Blog 26: Tree Hugger's Delight

I am a little bit of a hippie in some ways, I'll admit. Peace and love, groovy. I do not actually hug trees and I am not a bleeding heart environmentalist, but I do so enjoy nature. For some reason, things like hiking and climbing up mountains provoke deeper thought than running on a treadmill or strolling through the mall. Henry David Thoreau, whose fame is partially due to the two years he spent living in a cabin in Walden Woods, says this about his experience:

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

I guess it's sort of pretentious to be quoting a transcendentalist writer (of a literary group I generally dislike), but I think that he really understood how much the sound of trees and the sight of wildlife can affect your mind. Sunday I was in Sparta, TN (the booneys) and yesterday I hiked the Chimney Tops (for you squares who aren't reading my spankin' new travel blog: The Nearsighted Nomad: A Tennessee Travel Diary). Both days I just felt totally at peace. I'm sure it has something to do with biology- cleaner air, less free radicals or something- but regardless, I have felt more reflective. I don't mean reflective as in I'm shiny or mirror-like, of course. I mean that I just feel like my entire mind is opened up just a little bit more. In the span of two days I have come up with several ideas which may in fact turn out to be fantastic. I feel inspired. I feel closer to God. Reading your Bible and praying are vital parts of Christianity, but I really think steeping yourself in His creation is a necessary third dimension to that understanding. If nothing else, it will remind you how beautiful He is. But in my experience, it also catalyzes thought-provoking conversations about the nature of belief.

Even if you talk the whole way, there is so much quiet in a natural setting. I think it just gives your mind the chance to breathe. It also forces your body to breathe more, if you're hiking like I did yesterday. Let me just tell you, I sounded like a freight train. haha, The Chimney Tops Trail is a steep route. But I have to say, one of my favorite ways to bolster a faith that can move mountains is to spend time up in the mountains.

Blog 26: Psychic Wannabes

The push to actually write this blog (on a topic that has been churning in my mind for years) actually inadvertently came from a funny comment made by someone else. I can come up with things myself, of course. But I've always been good at saying things other people don't want to put out there. It's mostly because, though I sometimes have tact, I tend to push the envelope a little much. I've made a lot of people mad over the years. That said...well, I'm just gonna say what I want to say anyway. I'm not sure if it's a good or bad quality. Maybe a bit of both.

One thing that I'm sick and tired of is people's predilection for talking about end times. Maybe they are around the corner (I seriously doubt that is the case), but "frankly, Scarlet, I don't give a damn." I don't mean to sound reckless or like a shallow-thinker. I consider the importance of things just as much as any fire-and-brimstone fanatic. And yet, I tend to believe that whether apocalypse is tomorrow or a million years from now, we should be living our lives in the correct way so that we don't have anything to worry about. I don't need to dwell on tomorrow, because like Matthew 6:34 says, "Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." But I find that people aren't content with that--they always want to believe themselves to be seers of the future. So they spend (in my opinion) way too much of their quiet times finding biblical proof that they are "in the know" about the end of the world. We were discussing this next verse in college group the other night, using it to discuss looking at the state of our hearts (rather than to predict end times), but it provoked some thought. Here it is:

2 Timothy 3

Perilous Times and Perilous Men

 ¹ But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: ² For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, ³ unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, ⁴ traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, ⁵ having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! ⁶ For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, ⁷ always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Some people would use this to say that we are living in end times. Whitteny read it, then said "In the end times, human beings will act...like human beings. You gotta watch out for that shit!" Maybe crass (what's a bit of bluntness between friends?), but definitely hilarious...and true. Humankind has always been that way. If you take a little look through history, you'll notice that we haven't really gotten more sinful or less regretful of our actions. Fact is, we mortals have generally just sort of always sucked. People have been screaming about signs of the last days since Jesus was on earth. But guess what? No one knows the day. No one knows the hour. I just think it's more productive to put our energies into something else--like, I don't know, learning about other things that we need to know as opposed to splitting hairs and bickering about things we can't know. Did you know there are actually people who argue about whether Adam had a bellybutton? Is that truly an integral part of your theology?

If knowing that end times are tomorrow would completely change the way you live--maybe you aren't living right in the first place. I tend to pick apart everything and everyone. I'm very critical (more so of myself), and I don't always get good vibes from every sermon/devotional/lesson I hear, but I thought that Pedro (our college group leader, for those of you just tuning in) made an excellent move in using this verse to say that we should examine our hearts rather than using it like a crystal ball indicating the state of affairs. We should, very well, be honest with ourselves--but not because the world might end. We should do it because the stakes are much, much higher than that. We should do it because we passionately desire to do what is righteous, period.

Blog 25: Sad Songs and Sippy Straws

(I wrote this blog last night but was unable to post it, just so the tenses and commentary make sense to you)

I planned on going to sleep awhile ago. I'm pretty tired, but I just feel like writing--even though I kind of posted a blog this morning. I've had a fairly good day and I've been really happy. But I'm convinced there's something in us that just wants to be sad. I see it all the time: people living good lives who just wallow in soap-opera-melodrama emotionally. I think that's why we do it--we want our lives to be more interesting, more passionate--like a TV show. It's the cause for some whiskey rampages and for a lot of shallow romances. It's probably the reason I'm depriving myself of sleep and listening to sad music and reminiscing (while also making run-on sentences, apparently). And objectively, I wonder if my attachments to people have been quite as strong as they seemed or if it's just the out-of-work actress in me looking for some attention. "The heart is desperately wicked, who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9) I think I know what I feel and have felt, but I think a lot of us are deceived by our own hearts.

