Fortune and Karma Points

Channeling my Passion

            So I’m doing what I always do when I can’t seem to tie my thoughts down. It seems that I have reached another mini climax/crisis in my life. This quarter, this school year has been such a discovery process for me. This is the first quarter that I actually took classes in my major, and I finally feel like I’m meeting and associating with people who I actually connect with. That’s really nice.
            Now the major personal dilemma I’m stuck in is: what is my calling in life? What is my cause? Will I work for sustainable energy? Resource allocation for an NGO? Shall my commitment be to education? How about protecting and defending national and international human rights? Will I study the economy and fight for certain policy decisions? Or should I learn Arabic and work on conflict in the Middle East? What o what am I supposed to do? I am so overwhelmed with all the problems of the world; I’m not really sure what I’m most passionate about.
            When I was younger I used to fantasize/dream/picture a world existing in a glass geometric dome in which every product of the population would be reused, and energy would be boundless, retransferred, and recreated. I use to think up music sharing/buying schemes. That’s what I am- a thinker. I have all these ideas of how I want to change the world. The problem is, and this is what I have discovered in trying to make one of my visions a reality here at Ohio State, is that visions often evolve as the practicality of a situation is worked into the mix. That transition from idea to tangible reality has never been a successful process thus far in my life. I have never been able to act on any of my dreams. The reasons why are complex. To begin with, I had a lack of guidance, someone who I could communicate my goals to who might guide me through the process. I had little knowledge of the world, how it worked, and what I could do to make it work for me. I didn’t know that it was really possible to make my wishes come true until I learned that so many people have done it before- well at least that concept was never really salient to me until I saw real, tangible role models do it. And the last reason is that maybe my goals were too broad. I mean building a perfect ecological dome is kind of a big concept, and you have to start small. But this is what you get when you get a big picture person, trying to do a little picture puzzle. I never really bothered working out the details-fitting the puzzle pieces. It seemed that dreaming them would be enough and the far off possibility that I would do it served to fuel my ambitions.
            But I have reached an apex in my life in which dreaming is not enough, and I have to start working if I am ever going to reach my very lofty goals. And simply beginning itself can be so overwhelming. Where to do begin? Is it even plausible? How do I prepare myself for the challenges ahead? Before I do that, don’t I have to commit to one challenge over the other? I mean, you can understand my consternation, even frustration in trying to eke out a personal path to control my wild ambition. Right now my energies are too diffused by all the different paths it is running through, and I can’t do it all if I want to do anything at all. And I have to start small even I want to gather enough momentum to pull all the way through.
            But this is so difficult. College life is such a transient experience. I can only commit four years of my life to any endeavor, and less than that if I have already completed a year or two. Some of our choices in college must be determined by the simple nature of our lives. We want results right here right now, because frankly, tomorrow we won’t be here.
            So what to do? Will I be satisfied once I have committed my life into battling one, just one world problem? On the good side, I can commit all the time, and all my energies into making sure it happens. On the other hand, won’t I get bored? How can you make a multi-faceted person, single-goal oriented? How do I find one path to channel all of my overwhelming passion? And is that enough?
            I don’t know. I just know that it’s never enough. If I think I’m doing well with leadership, I feel that I’m falling behind in academia. If I feel that I have a foot in the world of internships, I feel like I’ve left leadership behind. This balancing act that is my life haunts me. It swings me up and down day by day, and it’s a miracle that I occasionally reach stability/parity.
            So what will happen now? Where will my path go? Will I make the right choices? Is it too late to commit to a completely different path? If not, how long do I have to find myself, to find my passion? I guess I will only discover the answer in time.

Choices.

Up until recently my mantra in life has been to seek out all opportunity and use it. I’ve reached a crossroads in my life. Ok that’s an old statement. I have been reaching the crossroads in my life. And it has been the time to prune and cut everything about it. I really have to acess everything that I really am, and separate it from everything that I’m expected to be, or wish I could be.

Sometimes I’m pleased with the finished piece, after a bit of streamlining. But other times I’m so disappointed in myself. I campare myself to so many other people who are living the life I wish I was living, who are doing the things I wish I was doing, that have the friends that I wish I had.

