moments

i have something of a pattern to my blog it seems. i try to mix up the posts--so i have a song, then maybe a poem, then something random, then a quote, then maybe something longer and more serious, then i feel like it's too heavy and i put something funny up of a sort. variety is good, right? i actually have a little post-it note of blog entries that i've thought of in the past and just jotted down to write out later. i only so often actually go to this list, but i suppose it's there if i want it as i sometimes do.

but then every so often i just get a feeling that i am supposed to write. i start typing without a very sure idea of where it will go or what i will say. this sort of writing also isn't always public--but sometimes i get the feeling that it should be. or i guess at least that i want it to be for whatever reason. there have been times when i've thought about starting a secret blog. of course if i had one you wouldn't know about it cause i wouldn't tell you. then again i must not because i'm writing on here right now. yes? anyway--this is one of those sorts of entries, the kind where the title comes after it's all written.

ready?


so i watched the super bowl tonight--but really didn't everyone? it was a good game. very exciting. the team i was rooting for didn't win, but that's ok because it was exciting--which is all anyone really asks for in the super bowl isn't it? the thing is though, after it's over it was just that. a couple hours of excitement that really doesn't provide any real lasting effect. oh maybe it would for a few days if say the chiefs won it. but even then for the amount of attention and emotional investment people put in their teams what is it all for? i don't mean to limit this to sports either of course.

i've been thinking about this a lot of late--this question: what am i living for? i feel like i've written about this on here before, but whatever. i think it's things like the super bowl, as well as so many movies, books, and really any story that makes us believe that life is about moments--or rather a moment. it's the climax, what everything builds to, how it all comes together and has some sort of beauty and meaning and purpose. but do moments satisfy? is it all worth it for those few moments? yet that is what we've come to believe life is all about. why do we sell the whole rest of our lives for so little?

the general rule in a story is that the denouement, the wrapping up after the climax, should be pretty short and complete. people have followed along till the moment of satisfaction and now they want to know that they can leave it without a feeling of incompletion. but this is not like life at all. "they lived happily ever after" is never the case--not because it can't be possible but because it is just dreadfully incomplete. other things happen and new challenges and questions and doubts and the story is never over. but we don't allow ourselves to be present, truly present, because we are always straining toward the next big moment or relishing in the last.

well that's just one thing that i know i don't want to be living for: moments. i feel like i could write 3 or 4 more full entries on other things that i think we live for in a lot of ways, and maybe i will in time. a couple of them are on my list. but for tonight i am just not really quite up to it.

so i guess this is the end of my random writing. i don't really know what it was i wanted to convey exactly. i suppose just to write something. i can't really seem to understand all the emotions that have been hitting me lately, or for that matter what my life really is right now. lots more thoughts come to mind from that but i think i better stop now and leave you just with a hearty "happy groundhog's day!"