Thursday, February 19, 2009

A blessing and a curse

I just raced back to this site so that I could click "New Post" and start this on February 19th - instead of February 20th - so that I could say that I really have 1 month left in my first quarter century. And as I sit here, waiting for my iPod to upload all of the music I have just downloaded (iTunes is like my crack. It's dangerous. I can never stop at just a little bit of music. It's sick when you realize that you have over 1,000 songs on your iPod and you wonder where all your money went), I wonder...what exactly have I learned in the last 25 years, and what do I expect to learn in the next.

I have learned a lot, I can say that with a pretty good degree of assurance, but why then do I feel more and more like a toddler as time goes on? More and more...please excuse my use of this phrase...but more and more functionally retarded? I'm not trying to be funny, I'm using the words for their literal definitions. Arrested development. Functional retardation. I'm sorry, I might almost be 25, but I still can't help but laugh at the use of that phrase. See? Functional retardation. Evidence.

Anyway, I could probably type about this for hours, but I'll just give you the idea of the thought weighing on my mind and leave it at that for now.

This is what I'm struggling with - I am blessed. There's no getting around that. Yes, I'm cynical, I'm sarcastic, I'm a public pessimist but a private optimist. I just can't help but feel that I was meant to do more with the gifts that I was given. Is this the point in all of our lives when we stop for a moment to do an inventory check and catch ourselves wondering out loud, "Is this it?"

I don't mean to sound ungrateful. I only worry, sometimes, that the hand I was dealt was a blessing and a curse. I am lucky enough to know how lucky I am. Where does that leave me? What does our generation do now, after having been taught all our lives to push harder, reach higher, go further? Do we suddenly pull on the reins and say - No, that's enough, I think I'll settle down here and be comfortable? Who taught us that comfort, that satisfaction, was such a shameful concept? With great power comes great responsibility - what if you're sure you have the power, but not yet sure you can handle the responsibility?

The fact that I'm even thinking about this confirms something for me: I am thinking too hard. And I just reread that last paragraph and thought to myself, you're a whiny baby. I bet if I reread that in 25 years I will still think I was a whiny baby. So, to borrow some brilliance from Winston Churchill - maybe this isn't the beginning of the end. Maybe it's only the end of the beginning. At what point does it become unacceptable to consider yourself a child? I'm pretty sure I'm still getting away with it for now (right?), but at a certain point even I realize that ignorance is no longer bliss, and that it was never a defense against the law. How long can I get away with adolescence?

What if talent, intelligence, etc, are like gift cards, and if at a certain point you still haven't cashed them in, the powers that be assume you aren't going to, and their inherent value expires?

Yep, I need to put myself to bed.

I'll leave it on this note for tonight:
"I believe in the Kingdom Come
That all the colors will
Bleed into one, bleed into one
Well, yes I'm still running
You broke the bonds and you loosed the chains
Carried the cross of my shame, of my shame
You know I believe it,
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for"
(u2)

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