What's Gone Through My Head

So the school year is nearly over. I'm so close to the end and so much has happened:

• College. College is really not as most people put it off to be. College is just a place where people come together and drink together and create "brotherhood". "Brotherhood" where we can share about how we all got wasted and don't remember what happened last night. College is just a meeting ground for us to exchange booze and be happy. That's pretty much what I've gathered that college is. On the other hand, it has been an eye-opening experience. College is a place where knowledge can be gathered and shared together. What we put into it is what we get out of it. I've learnt so much from my work position in the VADER Lab, from my campus minister, and from my friends.
  
  
• Friendships have been made. Friendship, to me, is an exploration of yourself and others in a group community. To have true friendship, you must be willing to be pried open and be seen as you are. To It was a humbling experience. Now, I think it was worth it. The people I know now I hope I will maintain a relationship with for a long time.
  
  
• Grades. I've begun to realize that grades are not and never have been a measure of intelligence. Sure, the intelligence or rather the premature knowledge of a subject matter can make a class easier. It is about the effort that is put into it.
  
  
• Passion. Things are worthless if you aren't passionate about it. What good is it to you if you aren't passionate about something. So why bother doing something that you couldn't care less about? Why do something if you're just going to half-ass it up?
  
  
• God. God has become something real for me. It isn't this figurine that I can pull out of my pocket. No more, my conclusion about passion has led me to this. If I'm going to follow a god or something, I might as well do it wholeheartedly. If I don't, what's the point? There is no point.

Failure

We've all failed in something that we've done whether that be not properly knowing how to ride a bike, or having destroyed someone's expectations of you. Ironically, this is the thing that pushes me forward. When I fail, it prods me on to do better. However, when I excel, I grow lazy and prideful in what I've done. Perhaps, failure is our sign that we're only human. We can't do everything alone. However, as I think about it, failure is really just a perspective. As I watched the movie Friday Night Lights, this quote really hit me.

Coach Gary Gaines: Being perfect is not about that scoreboard out there. It's not about winning. It's about you and your relationship with yourself, your family and your friends. Being perfect is about being able to look your friends in the eye and know that you didnt let them down because you told them the truth. And that truth is you did everything you could. There wasnt one more thing you could've done. Can you live in that moment as best you can, with clear eyes, and love in your heart, with joy in your heart? If you can do that gentleman - you're perfect!

With that in mind, I think we can be perfect. Perfection is a thing that requires discipline. I suppose if we can attain perfection, it begs the question: who are we striving to be perfect for? Is it for ourselves or something more? At the end of the day, I doubt the world will really care if a perfect man died...

A Short Poem...

Glazed Eyes

There it stood under the stained glass window,
Peering down at us from its exalted position.
We searched those glazed eyes for a hint of humanity.
We found nothing.
Eyes are windows unto one’s soul, or so they say.
If this is true, these windows are boarded up.
Peer into them and see the emptiness, the lifelessness.
There’s no hint of compassion, no love, no life, nothing.
We’ve become actors, pretenders.
With a veil of deceit placed over our eyes.
A veil that we’ve put on ourselves.
We’ve become the best actors in the world.
We’ve convinced ourselves of our roles.
Do we realize what we’ve done?
What are we doing? Do we know? Will we ever?

This was spurred by one of my friends. So I wrote this as I thought about myself and the people around me. We've let things invade our lives. We worship things: religion, school, friends, relationships, acceptance. Whatever it may be, I'm sure have idols of all sorts. It's all so temporary.