And there you go. 20.

Am I supposed to feel different somehow? Will I grow more strands of curling white hair? Will biological changes occur in increments beneath my skin, a sign that I have reached the so call ‘advanced’ age of twenty? Messages and birthday wishes are already coming in. And I am grateful to know that I am remembered.

It’s no different from any other day. But at the same time it is; it is different, and I have no words to explain why, why, why but that it simply is. It is a day; we are in constant growth every day. A birthday merely functions as a marker of comparison to previous birthdays to show how little or how far one has grown.

But objects, and I suppose days as well, hold meaning when we attach meaning and memories to it.  

But that's the thing you see. I am here. I am alive. And that is ridiculously daunting and scary and frightening and every other adjective at the same time. 

I feel like the word 'static'. Stationary and fix, stagnant. Yet also meaning a build up of charged energy. A buzz of white noise, all talk. 

note to self.

Sometimes it’s too easy to forget that you are not the only one in the world with problems. Oh logically you know that everyone has baggage. But it’s like we are walking through a brightly lit, tiled tunnel at the airport and you can barely pick out what is at the end. You can barely make out the blur of figures and signs under the fluorescent lights. There is the monotone female voice mumbling over the speakers again that a plane full of people is about to leave. And you have all your baggage with you, everything you think necessary (and even those things that are unnecessary and you have grown out of, but you just might need anyway incase) to the formation of you. The weight of it all is heavy and pulls on your muscles. They ache. And you are looking at the floor and thinking of all you have to do because it is too easy to get caught up in our world. It’s too easy to think of the weight bearing down on you as you drag your feet one step at a time. Too easy to forget that just about everyone else has their own heavy burdens to carry. The sound of your creaking knees is only loud in your own ears. And so while you know, logically, that everyone carries their own baggage, and that yours is certainly not the heaviest, it’s easy to get caught up in your own struggles. Too easy to think, “Why me?” or “Why isn’t there anyone here to help me?”

And at some point you are going to have to deal with all those bags. You can’t ignore them, because they will pile up. You can’t ignore the problems away.

Sometimes, you just have to wake up and deal.

To incorporate Mahler’s theory, it’s easy to get caught up with the idea that your world is the world. Isn’t that how we see the world as infants and children? It’s easy to say “well of course I am right. I have experiences in my life that prove my ideas.” It’s easy to think of ourselves as the exemption, as special or that the situation is different because it’s ‘me’. Because that’s just it. It’s us. To us, our problems seem bigger, magnified to a greater degree than the truth because it involves us. There is this mental fallacy that the world revolves around you. It does not. It never did. It will continue to function without you just fine.

Sometimes you need to wake up. You have issues. You will have more issues. Deal. 

I could do without the confusion, thank you very much.

The other day I was introduced to a group of people who have been encouraging the concept of Carpe Diem on someone particularly close to me. The recent men in her life have been telling her to stop worrying and nagging about the future so much, and just live. Stop being such a coward, and live life as it comes for the greatest pleasure and enjoyment.

And these are just my two cents: The current take of Carpe Diem as seizing the day and living as though there is no tomorrow? It has now become rather hedonistic. Few people truly get it. You say it is your life motto, but do you get what it implies? For me, it’s not an excuse card to do what you like. Let us not fool ourselves that life is without its consequences.  Carpe diem quam minimum credula postero – "Seize the Day [or pluck the day, if you want to be particularly accurate], putting as little trust as possible in the future.”  It’s to live knowing that the future is uncertain; about not dumping all our eggs and hopes in the concept of ‘there’s always a tomorrow’. But it is not about disregarding the thoughts of the future in its entirety. Our actions are not always solely our own to decide; ourselves and pleasure are not the only variables; the right thing isn’t comforting to do; and every action has a carryover effect on our selves and others. Ripples in a calm lake. Yes, live your life. But there is no need for uncaring, unnecessary recklessness. Know the consequences and if you are willing to risk them, so be it. Sometimes the benefits outweigh the risk. So do it. But understand that you still have to face yourself in the light of the new day.

And if you live life on this merry chase for the next high, what do you do on your greatest day? Because nothing will top it. How would you keep it taint free of the sufferings and worries that will come? Because the only way I can think to preserve that feeling would be to end on a high. To end it, so that the low never comes.

We never know if we will see tomorrow. But that isn’t an excuse; that isn’t a free license to do as you wish with disregard to everything else. Even in death, our actions have consequences on the living.

Today at class a student and I went through some etymology. And I just wanted to share this one. 

Kaleidoscope: from the Greek kalos (beautiful) + edios (form) + the English –scope (more at idyll). 

What a beautiful definition to explain the time spent in wonder looking at an array of reflected colours and patterns.

I had a chance to meet Tracy Alloway a few years back (she is the daughter of the principal at my homeschool and an expert in Working Memory), and I really admire her work as a psychologist. I was reading one of her books today, and I learnt of several new learning disorders. One in particular reminded me of a conversation I had once with JuYi; we were discussing if there was a correlation between messiness and clumsiness in a bus. A person with Developmental Dyspraxia, also known as Clumsy Child Syndrome, has difficulty in fine motor skills, body movement, and coordination. The disorder does not affect their intelligence, but they do have problems with retaining information in short term memory. Among many other things (they may have difficulty with languages), they would have difficulty organizing their time, keeping track of instructions, planning, regularly misplace things and have trouble with tasks that require several steps. Their disorganized behavior resembles my idea a ‘messy personality’. It just struck me as interesting. Where would we draw the line between accepted levels of clumsiness and absent-mindedness, and an actual motor disorder? If a child can’t follow all the dance moves, constantly falls and confuses her lefts and rights, is she clumsy or suffering from some other problem? When is it a disorder? When it is disruptive to us? When it is disruptive to others? I can’t remember the other ways of looking at what is abnormal (which in itself is difficult when there isn’t an accepted definition of normal behavior). I should really look this up before classes begin. 

Nothing much to write, but I’m posting to clarify my earlier post. No I was not referring to the Bible, but to rather a series of books used to teach the students at the homeschooling centre I used to go to. I’m not disagreeing, or dissing their points, but merely saying that to me if you are going to make such arguments in a textbook than they should be solid arguments. Because kids are learning these stuff. Not all of them are Christian. But what’s more, for me, if you grow up on flimsy arguments on what you believe in than you have little substance to defend it, and are more likely to doubt or lose faith. I have come across many arguments and stands that I disagree with; that doesn’t mean they are out rightly wrong. If I were a non-believer studying the following excerpts, I would find it rather silly. In any case I want to clarify once again that I don’t believe in the theory of evolution, and am a Christian. I am merely saying that as an argument for Christianity being ‘superior, popular, stable’ (as stated in the book) than other existing theories, then the following argument sounds rather weak to me. I actually think it has simplified matters far too much. If I met an believer in evolution and sprouted these points, I would to my own ears, sound idiotic. I might be overtly critical though, and as such, this is purely my own personal opinion.