Now I get it: I'm all about evolution. In undergrad, I applied for a fellowship (which I didn't win) and we were asked to write 17,000 essays (ok, maybe 7, but it felt like a lot). One was about a book we read (I chose Anna Karenina), one was about our career goals, one was about - who knows - a challenge or "learning moment" which is my quartet calls it when someone goofs up. The essay I have in mind was a free skate, 10 single spaced pages (maybe 4) on whatever we liked. I wrote - get this - about personal growth. Ha! Double ha! Because at the ripe old age of 17 and a half, what on EARTH did I know about personal growth? (And really, I'm less than twice that now, so maybe I should just quit while I'm ahead and go watch more TV).
Regardless, I feel my whole life I've been motoring toward my destiny of evolution, which is to become an amphibian, apparently. Darwin would take issue with that but at least it works metaphorically. These lines from the site above are too good not to just pop in here, but do go visit the site because there is a funny lady who greets you at the top before you get to this part:
The frog undergoes incredible transformations to reach the destination of full adulthood, and so do we as humans...The frog understands what it is like to undergo some serious growing pains.
[Just an aside: I'm pretty sure there is no animal that symbolizes stagnation and stubborn unchangingness. It's kind of like when you read your horoscope and it makes you sound like you're a rock star and then you read all the other months and realize that everyone is a frickin' rock star. If the horoscope people didn't make everyone sound amazing most of the time who would buy all those silly magazines?]
But seriously, evolving. As a species we evolved to walk upright, have few offspring that we invest enormous amounts into, and eat a lot of corn (a good little evolver in its own right).
Ok, species are easy to figure out. What exactly are we here to do as individuals? A lot of people (including me) would say that we're here to learn how to love each other. One of my favorite professors would happily share his religion with anyone who agreed to listen for 2 minutes (and that's all it took): "I believe God is love and God manifests wherever humans are loving each other well." Simple huh? Not really, because I think to really love another being, we have to love ourselves. Not "if I were a little skinnier" or "if I earned more money" or "if I were a tiny little baby and hadn't made any mistakes, big or small, yet." The list of reasons NOT to love ourselves is very long, especially when we are squishy tadpoles. Unless we just burn the list up. Light that sucker on fire, dance and holler around the flames, and blow away the ashes when it's all that remains.
No comments:
Post a Comment