State of Suppression
High sign in red: This is one of those unpopular
"dear diary" posts my friends will be forced to read.
Rest, be forewarned! ;)
The weekend in Syracuse was eventful, although oddly unremarkable. I met some new people, we did a few fun things, but at the end of it, there was something missing. A hollowness of some sort! I can't seem to put my finger on it. It may be that it was Mother's Day and I was missing mom!
The two days in Syracuse went by like an evening of bar-hopping with no time to have any drinks in between! We got from one place to another with no real agenda, meandered a bit, performed some tasks, and that was that! There were times when I wanted to ignore everything around me and take in the ambience, the beautiful still lakes, the open fields on our drive to the winery, the imposing churches, the assortment of colors. There was so much to absorb, but my mind kept racing from one moment to another quite restlessly, and we covered more and more ground without assimilating anything! This is usually fine by me, given that my typical weekends are even more haphazard, but we let ourselves go and have a really good time! This one just felt like an assortment of cocktail snacks at a dinner party that you relish greatly, want to have more and more of, even though it won't fill your appetite. There was no substantial main course in sight! The food distracted me from the people, the people from the ambience, the ambience from the experience, the experience from the absorption! There was no stimulation, no provocative discussions, no mindless bantering or funny repartees!
I could have reflected on the commencement speeches at the graduation ceremony. There was Colin Fanning, the university scholar with a very eloquent and charming speech about the importance of play in a world burdened with obstacles, then there was Joe Biden earnestly persuading students to reshape history by embracing the promise of change!
I sat through the speeches, amused, inspired, but kept feeling the need to suppress my animated reaction for some reason. I came out of the stadium pretending to be dispassionate, as if the words I just heard made no dent on me, as if they were like any other I had heard before -inspiring as the event demanded, but quite meaningless for all practical purposes! But, no. I don't quite see it as flaccid words in a flaccid speech. Biden said something that I am inspired to act on. I need to know how! Perhaps, it is not knowing how to act on his words that is frustrating me at the moment! It's been the lingering frustration that I have been feeling for a few weeks now. This constant desire to do something substantial and not knowing how is getting to me! I am in a state of suppression!
I thought a lot about rivulets and tributaries, and it bothered me that i didn't know the difference between the two! I wondered if the former was just another word for a brook! I wondered how a creek was different from a stream, if bayous were synonymous with lakes, if most ponds are man-made, if springs emerge from caves, if basins were lands naturally drained by a river, if burns are the meetings points of rivers and seas. I wondered about how many different types of waterfalls there were, if falls cause erosion, or if erosion creates falls! My head was exploding with questions and it got to me that I didn't have the answers! How can I be in love with nature as much as I am and not know one kind of stream from the other! How can a mechanic not know the difference between a nut and a bolt! Would it have been bizarre if I lived on earth all along and did not know what a mountain was or a desert? At what point is it okay to be unaware!
I came home and read about streams and fluvial landforms. I am less ashamed now. Suddenly I am aware of how little I know, and how little I will know no matter how much more I read! There is a world out there that I can't even begin to fathom, let alone acknowledge! I can only hope I will pick up more and more books on rivers and absorb as much as I can about them until I run out of patience if not interest!
I think I am being hard on this unplanned weekend drive. The 6 hours of continuous music back and forth, and the company of fun people should have done it! I think it did! At least the people did! :) But, I need to go back and do some more soaking up! Not now! The hollowness is still raw! Maybe when I am ready for Syracuse, and not when Syracuse is ready for me!
The weekend in Syracuse was eventful, although oddly unremarkable. I met some new people, we did a few fun things, but at the end of it, there was something missing. A hollowness of some sort! I can't seem to put my finger on it. It may be that it was Mother's Day and I was missing mom!
The two days in Syracuse went by like an evening of bar-hopping with no time to have any drinks in between! We got from one place to another with no real agenda, meandered a bit, performed some tasks, and that was that! There were times when I wanted to ignore everything around me and take in the ambience, the beautiful still lakes, the open fields on our drive to the winery, the imposing churches, the assortment of colors. There was so much to absorb, but my mind kept racing from one moment to another quite restlessly, and we covered more and more ground without assimilating anything! This is usually fine by me, given that my typical weekends are even more haphazard, but we let ourselves go and have a really good time! This one just felt like an assortment of cocktail snacks at a dinner party that you relish greatly, want to have more and more of, even though it won't fill your appetite. There was no substantial main course in sight! The food distracted me from the people, the people from the ambience, the ambience from the experience, the experience from the absorption! There was no stimulation, no provocative discussions, no mindless bantering or funny repartees!
I could have reflected on the commencement speeches at the graduation ceremony. There was Colin Fanning, the university scholar with a very eloquent and charming speech about the importance of play in a world burdened with obstacles, then there was Joe Biden earnestly persuading students to reshape history by embracing the promise of change!
Your hands are on the steering wheel, the automobile is going straight, and one slight turn sends the car into a direction fundamentally different and initially unalterable from the direction it's been going in. Few people get to put their hands on a steering wheel at that moment. There's not a single decision confronting us now that doesn't yield change from non-action as well as action. My favorite poet, William Butler Yeats, writing about Ireland, in 1916 wrote a poem about the first rising of the 20th century called "Easter Sunday 1916." In it, there was a line that's more applicable, in my view, to today than it was to his Ireland in 1916. He said "The world has changed. It has changed utterly. A terrible beauty has been born." Well, it’s clear things have changed utterly in the last 12 to 15 years. A terrible beauty has been born. It's a different world out there.
I sat through the speeches, amused, inspired, but kept feeling the need to suppress my animated reaction for some reason. I came out of the stadium pretending to be dispassionate, as if the words I just heard made no dent on me, as if they were like any other I had heard before -inspiring as the event demanded, but quite meaningless for all practical purposes! But, no. I don't quite see it as flaccid words in a flaccid speech. Biden said something that I am inspired to act on. I need to know how! Perhaps, it is not knowing how to act on his words that is frustrating me at the moment! It's been the lingering frustration that I have been feeling for a few weeks now. This constant desire to do something substantial and not knowing how is getting to me! I am in a state of suppression!
I thought a lot about rivulets and tributaries, and it bothered me that i didn't know the difference between the two! I wondered if the former was just another word for a brook! I wondered how a creek was different from a stream, if bayous were synonymous with lakes, if most ponds are man-made, if springs emerge from caves, if basins were lands naturally drained by a river, if burns are the meetings points of rivers and seas. I wondered about how many different types of waterfalls there were, if falls cause erosion, or if erosion creates falls! My head was exploding with questions and it got to me that I didn't have the answers! How can I be in love with nature as much as I am and not know one kind of stream from the other! How can a mechanic not know the difference between a nut and a bolt! Would it have been bizarre if I lived on earth all along and did not know what a mountain was or a desert? At what point is it okay to be unaware!
I came home and read about streams and fluvial landforms. I am less ashamed now. Suddenly I am aware of how little I know, and how little I will know no matter how much more I read! There is a world out there that I can't even begin to fathom, let alone acknowledge! I can only hope I will pick up more and more books on rivers and absorb as much as I can about them until I run out of patience if not interest!
I think I am being hard on this unplanned weekend drive. The 6 hours of continuous music back and forth, and the company of fun people should have done it! I think it did! At least the people did! :) But, I need to go back and do some more soaking up! Not now! The hollowness is still raw! Maybe when I am ready for Syracuse, and not when Syracuse is ready for me!
