I let alone the
frayed ends of dreams cut short by morning. It adds to the realism and the
mystery of it all. I am an atheist-- my only faith is my faith in unobscured
truth. I don’t pretend to know much.
I’m surrounded
by a dynamic ocean of seven billion, of whom I have a solid understanding of
only about a hundred-- “All The Others” lie outside the edges of my map. Even
then I can’t name the favorite colors of those I know-- (some people even like
orange!) --much less anticipate their thoughts. I do the best I can, of course,
but I can’t speak French and my dad can’t speak Starcraft. When will girls take
the feathers out of their hair? It’s like birds knowing which way is south. I
can’t begin to feel it.
Epistemologically
speaking, I’m shipwrecked in my skull and everyone else is somewhere at sea,
beyond my reach. They, or, for you, we, are chaos in action-- we can’t be
forecast, analyzed, or mapped. Tomorrow is an avalanche of seven billion dice.
Care to bet? Care to appeal to the unpredictable?
On my map, the
greatest obstacle to communication is seasickness. When we meet new people, we
show off a bit but limit ourselves to seem predictable to each other. There’s
no security in befriending enigmas. And besides, meaningful exchanges are hard
to facilitate. Sympathy, analysis, humor, and enthusiasm are of varying
importance to different people-- and it’s really quite the challenge to
communicate universally. Nonetheless, I see tremendous value in what I do. An
individual who can’t make himself or herself heard and understood is powerless
to make the world a better place. Artists, writers, and we speech and debaters
all speak to the void that most people shy away from, the void of crowd surfing
and angry boos.
There are far
greater challenges than high school can offer waiting beyond the edges of my
map-- languages, controversies, books, and infinite other forays into darkness.
I plan to charge further into the great unknown. Wish me luck.
