On Life . .

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams; live the life you imagine."
-- Thoreau

My good friend also keeps a blog.
It is called Avoid Reality. We had a great conversation a few weeks ago on blogging, and more generally on the idea of avoiding reality. Many things are difficult to grasp, and many more are even more difficult to accept. The reality is, reality -- life itself -- can be and is difficult, painful, worthy of escape, perhaps, but not, in my opinion, worthy of aversion.

Another good friend of mine, sort of my mentor, gave me a wonderful card at my college commencement last spring. It included a quote by Thomas Paine: "What we obtain too cheaply we esteem to lightly." In other words, anything worth doing is difficult. In other words, that which is easy we will take for granted and eventually fuck it up.

My life has been pretty crazy since I left the cozy confines of college in the summer of 2007. Even more so since I abandoned the cozy confines of my pentultimate ex-girlfriend nine months ago. The first 18 months of my So Called Adult Life. I remember when my teachers in middle school and high school use to tell me how easy life was for us at that age, and how much more difficult it was to be and adult. Pshaw, I thought, as probably everyone does.

Over the last nine months my life has been like Cedar Point, America's Roller Coast. When I was riding low it was often very hard to see the way up. When I was riding high there was no ceiling to how high I might soar. But life is only like a roller coaster ride if you decide to see it that way.

The fact is there is always something unexpected or unforeseen somewhere up the track of your life, that course, which, depending on who you read, may or may not already be laid out in front of you. What I think we need is fortitude in the dips, and diligence in the swells.

But always embrace what is your life. Don't hide in booze, TV, or the internet. I mention these three things because these are what I chiefly use to avoid reality. But reality is all we got, and when I really think about it, its alright.