Good Words

I died for beauty but was scarce

Adjusted in the tomb,

When one who died for truth was lain

In an adjoining room.

He questioned softly why I failed?

"For beauty," I replied.

"And I for truth, the two are one;

We brethren are," he said.

And so, as kinsmen met a night,

We talked between the rooms,

Until the moss had reached our lips,

And covered up our names.

- Emily Dickinson

Inescapable Uncertainty

I suppose I simply need to embrace my many assignments with a sort of feverish motivation...which I know I can do, I've done it before...but I find that my mind is wandering far more than it used to . My focus slips out the window and drifts toward the in-concrete images and emotion bouncing around inside of me, so intangible that I have trouble describing them. I have not yet decided whether this change in focus ability is acceptable or not...is it a good thing?

I feel that I am at a very uncertain point in my life.

I have so many opportunities before me, and I am so afraid that in choosing one path, I destroy another. In one moment I want nothing more than to contend myself working in a lab, observing the subtleties of microscopic life and bending to my creative will...and the next moment I am seized bin a desire to devote myself to a life of structural design, lavishing in the beauty of mathematics. The ferocity of these different passions scares me. I want so much out of this life...how can I ever choose how to life it? What if I am supposed to be an architect, and I end up stuck in some lab mixing chemicals with no use to the world? And what if I am meant to be a biomedical engineer, and i get stuck slaving over designs never to be appreciated? Uncertainty terrifies me. It is the reason that I am so intimidated by death and so in awe of mathematics... Perhaps the solution is to devote myself, body and soul, to a single idea. But what idea?

Doubt plagues me. It's somethings sticky, that I can't seem to scrub from my skin, no matter how carefully I try.

It's why I stayed with Joe for so long. I felt so secure in the certainty of my love for him, and our future together. In realizing that I was trapped by him, I lost the certainty that kept me comfortable...and now I am grasping for it.

I can focus on the certainty of my class assignments and their due dates, and that satisfies me for a while, but not for long. I have found that I am a person driven to think in terms of wide concepts...I have a need to understand the larger philosophy of a situation...see the big picture, if you will. Reductionism, which is a common practice in modern scientific research, observes a small detail. This is important...

But when all of these details come together, properties emerge that were not present within the individual details...it is startlingly beautiful, the properties that one sees when small details are combined. From the basic molecules of Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, and Phosphorous, comes the remarkable form of the human body...from single colors of paint comes a beautiful work of art...from single instruments and notes come an entity which can turn emotion into sound. I rejoice in the subtleties of the whole, and so I am not content to live my life in small detail...I can't just focus on the small steps, like my assignments or classes.

I suppose that I am just struggling to define my passion in one elegant way. I don't life thinking of my interests in a scattered, disjointed bundle...because I know they are unified by something...but what? I'm trying to define my soul, I think. Solve it, like some sort of integral problem from calculus. Is this possible? Is this desirable? I don't know.

I think that I do feel some sort of certainty for one aspect of my being...My soul is akin to that of an artists', I think. I am compelled to create beautiful and profound things with the abilities that I have. I cannot draw, or paint, or sculpt, or play an instrument, but I can understand intricate mathematical concepts and biological relationships...and so I will draw on these abilities somehow, in order to express myself. How I will do this, I do not know. I wish I did, so that I could start now.

I want nice soft lighting, and I want it to be nighttime all the time, except for sunrises and sunsets. I don't want to leave except to go to classes that I love and want to go to...and go hiking in the mountains or explore interesting places. I don't want to force myself to try and understand material that I don't comprehend at all, and am not interested in. I don't want to have to try and prove my intelligence, or worth , by being active in the most things in the best way. I don't want to have to prove that I can have an intelligent conversation with someone...I just want to have one. I don't want to constantly be confronted with my future and be forced to compete for the outcome of my life. I just want to live. I don't want to have to fight to live the way that would make me happiest. I don't want to have the responsibility of choosing whether or not to have a family. But I do. And I do have to compete, and I do have to prove, and I do have to try to understand complex material that I don't even care about. And I am feeling exhausted. All I want to do is walk around the blacktop, around and around, everyday, collecting good rocks. And all I want to do is walk on good mountains and travel all around the world, and read good books, and find good people. I am tired of this life style. It is exhausting. And stressful. I feel as though everyone around me is more competent, more driven, more intelligent, and better spoken than I am. And I feel like I have to push myself at every moment to do better, and to be better.