#103 - swept up

let's face it, sometimes you just feel like this. well, like if you were about two inches high and you saw this picture rushing towards you. not much you can do, but hold your breath and pray that you'll come back up above the surface when the water recedes. but the worse part is when you do it to yourself, willingly. when you were a kid you'd plant your feet in the sand in front of the oncoming wave and wait for it to pummel you, then you'd fight to resist the pull of the water rushing back out. the funny thing is, the longer you could withstand the rushing waves the deeper you'd sink into the sand. sometimes doesn't it seem that the events of life smash through you like waves, and the more you withstand them, the deeper you sink? okay, well that was depressing, but...

...for every one of those pictures, luckily, there's one of these as well. the water recedes, taking with it the turbulence it created and leaving behind a smooth new surface. all the whitewater is gone and what's left is just ripples of what had come before. sometimes it's nice to start fresh, but then again, you're not really starting completely fresh are you? nope, you've experienced more, and hopefully learned more as well. so there will be a time when you get back to good... just not quite yet.

so maybe it's because i don't feel that i've had a great deal of experience in a lot of aspects of life that i probably should by now, i feel like kind of a late bloomer in certain areas of life, especially kinda the more social areas (but at the same time i feel like i've grown and matured very nicely in other areas, so there is some give & take, it's not all negative). so i've gotta keep in mind that i can learn and grow from every experience, nothing is worthless and, if nothing else, everything is an opportunity to learn and grow from, hopefully to be more prepared for the next opportunity... and that's exciting right? i should be excited about that. so i will... in theory at least.

ps - random shout out to mtv, they've got a ton of crap out there, but sometimes they get things very very right. example #1 - presidential discussions with ron paul, barak, and hilary. that's the right thing to do. with substance. and the candidate's willingness to not only appear, but spending substantial amounts of time and effort on the program gives me a little more faith about the country in general, to see people willing to put that forth, on mtv, for younger viewers, that's worth doing. example #2 - true life, i love this program, i just think it sends completely all the right messages to anyone watching, not just young mtv viewers. why? because it's extremely candid, personal, and not over-produced. successful tv is very simple i believe, and what better stories than life can be made up? tonight i just watched an episode about stuttering (by the way, really not a fan of the therapy strategies advocated by some of the "speech therapists" on the program... but that's a different story). i like the sincerity of the program and the way that it dives into the lives of young people who need to deal with the realities of life and what exists beyond the status quo. it shows trouble and complication, not all of which can be solved. it shows that people (no age distinctions needed) go through stuff, and really do necessitate having clinics and medical facilities and whatever other buildings and jobs that you'd prefer not to think that people need, but we do. i just think it serves a fantastic purpose in general... and maybe helps me out by providing a little bit of catharsis for me right now, haha.