You can admit it. Go on, admit it. After my last post about national surveillance, you thought “they’d” caught up to me didn’t you? That’s why he’s been away for so long, you thought. Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about. You know who I mean. The “establishment”. You thought they got me, didn’t you?! DIDN’T YOU?! Well “thankfully”, for you, they haven’t. I’m still a free man–apparently. And being a free man means one thing–I’m still able to write about stuff. About what stuff, I’m still not sure, but let’s see where this one takes us shall we…
Well, as the title of this post suggests (forgive me, but having recently revisited Anchorman and 300, I felt it was only natural to fuse the two together to create a distinctly Ron Burgandy-esque-type quote), the month of August has, rather rudely I suggest, arrived. And arrived guns blazing it has, ready to rain on my, and I’m sure many of my peers’ currently sunny and bright parade. How so you might ask? In the form of that ever challenging and long-winded experience: education! D’uh! Yep, by the end of this month we’ll have participated in a weeks worth of classes already.
On a personal note, having been struck by the first-week-of-classes-lackadaisical-bug, I’ll still be a few notebooks and textbooks short of a party (that isn’t a metaphor–I will literally still have neither!)
*GULP*
And I’ve no doubt, that, by that time, I’ll already be up to my eyeballs in homework.
*DOUBLE GULP*
But excuse me, I’m getting ahead of myself. Seeing as I’m still none-the-wiser, in regards to whether I’ll even be enrolled in the upcoming term, all of the above may as well be considered a string of hypothetical’s(!)–meaning, in short, there’s still a chance of me having to [regrettably] leave this great place to head home, and apparently, as a dastardly foreigner, that would be my only other option.
This calls for one thing, I think you’d agree…
*TRIPLE GULP*
That’s quite a few gulps. That’s nearly as many gulps as Gloop took himself in Willy’s wonderfully magical, yet ridiculously hazardous adventureland. Unfortunately, before his suctioned-pipe-fate, as he was tucking into lickable wallpaper, edible toadstools–eventually taking an unwelcome dip in the river of chocolate–the gulps I’m experiencing are rather ones filled with anxiety, tension, and other nervous-related symptoms–not ones of childhood-ecstasy and sugar-coated yumminess!
You may have won zis battle Gloop, but you haven’t won ze war, and considering you hail from Germany, I’m fairly confident about zat result! If only you had some Spartan blood in you to help your cause, as opposed to just having high blood pressure(!) Those cakes are the real enemy, eh Gus?
But excuse me, I digress. Apologies.
On the subject of Spartans, however, there’s one part of 300, specifically a quote, which jumped out at me more than ever the other night, as I was sat watching. Not because of its absurdity, or how profound it was (let’s be honest, you’d be hard-pushed to find something enlightening during a revamp of a graphic novel!), no–but because at that particular moment, at that particular time, I interpreted it in a way that, I felt, pertains to my life, in particularly, right now. So, rather than give you a convoluted rundown of the scene, here it is in all its Greek glory:
And that sums it up for me. “It’s just an eye…” could so easily be replaced by a more common phrase in our culture. After all, things could be worse couldn’t they? As I write this, and as I’ve touched upon already, my near future still remains uncertain. By the end of this month I may not even be in the country anymore–a semester or two short of my long-desired graduation. More timely than that, even, by the end of tomorrow you could technically call me homeless, having recently fulfilled the contract of my own apartments lease and outlasted the temporary accommodation I’ve been lucky enough to have received from a good couple of friends.
These things are, of course, problematic. In an ideal world I’d have preferred for these issues (and plenty others) to have been sorted out by now, to relieve me of the stress and worries I naturally have. In an ideal world I’d like for the national England football team to not be so drastically mediocre anymore and actually fulfill their potential. In an ideal world our old friend Augustus would have been able to happily bend down besides Wonka’s chocolate river to enjoy its cocoa-goodness, without having the misfortune of falling in and making his way to the dreaded Fudge Room, as supervised by that mystifying populous; the Oompa Loompa’s. In an ideal world I’d have already had the privilege of seeing a Loompa in the wild…
But “things” are never this easy. Not to get too Plato-esque on you all (as if I could ever reach that level of thought!), but obstacles and challenges are all a part of life. If we make them so, they are, in my opinion, what make us grow as people. It’s how we react to such pressures and concerns that make us evolve, and with any luck, learn. Similarly then, our own navigation of what life throws at us, is, I believe, paramount to how we mould our own personalities, and this alone takes me back to my original point. For me personally, yes, my current situation isn’t exactly ideal–I’d like to know more about the path ahead than I currently do–but then I take a step back to look at the bigger picture and remind myself; whatever happens, it isn’t the end of the world.
Of course, I could still be left disappointed, and if that’s the case, then so be it–I’m sure I’ll get over it. But at the end of the day, the “things” I do have far outweigh any negative outcome I could well face. It sounds cliché, but it’s true; I’ll still have my health, I’ll still have my family, I’ll still have my friends, and importantly, I’ll still have my aspirations. So I put it to you, is that not enough? Am I not already lucky enough to have these things afforded to me, when a vast majority of people around the globe suffer on a daily basis?
It’s important to remember, I think, that in today’s society “we” all too often get caught up in the idea that “we” deserve, or more so, need more than “we” already have. While this is entirely someone’s right, I feel it can also blur their perspective on the world around them, which, as innocent a thought as it may seem, could, as a collective, serve as a means to isolate and distance themselves with those less fortunate, on other parts of our earth–thus becoming a destructive influence on the concept of society, as a whole.
So, appreciating the fact that I still have use of both my eyes, to enjoy life’s stumbling blocks in full resolution–unlike that maimed Spartan of ours–I can also appreciate the fact that these “things” are merely a part of life’s tests; tests of our inner, humanistic resolution. No matter how herculean (or should that be Spartan?) these tests are, however, we’d do well to remember that somewhere, someone, has it harder than we do.
Now, you stay classy world-wide-web.
the pilkinton post 