a novel

i have a perpetual head ache. my feet are dirty, wet, and probably smell. most of all they're tired. i'm too warm or too cold. i want to be around people and i want to be alone. i feel like i wear too many masks to keep track of them all. they are starting to slip. it's the end of septemeber. my dreams are going unmet and my plans are being rewritten. i find myself stuck in habits that i might want to break, hanging out with people who i want to love, and staring at books i want to burn. my back is getting soar from perpetual stress, my heart is breaking from the pain i see all around me. and my soul is crying out for time to spend in god's arms. but there is joy. i am surrounded by love. i see the beauty in the rain. i learn that things happen for a reason. and more often than not, my tears are those that come with laughter instead of with sadness. if only i could get more sleep...

locke, hobbes, webber, marx, descartes... i spend my time reading the philosophes of the past. we debate their theories and compare and contrast their thoughts. we get good grades when we analyze them correctly. they dictate our learning. and i wonder, are they unique in their ability to think outside the box? have we buried ourselves in the coffin they created for us? can we think outside of their theories? is there such a thing as individual thought anymore? but then i go back to their words to find justification for my unique thoughts. as i quote rousseau in the fact that "all (men) are born free" to think on their own, i fall back once more into the intellectual coffin of western modernity. i cannot escape.

"...my summer was so-so... and yours?...." As people gather to talk about their lives, as voices raise and fall and laughter rages around the circles i find myself in, I wonder about the substance of our dialogue. I long to ask questions about faith, about politics, about reality, and instead find myself telling stories explaining the details of pointless things. "...i think i'm going to drown in all my reading..." What thoughts are running back and forth between your ears that aren't exiting your mouth? What questions about life are you bottling up? And what long stories are going untold? "...You take your foot in one hand and the nail clippers in the other and..." I'm frustrated by normalcy. I was expecting some earth shattering conversations. Am I living in the illusion that there are still earth shattering things to discuss? If I am, I'm having a hard time silencing the voices that scream in my head: WHERE IS THE CHALLENGE HERE? W...