Date: 2014-02-04
To: Enstasy
Miles today: 0.0

¢Once you realize that the road is the goal and that you are always on the road, not to reach a goal, but to enjoy its beauty and its wisdom, life ceases to be a task and becomes natural and simple, in itself an ecstasy.¢¢         Sri Nisargadatta MaharajInstead of taking a hedonist approach to life... I've spent most of my life in school. I really don't like school. At the same time school was incredible; I met amazing people, learned all sorts of things I would not have come across otherwise, and I got this fancy piece of paper saying I have a Bachelor of Science. It's just that the school aspect of school SUCKED SO HARD. To illustrate a point, I was put in special ed in elementary school. It was a very "special" time in my life. Just kidding, I've always been half retarded. I've climbed up tall leafy trees to piss in public so I wouldn't get caught but forgot that I need to climb back down... twice. Whatever, I did pretty well and all those years of public schooling was dreadful. Our education system is absolutely archaic, ineffective, and a lot of wasted time. The way I did well was simply learning to nod my head and do what I was going to do anyway. I never cared about grades. I think deep down I only pretended to go through the motions and jump through hoops because that's the only way to have everyone just leave you alone. How many kids in school are doing exactly what I did? Uncountable. You can't always spot them. Maybe it's every kid to some extent. I slacked off so hard and so well I actually did really well on paper. It was just an act - do the bare minimum to do well... that's what a B student is (in International Baccalaureate, a B is an A!) My college degree (Business Administration) is actually a BS in bull shit. Very valuable bull shit, apparently, because it fuels the modern world in a twisted kind of way.It's no surprise that there's a lot of pent up frustration by the time that's over with. At some point you magically become an adult and the reality of things slaps you in the face hard. In many different ways; I know I still have shocking revelations that come out of nowhere. Like a backed up toilet ruining your apartment while you sleep as if some metaphorical monster was forcing you to look at the excrement of your life the next morning in the midst of your rude awakening. That's right, smell it and hire someone else to deal with your problems so you can carry on your merry way and continue forcing the same crap through your system and flushing it away so you don't have to look it.Yeah... my thought patterns can get carried away. It's kind of fun. Until you realize that the poop backing up your metaphorical apartment toilet represents all the absent-minded decisions you've made in your life. Why did I go to school? Because it's what you're supposed to do (here, eat this). Why did I go to college? Because that's how you get a job (just keep eating and don't worry about the diarrhea, it's normal). Why wouldn't you want to get that 7 figure salary? Because I don't want to do that for the rest of my life (Why isn't this toilet flushing anymore?) Then how are you going to make a living? Honest work that brings value to the community (It's too late, you're just going to make it worse if you keep flushing.)That's when it hits you if you already didn't figure it out after a 3 day weekend college binger. People slave away 9-5 type of jobs for the weekend just to drag themselves through next week to repeat. Every once in awhile is a short vacation that keeps you going back to that 9-5 job to pay the bills for nonsense you don't really need.This is not true for everybody, undoubtedly, but it's quite depressing when this has become your way of viewing the world. Or if you just watched the movie Fight Club too many times. Let me correct that last statement - you cannot watch the movie Fight Club enough times. Let's all just take a moment to marvel at a sound argument. Feathers + your butt does not = chicken. In my case, a college degree doesn't exactly mean anything. I had a really hard time figuring out why I would do such a thing while I was in the middle of doing it. One thing that seemingly restored my sanity when all these backed up revelations started hitting was experiencing a float tank (sensory deprivation). I can go on and on about it, but can't make any promises for you if you were to get into one yourself. If you've never heard of this and it intrigues you... do your research! I've experienced amazing things inside of those things and will be glad to tell anybody about it. The float tank has been the single most life-changing thing I've ever had. My first revelation inside of one was learning how irrelevant outside factors can be. What's essentially relevant would only forever be your own perspective. It's all inside, in the way you think, the way you perceive, and the way you choose to act. Sometimes happiness simply depends on the quality of your thoughts which influences your moods, your actions, and the environment around you. It could be the end of the world, but it's still possible for you to be perfectly okay with that (it goes the other way as well obviously). Just look a clinically insane person. What's happening around them might not make a single difference... they could have their own thing going on irregardless. There could be butterflies and rainbows all around them but inside could be the most unimaginably terrifying ordeal. Anyone with a psychedelic horror story can relate. I have no structure to this journal at all and I don't know what else to do besides ramble. So what am I doing? I'm ditching this road I've been following, I think it's called life. I was caught up on doing things I didn't have the insight to see that it's not what I wanted or even if they were things I "should" do. Those things led to doing more things to pay for the previous things. The biggest overhanging shadow came in the form of student debt. Well I've toiled and saved enough to comfortably break away. To take on a path of less. Less everything which turns out to be more. I'm going to start doing what I want to do. I'm actually making the Appalachian Trail my own personal rite of passage. I'll write more on what I mean by that some other time. For now I guess that means I fail at life if I don't complete this thru hike.Anyways, I'm going for a run. Thanks for reading