But the time has come to accept the truth, because the longer I delay accepting who I am, the longer I’ll delay accepting the people in my life who understand who I really am, and what I’m really about. I’m not saying that all of the people in my life already are obsolete in their friendship to me, I only mean to say that their friendship thus far is not enough. I need more. Because there is a part of me that I can only share with myself, and that is unbearable.

But it’s nobody’s fault but my own. Like I said I’m only realizing this part of myself now; how can anybody else before I can?

But so many times I am left so bereft in my loneliness as I realize more and more how I’m irrevocably changing and in consequence, leaving so many I care about behind.

I already see myself letting some slip through my fingers. And it is not a snub or a condescending omission of any sort- it is a painful realization that their relationship to me does not satiate my desire for my flavor emotional/philosophical companionship.

So I must embark on a new journey to find those who really can sate this driving thirst of mine. I have to find the friends who will fill my soul, and I need to surround myself with the people who will help me achieve my hearts’ desire, and it is only then that I can measure up to those I compare myself to.

I don’t compare myself to others as a means of self depreciation. I’m not looking for an ego bashing. Who does? But it’s a part of me that I can’t seem to rid of. This inane jealousy of mine revolving around the desire to be admired and revered. It’s taken a long time for me to accept this but I want glamour and fame. And seeing others in the spotlight drives me to measures to secure a glimmer for myself.

Sometimes I drown in my despair, thinking its too late to find my circle of friends. Some people…it’s the girls they meet in their dorm suite, or the people in their student org and they become instant friends, and instant social net. But it didn’t really happen that way for me. Of all the groups of friends I invested, I banked my interests- they all fell short some how. I lost this round of cards because I betted wrong.

And now I’m stuck, in this odd place and time, looking around wondering if things will change- if I can make things change. And I’m disheartened by the previous history of my life. Four years of high school and that magical memory-making group of friends I always hoped for never appeared. And I got stuck with what I got stuck with, and by the end I was biding my time, waiting for it to be over. And my memories of high school aren’t bitter, but they aren’t sweet either.

But I hope it won’t be that way this time. I hope I can make extravagant but Noor-like changes in my life that will make me ultimately happy, and content, and successful.

Will it happen? Can I make it happen? Or is this my fate? Will I always be sort of edged to the side of friendship because of who/what I am, and the unique nature of my actions and decisions. I mean who am I kidding? I’m not that special, so why am I lonely? And if I’m lonely does that make me special? And if that is so, that where is my special spotlight?

It’s all a catch-22, and some people have managed to maneuver around it, but I seem to be losing both way.

We shall see what this next quarter will hold. All I have to say is that it’s going to be interesting. Or at least I hope so.

Ok. so my reason for writing in here thistime is that i guess i need a few mintutes break before i go back to the trenches. i've been so weak lately. not physicially- emotionally. i just haven't had my usual mechanic drive that i used to. i used to be able to deny myself a lot more. less sleep. less food. less socializing. less escapist activities. less leisure. but now, i'm as inefficient and wasteful of my time as the rest of them.

the key to this life is consistancy. i can't just be awsome for a year and burn out. i think that's what it is i am. burned out. i burned out two weeks ago, and i've just been dragging myself by. i just let down my standards. just an inch. just for a couple weeks and i've already screwed up. my anthro teacher is disspointed in my classroom participation, o wrote a shitty one page paper, my spanish paper grade was lower than expected because of a stupid mistake, and my history grades are suffering just because of the presentation aspect of it. i'm just never prepared as i should have been for presentations. i just don't know how i dropped the ball. what's happening to me?  how could i let this happen? aren't i scared shitless that i'm not going to achieve my dreams if i don't set out and execute all the intense planning? what if i end up ordinary? what if my life becomes meaningless and dead-endish? what if i don't get into the law school i want to go to?

where is that endless black hole of fear i used to motivate myself last year? i mean i was so freakin' diligent. i think i realized today that i got too confident. before i used to be dehabilitated- frozen- by my fear. now i'm too confident in my abilities to pull my shit together. what if i don't and my confidence tanks? what then? and then i'll have marred this record. this record i'm trying sooo very hard to keep pristine.

how much more time am i going to waste by thinking about this? why don't i stop freakin' genuflecting and just get my shit done? why is that so f'ing hard?

o and on top of that, i think i'm developing an eating disorder. because i keep wanting to eat all the time, and i eat large amounts, like i've lost my conception of portions, and it's not always good for. o my god i'm using food to escape. good grief i need therapy.

