I’m sitting in this sort of lounge area in one of my classroom buildings. I’ve been cruising the web for the past hour since I got out of class, looking at everything from dry erase wall paint (no such animal, sadly) to single user mode without restarting (just type sudo kill 1 at the command prompt). I eventually got to looking at people’s blogs that I haven’t checked out in a while, ever since my RSS reader expired. I was reading Sarah’s and I thought to myself, “My, she’s changed a lot since I left.” Then I was reading Steve’s, and while he’s changed a lot less (perhaps because I knew him this summer…?) he’s hooked up with a woman now.
The point is that these changes came as a surprise to me. It’s funny, but I don’t think of other people’s lives happening when I’m not there. It’s like when you were young and you had the sneaking suspicion that the world didn’t exist in the direction you weren’t looking. Similarly when I meet someone and know them for a while, and then discover they have a past, it surprises me, because I never thought of them as having a life outside of the context that I know them in. It’s not a selfish thing, it’s just not something that crosses my mind. I expect to look at somebody’s blog two years after I’ve left and say, “Yep, still the same old person.” It is a foolish notion when I stop to examine it, but I wonder how it came about. Is it because I’ve changed so little in these two years (two years! so long! my college career is half over!) since I left home? Have I become a different person? If I were to, say, talk to Nataraj again, would he think of me as the same guy who he went bowling with every day senior year of high school? Or would he think, “Wow, Eric’s way different than he used to be”? Perhaps it is because I don’t show my life outside of the present. Are other people surprised when I act cool around dogs because I have (had…?) one back home? Does it come as a shock to find out that I have context and meaning away from now?
People are dynamic, they are not static. They morph, grow, live, love, and die, whether we are present or not. It’s a weird thing, I don’t know why it hit me now, and I don’t even necessarily think it’s that profound or deep (it’s pretty obvious), but like I say for some reason I’ve never really thought about it. I have this image in my head of time-lapse video following some person, then breaking off to follow a different person that the first one met, and so on. Don’t know if that applies but it’s what I’ve got.
To change the topic completely, I’m going to try to get an internship at Los Alamos this summer. Last night I had an extended dream about it. It was like a five hour multipart miniseries, because I kept waking up, then falling back asleep only to have the dream continue. It was really strange (as dreams tend to be) but I remember that security was very tight. I was trying to leave, and they had the retina scanners. So I scanned but the gate guard was like, “I don’t believe you!” and he called security. Instead of regular security guards, however, “security” turned out to be government-project demons summoned from the underworld. They held me down and one of them connected with me in such a way as to allow his soul to take over mine. It was… well, frighteningly real (as dreams tend to be). After that I embarked on a quest to get my soul back from the storage area inside the lab where they were keeping it. I’m not sure how it ended but I do know that they had a convenience store inside the lab where employees could get anything for free.
Thoughts on that one?
March 9th, 2005 at 1:37 pm
I think you have a deep, subconscious yearning for a certain RPG you’ve been without. I know you think you’re getting it, but you’re not, JIM. As an ode to you, I have constructed an DM-Ass-F*ck-Beast for the party. It’s basically the same as the one you fought only higher level and riding a 1/2 fiend griffon.
By the way, where will this internship have you living? Cary and I miss you.
-Matt
March 9th, 2005 at 2:30 pm
You nerd. Shell out the bucks for NewsFire. It’s worth it, I did it.
And I can’t believe you don’t frequent my blog, maybe if you’d just shoot me an IM every now and then you wouldn’t feel so disconnected. Goon.
March 9th, 2005 at 8:30 pm
I know I’ve changed a lot…but what sort of ways do you mean?
Don’t worry, you’ve changed too. I think that’s an inevitability when you move away from home and start over somewhat on your own in college.
I have a couple of friends that are trying to get internships in Los Alamos, it’s the place to be…
And I don’t want to try to interpret your dream, cuz all of my ideas were stupid and I don’t want to attempt to sound like I know what I’m talking about ha I’m just an engineer, my world consists of organic compounds and material balances right now, no dream interpreting >.
March 10th, 2005 at 12:47 pm
Wow, that sounds like a pretty trippy dream. Yeah it is weird how people change, but even weirder still is how invariably through the changes it is still that person. Even though their life has possibly taken a completely new direction at their core they are still that person you first met, and by this I think I am trying to say that although we change and grow, we have always been who we are and that is how we are going to be. I don’t know if that makes any sense, if it does great, if it doesn’t I blame only having an hour and a half of sleep.
Dan J.
March 10th, 2005 at 3:53 pm
Perhaps the dream brings to light the need you feel to maintain your individuality. By working in the facility, the “Demons” gain control of you and thus strip you of your identity (soul). The convenience store could be your mind’s representation of the benefits of working there. As an employee, you’d have access to anything but you question whether it’s worth the price. The tight security likely shows how important the decision is to you. “Retina scanners” relates to eyes which likely means attention (look at this).
How do you feel about the internship? Do you have any reservations or is everthing looking good?
btw, I like the hair cut.
-Averus
March 11th, 2005 at 1:16 am
so the dream story made me and several of my friends laugh for some time, not at you, but your story telling was impeccable! I just found out I could comment; I also just found out how big a lamer I am with-the-technology in-the-computers with-the-buttons(read that last part as Cosby in a jello commercial). People change? Yeah, but more importantly our perception of them changes, and that can happen whether they change or not, so I guess what really matters is if you are adding to your idea of that person or freezing it in one time and place.
note: I just recently fully convinced myself that I’m not living in some freaky “Truman Show” world where everyone exists to manipulate me, I seriously have had that notion from lang before the movie till just recently. I lost it because I started thinking about the reality of other people I knew, and how it’s inescapably real, if you follow.
March 11th, 2005 at 10:03 pm
Dwight:
Sometimes I get that feeling too. The Truman Show thing…sometimes things are just a little convenient. Or random things just seem to fall into place.
Yeah.