Reflecting

I like to close my eyes. As a little kid I was taught to close my eyes when I prayed. It was just something I did, something everyone did. But as I've aged (all of seventeen years--be wary of my wisdom), I have found that closing my eyes really helps me think. I'm pretty sure it's because my mind isn't so caught up in the senses. I mean, you can't shut off your nose or stop the feeling in your fingertips. You'll always taste stale nothingness lingering on your tongue, and plugging your ears doesn't do much. But closing your eyes--there's nothing. You see nothing. Just, nothing. And with that nothingness comes a whole extra horizon that your brain can now probe since it's not focusing on what it can see.

I even close my eyes while driving sometimes, normally when I reach a particularly inspiring realization or meaningful lyric. It scares me a little that I unintentionally endanger my life like this, but I guess it just shows my focus on thought and reflection.

One of those eye-closing, breath-escaping-your-lungs moments came today while watching a Nooma video on youtube. It was called Today. I had seen it at Border's earlier this morning and happened upon it on youtube today, so I watched it.

Life isn’t static, is it? It ebbs and it flows. And people grow up, and move away and graduate and lose their jobs. And people that you love die. And some people get married and others don’t. And some get divorced and some get cancer. And things aren’t how they were... So may you accept the past for what it is. May you celebrate what needs to be celebrated and grieve what needs to be grieved and then may you receive from God a new spirit, one for here, now, today.

Rob Bell. Today. Nooma 17.

I think it was because this is something that I put in my autobiography, pretty much:

I had been becoming a little overwhelmed with life lately—AP and projects and starting tennis... Talking with Rachel just sort of made me realize how life goes. We all have our cycles. We all have those days where we want to die, where we lie in the shower and sob (apparently, it’s a common place to cry). And then we have the days where we’re living life abundantly, where everything goes perfect, and every breath is a blessing. There are days when we feel like we are a light into the darkness, but there are also days where we feel like the darkest of dark. Life is all about paradoxes—we are beautiful, yet horrible. Our hearts are heavy and they are light. We all have our vices, and we all have our hopes. This is just what life is. It isn’t constant, really. Aspects of it may be constant, but never life as a whole. It is always changing, always dynamic. And we are always changing. Things won’t always go our way. Yeah, life is hard, but that’s what makes us change, what makes us grow. It’s happening for a reason. Everything is going to flow together in the end for some grand and glorious purpose that we just can’t see. There is inspiration and depression. There is love and loss. There are days when you just stay home and watch a marathon of the Office and wonder if your Jim Halpert will ever act on his feelings and if the Roy Andersons of your life will ever just leave. And there are days when you go out and change the world.

Cute Office references aside, it's an inexplicable feeling when you find out that what you're feeling is what others are feeling. Humanity and emotions and love and hope and life itself are universal. There are days when we dread going in to work (hence the fact that I'm writing a journal when I should be leaving), there are days when life is abundant (also today), and there are days when we can just see (again, today).

This wisdom cannot possibly be from myself.
<3