Shadow Sk8rs and the Dying Life

As I sit here, dying of some inexplicable illness, I figure that I might as well write something, since I have nothing better to do, or at least no ability to do something better. Being sick makes me mad. I’m drinking soda, and I hate soda. [I wonder what percentage of the U.S. calls it “pop” and which percent calls it “soda” and which ridiculous percent takes the time to call it “soda pop.”] But I think the soda might actually be helping. I at least feel better than I did at 2:33 this morning, and definitely better than I felt at 4:30 this morning. There’s a blessing in disguise though… I did need cans to decorate my sister’s getaway car, and I was just going to dump soda out. But now I can use these!

This is a sweet find. I love graffiti. They designed these to make sense when the shadows are at certain points—I am amazed by the vision that some people can have… this has turned into a world of interaction, and I get pretty dang excited when someone creates something of which you can discover new aspects. Modern graffiti often accomplishes that.

Whatever happened to my writing days? I used to write all the time. Granted, it was often for school, but I still enjoyed it, and I didn’t feel like I was really being forced into anything. Writing essays sucked at first, because most teachers don’t know what a real essay is, and they teach you all wrong. My teacher of my junior and senior year was phenomenal. That’s when I really learned to analyze things, and now I intentionally overanalyze everything (including very specific definitions of feelings, experiences, perceptions, etc.), but I don’t really care. I enjoy it. Someday I want to start writing semi-analytical biographies. I write short ones in my journals or elsewhere, because it’s more interesting than mere descriptions of behavior, and I am sometimes curious… writing things out helps me work through things until I can come to a [n often not conclusive] conclusion.

(proof that I loved to write, whether I could spell or not)

Sometimes I start writing out notes on things that I wish to address. That’s how “On Atlantis and Hell” was written—I started taking notes while I was listening to Atlas Shrugged. A collection of meaningful quotations from the novel was enough to inspire my written “philosophy.” I should post that essay to my blog. I currently wish to write on the topic of self-reliance. I wrote an essay on it in high school, based on the philosophies of Emerson and Thoreau, and I’ve decided that I should expand it, adding things I’ve since learned, and an entirely new aspect. I don’t know when I’ll get around to this—probably after my mission—but I will say that the most important consideration preceding the foreseen essay (the same consideration accompanying the original essay), is this: self-reliance is absolutely distinct from self-sufficiency. I think that people mistake one for the other consistently. I will leave that thought with you, and hope that you will consider it, and divine your own [not necessarily conclusive] conclusions.

Until my next dying moment, at least, and hopefully before.