    So I briefly scanned a couple of my other entries and have come to the conclusion that they're probably boring and generally undesirable a read. How sad. I used to be a pretty good writer. I guess I still am for writing history papers. But I guess I have nothing really interesting to say anymore. In fact, maybe I'm just becoming a less interesting person. And it's not some great tragedy or something to be woeful about. It's just the truth.
    I mean like I said last week. It's just a time of decisions, and all the decisions I'm making is streamlining my personality- so all the odds and ends that make me colorful are just going away. But that's ok. I'll just have to show the subtle hues of all the colors I still have.
    Somehow I'm staying above total emotional breakdown through all the shitty things that are kind of just a part of my life right now. My best friend is going through a terrible time and I might not get the chance to see him that much if things continue to go the way they're going in his life.
    Today my bike was stolen. It can't be more than a couple weeks old and now she's gone. And I bought her with Eid money. I really think it some sort of cosmic karmic retribution for the secret car scraping incident.
     My glasses prescription is wrong and I have to waste more time at Lenscrafters getting them to check my prescription and adjust my glasses.
    My Zen mp3 player has been out of service for almost a month now. I’m still waiting for them to mail me mailing labels so that I can’t mail my player to them and wait some more for them to fix it and mail it back.
    My grades are shaky this quarter. I do well on some things, but on other things I keep messing up because of carelessness or the stupidity of silly mistakes. And some days I just don’t want to try anymore. Or I’m just done giving it my all. I’m so tired of working so diligently. Some days I just plain want to be lazy and not so robotic in efficiency, because that’s what I’ve become.
     My opinion of outside involvement always oscillates between never doing enough to be important, to doing so much I don’t have a real life, or time for real friends. I can’t ever find a middle ground. I’m always beating myself up, or scaring myself into thinking I’ll be plain ordinary, never get into my dream school, never leaving this freakin’ city, or becoming anyone wroth appreciating. But so many times, I regret not taking the time to learn how to cook, or completely immerse myself in one goal. I hate feeling like I’m spliced up into different pieces to feed the different goals that drive my life. I just don’t feel whole.  Like there are some magical things about life in between everything that I’m doing that I’m just missing.
    My roommates really like each other and live together well. But I feel like when I walk into the room, my casual company immediately puts them at end. And I'm also doing things to piss them off. Like shedding too much hair, or breaking a drinking glass.
    My room is so fucking tiny there's nowhere to walk and my shit is always everywhere. And now that winter is approaching, the storm-doorless balcony door is allowing insurmountable amounts of cold air in through the cracks. It's so cold I couldn't even go out into my balcony, even if I wanted to spend a frigid and uncomfortable time staring out at the parking lot and ugly back porches of my neighbors.    
    My boyfriend broke up with me because I'm committed to my membership to the V-Club and sex is just something I can't give to a relationship.
    And all these things aren't making my life unbearable, or even particularly horrid. But they make my life so incredibly without magic. And they all get in the way of my life being as great as it was last year, or what it could have been like if things had gone a little differently.
   
    And the crowning tragedy of my life is that I’m not overreacting to any of it. It’s like I give up because there’s nothing I can really do to improve my life at the moment. I surrender to it all. And deep inside there’s not sadness or hunger for change, but rather a bottomless pit of apathy and disinterest.   
    And I can’t just make myself feel better my saying that things could be worse, or that I could be dealing with some horrid crisis right now. Because the truth is, as soon as I was done dealing with the crisis, I’d be back to where I am right now, working on pushing my life as forward as possible, knowing that somehow I’m always getting pushed a step back. And even if I was so unfortunate person in some unfortunate part of the world somewhere. If and when they get out of there situation- they’d be dealing with the same stuff I am right now, and being worse in not going to make the bad go away. It just make you deal with it after the worse is done.

 So that’s my life right now. Woo Hoo.