Larger Than Life.

How unimaginably infinite this universe is has always frightened me. There's just something so contradictory about how nothingness can possibly occupy not only space - but so much space - that encroaches upon my sanity. And then there's the question of how the hell something infinite could be expanding. But even if these paradoxes could be answered, there still remains the question: where is the Universe?

I read an interview in this astronomy magazine with Lisa Randall, Professor of Physics at Harvard University (don't you wish that could be you in the future?). When asked what she felt the significance of cosmology and particle physics was, she responded, "I believe it's important to know there is something larger than ourselves and something more permanent than what I ate for dinner today. It's exciting that there are facts about the world out there that we can discover."

For some reason, when I read that, something inside me did a little epiphany dance. It's amazing how this world is just the place where you live, until you look at it again and realize it's a miracle that you're lucky to be a part of. It's amazing how the world we see around us was born, pretty much coincidentally, by interactions between elementary particles. It's amazing that while we as humans expend so much planning, so much effort, so much thought into our lives, the Universe - so completely random in its creation - is going to outlast us all.

It makes you wish you knew the answers, doesn't it?

Brick Wall.

So after piano lessons this morning, I was feeling pretty useless. There's no point in explaining; all you need to know is that I barely practiced all week (not unlike all other weeks) and consequently had a fruitless lesson that my parents had to pay a lot of money for. I was tired and discouraged, so in the middle of Debussy's Arabesque...my mind wandered off and stumbled upon this question: is failure the result of giving up, or do we give up after failure?

Here is a quote from Randy Pausch's Last Lecture: "The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out; the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough. They're there to stop the other people."

But what happens when you put in effort, and more effort, and more effort, and then like a telescoping series - excuse the calc reference - the result is...nil? Well I'll tell you what happens. First, you get disappointed, but soon this disappointment transforms into a resentful determination that motivates you to try even harder than the first time. But this time, when you're met with failure again, it feels twice as bad. Now you go through all the motions and you pretend you don't care, but deep down you still do. But alas - failure again. So you wonder, "If I'm just going to fail again, why bother trying anymore?" And it all goes downhill from there.

I feel like a shell. Remember when every detail of the world amazed us and we couldn't stop asking "why?" (Erik Erikson's Stage 3)? Well I don't know what happened but somewhere along the line I lost sight of what I actually wanted. Now I'm just your average zombie, striving for perfect grades, not sleeping, and worst of all - not caring.

I can't want something badly enough if I don't know what I want. Does this mean I'll never get past the brick wall?

Day One.

There is an old myth about a thoughtful farmer who possessed the singular wisdom to accept life as it comes - a level of enlightenment that I happen to struggle with daily. According to the story, the farmer's only horse ran away one day. All his neighbors clucked with pity, "Oh, that's terrible!" But the farmer answered, "Maybe." The next day, the horse came back leading ten wild horses - the farmer was rich! The neighbors looked on in awe and said, "You are one lucky man." The farmer merely replied, "Maybe." That afternoon, his son broke his leg while trying to train one of the new wild horses. The neighbors cried, "How terrible!" But the farmer said, "Maybe." The next day, men from the army came to draft the farmer's son for the war. Upon seeing his broken leg, however, they left without taking him. The neighbors were ecstatic: "What good luck!" The farmer said, "Maybe."

I wish I could be as worry-free as the farmer. He knew that whatever happened was done with, and that there was no use fretting over it. I, on the other hand, will beat myself up over a stupid mistake I made first period on a calc test and rant about it for the remainder of the day. I'll let one bad hole in golf affect the rest of the my round, instead of putting it behind me. I treat every minor setback as a tragic failure and bemoan my utter lack of success instead of simply dealing with what's already done with and perhaps gleaning a lesson out of it. There's this quote that was something along the lines of, "He who looks backwards will only trip." I do that a lot - tripping.

Although, to be honest, I don't know what's more important - the present or the future. Will I get more out of life by being constantly worried, yet well prepared for the future, or by throwing all my plans out the window and dancing around with blissful spontaneity? I suppose it depends on what kind of happiness I value more - short-term or long-term. Or which has more negative repercussions if unachieved.

But look, I'm doing it again: I'm too busy thinking about life and worrying about how today will snowball into tomorrow that I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore.

Let's wait for wild horses one day at a time.

Day One.

Let's Play Pretend.

So today is the beginning of another one of those crazy weeks where the teachers decide to collaborate their assignments so that a billion tests and a billion and one worksheets are due within a span of 48 hours. Oh, throw in golf and an orchestra concert too. And SATs! But as I sat here thinking about all this crap I had to do (Chapter 33 APUSH notes being the most urgent task at hand right now) I realized that all throughout this hectic junior year, I have never thought to myself, "I hate my life."

I remember when I was little, I used to pretend I was all sorts of things. There was the classic fairytale all girls lived in, of course - being a princess. At 9:00 every night (remember when we had bedtimes?), my parents thought I had gone to sleep. What I really did was sit on my bed wide awake, making sure my imaginary tiara didn't fall off my head while the darkness around me transformed itself into a beautiful, magical castle. But there were other things I pretended to be, too - I lugged my mom's old computer keyboard into my room and clacked away on it for hours. What an efficient secretary I was! I'd even switch between jobs - one moment I was the secretary making appointments, the next I was a veterinarian tending to a stuffed animal white seal (bought it from Sea World) that the secretary had just checked in. I also remember having an obsession with Native American culture - I'd scavenge the backyard for the sharpest rocks and tie them to rubbed and smoothed sticks. (I realized just now that I never made a bow for these arrows, yet they were far too short to be spears, so I'm actually not sure what I was thinking whilst I made them...) I also saved orange peels, which I'd wrap up in dried corn leaves as if I was some kind of a herbal healer. Something less random was pretending to be a teacher; I wrote really creative notes to the parents of students who misbehaved in class. I must have thought I was super cool...

It all sounds childish, but I distinctly remember writing in my diary years ago about all the people I pretended to be. I asked myself why I enjoyed playing pretend - did I dislike reality? Was I unhappy with who I was? In all likelihood, I concluded, I was just bored. But it still makes me wonder - why don't we ever play pretend anymore? Life now is probably tougher than it was then...wouldn't now be the better time to make believe, to get away from the hellish demands of school and self expectations?

I dearly hope I have not lost the ability to dream.

Mediocrity.

After months of heater-wasting, jacket-wearing frostiness, today's heartening rays of sunlight and encouraging chirps of birds were a pleasant introduction to Spring. The feeling of my hair flipping over my shoulders as a soft breeze teasingly snatched it and the calming warmth that the sun so patiently poured across my skin aroused the athlete within me that had been sleeping quite comfortably since winter track ended. I looked at all the greenness around me and remembered that golf season begins next week.

Not gonna lie, freshman year of golf was amazing. It's a nice feeling to be good at something. Praise is delicious - wouldn't you agree? But I got cocky, and paid for it, because sophomore year was probably the worst golf I've played since...well since I last sucked that badly. One of my friends overheard my coach tell another teacher that I was his "ticket to states." Guess what? I let him down. 

I don't want that to happen this year. I want to be the best. I need to be the best...because if there's one thing I hate, it's mediocrity. I do a lot of things - I play piano and violin, I run cross country and track, I write - but I am so freaking average at it all. Maybe I'm a perfectionist, or maybe I'm just insecure - either way, I need to know that there's something I'm good at. In the words of Relient K, I need to be "a little more than useless."

So call me greedy, but I want the gold, and will settle for no less. Here's to golf season '10.