Post 121

Weehoo, man--wee hoo.

Kierkegaard said, "the task must be made difficult, for only the difficult inspires the noble-hearted." That's probably a terrible thing to say to someone stuck in a mineshaft, but now that I'm finally seeing a light at the end of my tunnel, it makes me feel pretty good--ya know, it was painful, but now that I know it won't be endless, I don't mind the pain so much.

I'm a fairly impulsive person, I guess; I really enjoy thinking that I'm not, but I really am. I'm given to bouts of euphoria and depression, and I often go through phases where every day is either the best or worst day of my life--sometimes, the same day can be both, switching halfway through, occasionally several times.

With that in mind, I should probably take my own thoughts with a grain of salt, and you may considering carrying a shaker....

I'm taking a Linguistics class. It just started today, but I'm already completely obsessed with it. I love it so passionately that it's almost ridiculous. In fact, tomorrow morning, I'm gonna change my major to English Language (which is essentially Linguistics For People Who Only Care About English).

I could rave all about how exciting this is--I finally have direction in my schooling!!!!--but this isn't really the sort of blog where I tell you much about my personal life except when I think that it can relate to you somehow, so I'm content to say no more than, "Hey! Finally this little butterfly is showing some semblance of decisiveness!"

Here's the (hopefully) universally applicable part of this:

In Post 97, I told you all about how all my plans and goals for the future were completely decimated. It was frightening and almost devastating. Though there were some exhilarating moments in the rush of uncertainty, I more often felt like I was being pulled down by some metaphysical undertow, no breath to be had. In the past couple weeks, I've been quite nearly despairing (as evidenced, perhaps, by Post 117). I knew that I needed to just keep moving forward, but it's so hard to move forward when you don't know which way is forward. When all your options look equally unglamorous, it's hard to do anything but plop down in the mud.

But I have persevered in this dark tunnel, and now I can see a glimmering of light. Who knows, maybe it's just the sparks of my hammer against the stone walls, but it still gives me hope. And now that I have that hope--the hope that "forward" does exist--the journey doesn't seem nearly so bad as I thought, and I am indeed grateful that it has been difficult because I've learned a lot.

"the task must be made difficult, for only the difficult inspires the noble-hearted."