In 24 hours you'll have accomplished a few other things, maybe a chemistry lab, maybe some studying for the three midterms you have in the three day span. In the next 24 hours you're going to think about her at least 1440 times. In the next 1440 minutes you're going to do more homework than you did in your entire stay in high school, and you're going to think at least once every minute about how you let her go. In the next 86400 seconds you're going to have listened to your new iTunes playlist over at least 6 times, and you're going to remember never to regret anything you do, and never give up on what you believe is right.
Sir, In 8.64E+07 milliseconds you could be a whole new person.
With all the time in the world like this you start to see things move so much more slowly, only to find that the clock kept going the same speed. Everyone moves a little bit slower, procrastinating in the way that only a university student can, yet the clock ticks ticks ticks at the same constant pace that it always has. Or organs and our skin all oxidize at the same exponential rate that is specific to our own body and our blood pumps through and back through our veins with the appropriate gait. Yet because everything goes so slow, we feel immortal, and we feel like nothing we do could ever change the way future might turn out.
Sir, it's not right to think about regret.
There's going to be a crossroads soon, it's not like I can't feel it coming on. I feel like I have some sort of empathy with the world around me that for one reason or another causes me sense when people are slowly going to form cliques around me and I'll be left to use my pity to try to attract some clique of my own. It's the part of me that I've always been really scared of admitting to. I'm not some one who can adapt well, it's more or less an accept me or leave me out to dry kind of mentality. But there's one problem with being like that and being here.
Sir, it appears you're stuck in high school.
If I could just be back home, I could be the same way, because all of you still think the same way, you're all still the same people, and I can't associate you with people here. I'm sorry, to everyone back home, but you're all so different, you all belong to the mentality that I love and cherish so much, yet at the same time, I fear in my adaptation here that my scope of your emotions will begin to elude me and I'll change. I could be over analyzing, and I could be a little bored. For once, maybe I'm right? (Sir, that's a scary thought you'd be best not indulging people with).
I sound like a self proclaimed conspirator. The inside of my being and my emotions being a constant changing state, and my conscious their terrorist, or rather, their inconvenience. My inner thoughts causing trepidation in every moment to the struggling countenance that wishes to remain real and unchanged.
Sir, you should just go get some air, this is all too much to try to think about all at once.
Sir, it's best you stop wondering.
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2 comments:
If you feel like you have an empathy for the people around you, then you do.
It's a gift only a few people share. Some days it might feel like a curse, because you pick up so much of the undercurrents of others' emotions. But it's not something to be afraid of. It's part of you.
It's the thing that will set you apart from others, making you think you've gone crazy, but making you incredibly powerful when you learn how to channel it.
Some days you'll be deliriously on top of the world, experiencing everything on a molecular level. Other days you'll be confused and frightened and maybe in despair because it's all too much. And sometimes it is all too much. And then, it's time for a bit of a retreat and some reflection.
It's the thing that will draw people out of themselves and open themselves up to you, in time, when you learn how to use it.
The key to using it?
Look behind the words people say to the reasons why they say something.
Asking people about themselves is the first step, and then ask them why they think they feel a certain way and just listen.
People have inner wisdom...but what ends up happening is that are afraid of looking within too deeply. When you compassionately invite people to talk about themselves (and most people love talking about themselves) and you patiently listen to whatever it is they say without judgment, you draw them to yourself and you help them reflect on their experiences.
People fail to look within for their inner wisdom. They distract themselves with drugs, drinking, casual sex (and by the way all sex is not created equal, there are forms of deeply meaningful, soulful-kinds of intimacy).
College is notorious for providing such superficial distractions. A little distraction is harmless, but don't change who you are to fit in. You have a very unique perspective and gift.
You will eventually draw others like yourself to you. We tend to pick this trait up in others [ask me how I know ;) ].
Casey
One quote my dear friend (who was a very existential accounting major) always told me when we'd wax philosophical into the wee hours of the morning,
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
~ William Shakespeare
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