once long ago they told you to paint by numbers
4/22


--

So it's time for something a little different. Mainly a little bit about school, and then a little bit about actual learning:

This semester's rapidly coming to an end--I'm more or less glad for the fact, even though to tell the truth.. aside from the people I know outside there, some of the profs and other people I didn't truly know well I'll actually miss. It's like by the time you've gotten used to your surroundings and the people around you, just as quickly the hourglass runs out and it's time to pack up.

But with the end of this one, it marks the equivalent of two years of primarily science and math credits, straight-up, all over eachother. And I have more or less weathered and done well in them all.

What this illustrates to me?

I have this down. It isn't any wonder to me, really, that these aren't subjects that come easily for me: they require different sets of skills to work with, different paces, a different kind of attention to devote, and a different work ethic to drive through. If it were that I could reorganize things in me to reap the benefits of having a natural draw to them, I would--I know that I'd be a far different person for them, and that extends beyond any plain classroom and all the meager benefits to gain in there. I have no such desires to wish time and circumstance away however, for at this point in it all - I have no need precisely to even start on such a foolish and useless path.

I know myself well, and now more than ever: I know my weaknesses, I understand my strengths and virtues, I grasp how I could be better without some of the sore points, likewise I see how I could be -worse- without some of the good things. This is in no systematic tallying way... it is merely acknowledging facts, in specific terms - no more, and no less. I think there is a default answer that everyone wants to give and expects out of someone else in turn is a yes, to these questions: are you content with yourself? are you happy with who you are? do you feel up to the tasks you have for your time? living your life, are you comfortable with what you've been given to work with?

I am, however. The question itself is a gauge--and to that I say, I've all the confidence in myself that is appropriate for a person to have, without stepping erroneously and grievously into self-delusion, arrogance, or pride. I feel the current of my own life and I'm not at all afraid of what is out there to be done or what may come.

And yet being sure of what I am doesn't erase the knowledge of what I -could be-; no, am yet to be--how could it? How awful a thing, to not be aware - and we all are by degrees - or be capable of for a moment admitting to yourself, if anyone, where your foundations and outerlying structure can be reenforced? worked on? bettered? And in earnest? In a place where selling yourself to people - to employers, to acquaintances, at times even to friends or family or lovers, is necessary, for some that knowledge can have no room and so they decide to bury the things that they decide can't be turned to an advantage. They leave it by the roadside somewhere that may never be revisited in their soul's eye again, forgotten like any irretrievable period in your life; for all you have is now and ahead.

So it dies, but so dies with it what they have the power to turn in themselves. They gain in a sense, but they don't actually become better in any way if they're committing to living a part of their lives in survival mode when it comes to what they risk. There is, literally, nothing learned or changed, and in bending they haven't gained at all.

And over the course of this whole entry I've actually diverged from the original point that I set out on making. But my point, both the first and the new one: I've gotten this far, I've dived into some of the toughest spots academically for me, and while those gains are miniscule in all truth, what I've proved to myself -via- that in other areas.. is worth it's weight in gold. I understand why it's been necessary to tackle and now, from here, where to take it.

The only other point to make here, tied to the first and largely to myself:

Now to spend some time breaking down some other, less defined, but far more vital walls at hand. I am not ready just yet--there is too much else for me to get out of the way right now--but to steal someone else's line, there is in the rafters, in my heart that "yes, nearby"