I can have everything in the world going for me and still sit down at night, head in hands, and wonder about the past. But I've found that one of the best things I can do is try to watch myself, the way an outsider would, and try to determine the cause. It's rarely just what you think it is. We manufacture reasons to be dissatisfied all the time. Honestly, I think I hunger for trouble. There's an urgency I've always had that seems wasted on my mundane life. I think I was built for life-and-death, stormy situations. It's kind of messed up, I guess, but I thrive on them. I want to fight and run and come to the brink of breaking until I do something worthwhile and then find a new adventure. I want to laugh and weep and scream and dance and save lives. Maybe I'm just rambling now, courtesy of my jumbly, tangly-tired thoughts. In any case, I guess it's been kind of an epiphany figuring out that these things I've felt weren't great love and loss and tragedy. They were just vanilla inconveniences in a kid's life. That's why I always bounced back quickly, sans one situation. Even so, we're all full of tantrums and pity-parties when nothing is really amiss.

One of my favorite things about sad music is that it makes you feel like you've taken part in some great, dramatic story. You've truly loved or found something wonderful and then had it ripped away. Maybe I get all teary-eyed at weird times like this because I'm subconsciously just trying to emulate "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning" by Frank Sinatra. Or there are epic, dynamic songs like "Cosmic Love" by Florence and the Machine that make me feel untamed in my sorrow. I would take wild grief over a stagnant life any day, I think. Is that crazy? I just feel like without experiencing incandescent happiness, fierce anger, and gut-wrenching anguish, we can't say that we have truly lived. But most of us never do anything important enough to get those extremes. So we counterfeit it in music and movies and terribly dull life situations which we pretend are much more vital to our lives than they actually are. We claim to need things that we absolutely do not--like a relationship or alcohol--simply because there's an inherent yearning for real, passionate, lay-it-on-the-line living in each of us.

I hope one of these days I get the real thing. For now, I've got my sad songs and fairytales.

Blog 24: If I Knew Then What I Know Now- (I wouldn't have learned a thing)

Some days I feel like a dumb kid, blindly muddling through the strange and new. But a lot of days, like today, I feel older than I should, and made wiser by my own past stupidity. There are so many things that I didn't know in my innocence. Experience is a cruel teacher, as they say (I think), and I wish there were other ways to know what I know. Regardless, I feel like taking inventory tonight. It would have been nice to remain naive and ignorant, in a way, but I can't completely regret that such is not the case. So what have I learned? I will tell you. To what purpose? I don't really know yet. I hope to find out one day.

I know how to write a screenplay. I know how to replace the alternator on my car (which I wouldn't have to do if Maurice wasn't constantly breaking down); for that matter, I know that even five, carefully-placed bungee cords won't hold down the hood of an automobile. I've learned that I can only play the cheerleader role for so long before my inherent sarcasm seeps through and I start making wise cracks. (p.s.- why does nobody use that term anymore? wese got us a couple a wise guys ova here!) I've found out that a lot of people really don't admire intelligence if it outshines their own and that, for the most part, guys especially like to feel like they're teaching you things instead of ever having it the other way around. I know now that I would rather spend a day being goofy, confident, and wistful about singleness with my best friend than pass any time with a half-hearted flatterer or some guy who strokes my ego by thinking he's in love rather than just following his...nose. I've discovered over time that the easiest way a person can lose my interest is to cling to me, and the second easiest is to ignore me. I've kind of begun to view my life from a humorist point of view, like when I notice that my "suitors" constitute a parade of d-bags, and sometimes I've just got to smile and wave from the lead float in the procession.

I know the stale, tell-tale scent of a stoner and that no affection is worth competing with a drug or its symptomatic apathy. I have seen firsthand that grudges only destroy the grudge-holder, while those who inspired it walk free. I recognize that some friendship does not last. You take and give all you can, and then let it go at the appointed time. Other friends may remain forever, if you are one of the lucky ones who has found both depth and a person who can understand you in it. I know the difference between a good kisser and a guy who thinks he is a good kisser. And for that matter, I easily perceive the difference between boys and men, intelligence and someone who isn't as smart as he or she imagines him/herself to be. I see motives before I see actions, and usually think everybody has an angle. I am conscious of the fact that of all the males I have ever met, I have only known a handful of actual men. I've learned not to settle and come to terms with the fact that such determination probably means I will end up being a crazy cat lady, albeit one with humor and smashing good looks. ;)

I've picked up a couple tricks on a car battery that won't be jumped and how to finagle it so it will.
I've figured out some easy ways to reupholster pretty much all the furniture I own and how to scavenge for the materials to fill a new apartment on a budget. I've noticed that some fruit twice-tasted is bitter and that growing up causes things you found enjoyable before to seem lackluster at best. I have manipulated and I have been manipulated, and I'd really rather not be on either side again. I've learned that, as fancy as I want to be, Cheetos will probably always be one of my favorite foods. On that note, I know that I really like to eat and would not cut out culinary enjoyment to be skinny. I've gotten to the point where I love working out for the fun of it, and to be strong, rather than having it driven by a need to look "better."

I know that sometimes people with more experience should be listened to, because they've gained wisdom and can help you, and sometimes the reason they have more experience is that they're too stupid to learn from their first mistakes. I've learned to control my temper much better in the past, and to (usually) avoid hulking out or landsharking. I've seen that I can be both incredibly selfish and impressively unselfish, and it can change with the moment. I know that if I never kiss someone who has just smoked again, it will be too soon, and that I'll be damned if I'll be with a man-child who thrives on excessive video games and Natty Lite. Also, I've observed that the world seems to be run by overgrown frat boys (or wannabe frat boys) and the rest of us, until we rise above them into higher careers, will just have to clean up after them.

I feel like I've discovered so much more than this--but this is a good start. I feel much better now. haha. Don't regret things. Learn from them. And let the knowledge shape you into a more capable, independent person.