didn’t sleep ’til dawn

I haven’t ranted much about college this year, but that’s probably because I hardly even consider it a legitimate opponent, anymore. It’s not worth my time to systematically oppose it and tear it down.

College is a quasi-reality. I feel like so much of what I do here; homework, class, etc. has no meaning beyond my tiny little experience. The reasons I’m here and the resulting actions I take have so little impact on the world writ large that I hardly feel I’m even a part of it when wrapped up in schoolwork. I sit here and spin my wheels, and nothing I do decides whether the earth plunges into the sun or not. Nothing I do decides the direction of humanity.

I suppose some people appreciate the lack of large implications and seriousness of their actions in college, as it acts as a cushion to guard against the cold hard world out there. But I just don’t feel alive without legitimate challenges, and the arbitrary troubles that class generates for me simply are not satisfying.

The more intensely I can pursue an endeavor, the easier and more fun it is for me. If something is dull, if it’s a complete drag, I simply can’t bring myself to work to my potential. What’s more, when I’m surrounded by tired people that hate their lives and hate their classes and whine that things are much too difficult, it really saps my energy. Like vampires, man. Straight up. I feel physically and mentally drained around these tired, lazy husks of skin, and there’s all too many of them in all my classes ever since I left the music department.

I thirst, always, to be surrounded by people that produce greatness. That doesn’t mean that people around me need to relocate mountains or mass-produce hovercars or anything of the like… it can be as easy as sewing flags for your club, researching the solar system to better your job at the planetarium, or amassing an anime video collection that can nearly be recorded in the terabytes. Stuff like that, my friends, is what pure love is, and I wish more people could understand.

I mean, this is what it means to be human. It’s all about how we manifest ourselves in our interests. Our activities take our energy and become who we are. It takes great effort to pursue the things you love, even, but when that effort becomes so great you don’t notice anymore, damn, you just float on the euphoric waves of your existence. It’s cool, to say the least.

You can’t approach work feeling tired and heavy. The question is never whether or not you should bust your tiny little ass in life, but where. Perhaps college is intended to be the laboratory where we decide what’s important to us. If, in the end, you are able to focus your energies into those things you love and enjoy doing it, then you have been successful. Maybe it’s music, or writing, or climbing, or coding, or dancing naked in fields of tall wet grass, or whatever. It needs to be an activity that requires your complete mental and physical concentration, and leaves you feeling glorious in its wake.

Pretty soon it doesn’t even matter that you’re working hard. You don’t realize you’re tired. You just do your thing, what seems completely inevitable given your passions, strengths and history, and it all works itself out.

In the end, everything gets done.