Lots of Big Words

I may have mentioned last semester, sometime between January and May, how much I loathed one of my classes. Survey of Contemporary Critical Theory. You might ask yourself... what does that even mean? Well, I can't even really tell you, because the class is basically all about how nothing means anything. If you break up a "text" into small of pieces called binaries, then they all just exist by themselves and there is no connection or story and thus... it means nothing.

Let me tell you what else means nothing: the grade I painfully achieved in said "survey."

I love the professor who taught the course. I love the people I took the course with. But the content was nothing short of infuriating and degree-boggling and made me question the very significance of my love for writing. Oh yes. It's true.

To make this all worth, I spent the whole semester wondering why I was in the class. I was fairly certain it counted neither as a Gen. Ed. course or a required English course for my major, and still I went to class at 8 o'clock every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning. My adviser had told me to sign up for the class. So I did. And yet, I can't remember her saying why. I can't remember if she even knew what the class was about.

So now I have a little box at the bottom of my degree audit, where all of the other useless classes go--the other ones that don't count toward anything, like Studio Art or the AP class I took in high school.

All that work. All that strife. All the late nights writing papers (and then having them lost by the professor or not printed correctly.) All the mornings of breakfast-less shaking and yawning. All the head-scratching and book rumplings in frustrating. Worth nothing.

They don't mean anything at all.

Stop trying.

Stop trying to impress people with your personal accomplishments. Not even God cares about your worldly success. When you get to heaven, do you think God is going to say, "Hey! Congrats on losing all that weight! You look good." Is he going to say, "I'm glad you took all those vacations. Being culturally knowledgeable and tan is really important in heaven." Is he going to say, "You sure are good at being right."

When you're gone, people remember you for the things you say. The things you obsess over. The words you use and the actions you take are what's left over. What you talk about day and night, the stuff you buy, the pictures you take, the people you spend time with, the books you read, the off-hand comments you make that you think no one hears... those are the things left behind.

So do you want to be remembered as the person who lost 300 pounds, the person who had a condo in Hawaii, or the guy who always had to have the last word?

In the end, when you've died, nobody is going to care that you lost 10 pant sizes. No one is going to care how many trips you made to the Big Island. And no one is going to care about how well you argued, or how perfect your grammar was. No one is going to care that you made $600,000 a year or that you drove a shiny Ferrari or went to a lot of operas/rock concerts. No one is going to care if you bought all organic/fair trade products, or recycled all your cans/jars etc. to make Martha-Stewart-esque projects to put on your shelves. No one is going to care if you had the coolest skinny jeans or the flashiest phone or the biggest TV.

You want to know what people will care about?


How much you loved.


So stop trying to impress me. Stop trying to show the world how much how much holier you are, or more politically correct, or tolerant, or more adventurous, or successful, than "the other guy."

Love God. Love people. Everything else just gets in the way.

Absolute and resolved.

If I am but shaken,
I will not be.
Clutching hands are forbidden
to touch what they seek,
to grasp that thing
which was not always but
now I keep out of your reach.
I have exhaled the fog
which clouds visions,
blurs out dreams,
and seems to keep Spring at bay
longer than the even the frost
would deem appropriate.
You will change
what I have already altered.
You will not find me
defeated, or broken, or
even within your sight.
I have stood back from the precipice
above that well-loved danger,
far from the woman
who gave undeserved affection
to a wayward path.
There is no persuasion strong enough
to make me believe
I'm lost again.

The Intrusion

It's a hard journey to be
a person
or a friend
to other persons.
And people keep up
a wall
to keep out
the people
that might hurt them
or hold them
just a little too close--
just in case.
Just in case
of what?
What will happen
if you happen
to let the wall down
and care about
people
more than what people
think?