Ribbit.

Ribbit.

Thursday, June 23, 2016

Awakening.

Several places I interviewed with recently found me a very strong candidate. They were ready to bring me in for a building interview as soon as I got back from vacation. And then someone swooped in last minute and was "too good to pass up." It was someone who had high school teaching experience and RTI experience and Kagan experience. And so my last morning in Providenciales, I sat on the beach and cried.



I didn't think for even a minute that I would get that job. Because the thing is, the universe is against me.

The universe is a bad place and if there is a God, he doesn't care what happens. I'm just one of 7 billion people on earth. Some have it better, lots have it worse. But there isn't any rhyme or reason to how the beauty and benefits of life are handed out. It's just a crap-shoot. You do what you can on your own, you make out as well as you're able and you thank your lucky stars you're not one of the poor saps living in Haiti or some destitute, war-ravaged country because they didn't do anything to deserve their plight either. If you base your life on the belief that God loves you because you woke up in the morning and the sun is shining and your pet gave you a kiss and you have a roof over your head, your theology is faulty at best and deadly at worst. So why bother?

There's just some people born fortunate, and some born under an unlucky star, and all the shades in between. And at the very end of it all, you can't really change your fate much, you can just keep plodding along until the day you can't anymore.

And that's basically the day you walk into the Gulf like the heroine of Kate Chopin's novel, The Awakening. You get to the point where you know you can't live within the small confines of your own life so you take a deep breath and you walk out into the sea one day and you just let it swallow you whole. Because really, what difference does it make if the sea swallows you or if your own life swallows you? The point is that you chose and there's something noble in the choice, even if it's Death.


8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think I come at the same thing from the opposite direction, in a sense.

The universe is indifferent. I'd love for there to be a higher power, or a meaning, or something of life I can take with me after. Instead, the effort to make the best of this existence is what I have. Even at that, I fail more often than not, but I keep up the fight to spite entropy a little longer.

All that is not meant as advice or comfort. It's just offered in response to your writing, which is thought provoking and poignant.

Nom de plume said...

Jared?

Anonymous said...

No, sorry for the anonymity! I should have identified myself. --Steve S.

Nom de plume said...

Hello, Steve Smith! I hope you don't find my asking this rude but...how did you happen upon this blog? I thought only my friends knew of its existence!

Anonymous said...

Oh dear, I'd better back up. We met about six months ago. You told me about your blog, and I searched for it then but didn't find it. Your name popped up on a mutual friend's Facebook post last week, and I successfully found your blog this time. I also sent you a message through FB, which evidently didn't reach you. (Thanks, FB!)

Nom de plume said...

No. I meant HOW did you successfully find my blog this time?

Anonymous said...

I think I searched something like "Princess and the Frogs dating blog" based on what you had told me. Which is basically the same as what I did back then, so I don't know why it didn't work then and did this time.

Nom de plume said...

Oh! Sorry, Steve. In a pretty dark place. Didn't mean to be rude.

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