A View From The Outside

As the semester approaches its end, I look back in retrospect at my first year at IU.\nThe first thought that crosses my mind regards the idea that one can actually put life "on hold" while pursuing some specific goals or plans -- going to grad school, traveling abroad or working on a temporary job to save some money.\nUpon deeper thinking, it strikes me how ludicrous this proposition can be. No matter what you decide to do with your life, it is always an experience that you will be living. No matter where you go, or what you do, you will always be there.\nYou cannot open a parenthesis in life. \nI have learned that no matter what you are doing, or how you see it, any and every moment of your life is a part of you as a whole. It is an experience that will be incorporated into the stories you tell later, to the ideas you have later, to the things you do later.\nI had the habit of thinking that I could "parenthesize" some periods, carry on a project and then go back to my old life. It's always hard to realize that one cannot do this. \nI was once told a quote from the Greek philosopher Heraclitus. He said that because things move on a continuous flow, no man bathes twice in the same river; he will not be the same man and the river will not be the same river. I think that now I understand how far reaching this quote is.\nEverything changes. But can we deal with that?\nThere's an interesting classification for great works such as "Breaking Away" or "The Catcher in the Rye." I learned their themes are listed as "coming-of-age." I never thought that such a topic even existed. But it is interesting to realize that part of our own maturing process is the fact that we must face the transformations of the things we are used to, whether we like it or not. Whether we WANT it or not.\nIt is hard, for example, to move to a different location, start a project in life and expect things to be the same when you go back. They will not be. Maybe your home will no longer be there. Maybe your friends will no longer be as you left them. Perhaps the best thing to do as time passes is to learn to enjoy the process of transformations of life. \nAlong these lines, another reflection that I made concerns how we waste time complaining about the little things in a moment. Sometimes we get sucked into the problems that are specific in time, or sometimes we pick on things just because we feel that we need an escape valve for our bigger frustrations -- seeing things we are accustomed to changing or going away. \n OK, it is true that we often need a catharsis, something that allows us to detoxicate from the frustrations that accumulate as days go by. Bitching about a class can actually be helpful. The problem arises when we start to enjoy being tetchy. I don't believe this is quite the way to go.\nI've learned we have to play life by ear, learn to improvise.\nI think that the best we can do as we grow up is comprised of more than coping. It's about living. It doesn't matter if we are no longer the same person bathing in the same river, so long as we can still take pleasure in the dive.