands of years of physics in motion, and the pain of realizing that the ceiling of the cave was well below six foot seven. As I balled myself up into the most comfortable position I could after this horrid realization, I began to ponder life. It seems that the solid rock suspended above my head, and my inability to at least place the soles of my feet on the ground made me begin to realize that I'm really not that normal at all. I turned my flashlight off in the cave and listened as silence sat upon me and realized that the only way I will ever be normal is if all sensory perception ceased. Only then am I the same as everyone else. Is this necessarily a bad thing, or does this make me a creep, or some kind of weirdo? Maybe, I'm not the one to be the judge of that, but it does give me one thing that everyone wants but most are afraid to attain: uniqueness. In some pleasingly disturbing way, being unique is what drives me and what makes wonder where I'm going. But what bothers me is how often I view myself as the standard against which all else must measure. This is unfortunate because the world I view is seen as being irregular, when really I am the one who isn't normal. Maybe I'll never truly understand what I'm trying to say, and maybe I understand too well. But the truth of the matter is that being "normal" isn't necessarily a good thing. Perhaps its the struggle we get from straining and struggling past the preset boundaries that make us appreciate the few precious times when we can stand up and stretch past the given norm, only to realize that the norm is enforced on us once again, that our brief reprieve was really nothing but a chance to steel ourselves for the tiring struggle ahead.

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