Late Night Thought Stream

It's almost 2AM, and I can't sleep. My body is giving me all the telltale signs that it wants sleep, but my mind just won't have it. I was lying in bed for a while, trying to sleep, but my brain was moving at a zillion miles an hour, which is only slightly faster than is typical. There are a million different things bouncing around in there, some regarding pressing matters in my life right now like my upcoming graduation to some I have no business worrying about yet like what I'm going to name my first kid. The best I can do is write them down and rant for a while so that at the very least I can remember them and digest them a little more later. Maybe my mind will catch up to my body and want to sleep.

• I've been thinking a lot about the acquisition of wisdom. I want it sooooo bad. My uncle once told me something that I think was more profound than even he knew when he said it. He said "People can't take free advice." In context, I think he was referring to financial advice, but I believe the notion transcends finance. The more I think about it, the more I see how right he was. I refuse to take free advice. Countless times have older, wiser individuals tried to impart wisdom upon me in vain, often only to be received with "Yeah, yeah. I know. I know." Then, without fail, I fall into the exact same trap I was warned of only to think "Oh, so that's what they were talking about..." I have come to realize that in the economy of wisdom, error has become currency. Humanity, for some reason unbeknownst to me, is compelled to pay for things, wisdom included. Someone could give me something free of charge, but I won't use it or take care of it like I would if I paid for it myself. Wisdom is no different. We pay for it in mistakes, in experience, and in hardship. Why? Because we're butt-heads. "Don't go near that tree, Adam." "Ummm... about that..." You can hear wise advice a thousand times, but until you screw it up for yourself, it's not going to stick. What makes it worse is that knowing this, won't necessarily make a difference. For each failed appropriation of wisdom, the future holds a thousand more. This is especially intimidating--and aggravating--considering that I'm only 23 years old and there's still an ass-load of stuff I don't know. That means that there are a thousand more ass-loads of stuff lurking out there, waiting for me to totally screw up before I wise up. Not to mention the fact that each conversation with an older person whom I consider to be wise only yields a confession that, regardless of how much wisdom they have attained, they feel equidistant from "enlightenment" (or whatever the hell else I think lies at the end of the wisdom rainbow) as when they started. Sometimes I think wisdom is wasted on the old, but if thinking that isn't ironic, I don't know what is.

• It's still early in the semester, but graduation has been breathing down my neck. I really want to graduate. Not just because I've been working for this for the better part of the last five and a half years and think it's about time to cash in, but because I am just ready to move on to the next stage in life. I have thoroughly enjoyed the crap out of the college lifestyle, but I can confidently say that I've outgrown it. I know what any working adult will tell me: "Enjoy it now, because after that, you're just going to work until you die,"--just wait, that whole "can't take free advice" thing is going to come back and bite me in the ass--but the truth is, I'm burned out. This was a great stage in life, but it is just that: a stage. College is something I think I've outgrown. Most of my peers have already moved on with their lives. If I were to draw a pie chart of the time I spent socializing, the largest slice would go to graduates and faculty/staff. They talk about stuff that I've heard of and know about but don't fully understand yet. I feel like a little kid sometimes. It's like watching a movie that everyone else has seen, waiting to find out what happens when they know all along. "What do you mean he was dead the whole time?!"

• I worry about recent hardships and how they seem to be repeating themselves in the lives of those around me. For the life of me, I can't see what good has come from them, but I suppose that may not be my place. Who knows, maybe I'll never find out what their purpose is or was. It hasn't been until recently that I've been able to be completely honest with God about it and tell him that I think what he's doing sucks and that I hate it. But regardless of how I feel, I know that my feelings do not determine reality, and how I feel right now is not necessarily how I will feel ten minutes from now, ten weeks from now, or ten years from now. God knows what he's doing even if I don't. He loves me even if I don't do a good job of loving him back. I just have to trust him. Besides, who am I to fight with God? The last guy who did ended up busting his hip, changing his name, and leaving the country. And he made out well! I could only be so blessed. I mean really, I'm like a pimple on the face of Creation at best. All the more glad I am to have been granted Grace and Mercy at his hand.

Given that it's past 3:30AM now and I'm finally starting to get tired enough to sleep, I won't go into detail about the rest of the crap bouncing around in this bottomless, Chuck E. Cheese ball pit of thought I call my mind, but it's an amalgam of the wild and crazy to the standard and mundane: how awesome living on a houseboat would be, wondering how long it's been since I last washed my bedding, what it's going to be like to be a dad--like I said, crazy, girls, locking down a job after graduation, money, food, did I remember to do that thing with the stuff, girls--did I say that one already? Hmmm, weird...