I just spent an interesting three and a half hour car ride contemplating life...and death. Mostly death. I can't deal with people dying. My cousin died this weekend. It was hard for me, even though I don't ever remember having one single conversation with him. I have a big family you see, and he wasn't even my first cousin, he was my second. Still it was hard. He had cancer. My grandpa died of cancer, so this brought back a lot of bad memories. Espesially for my mom. It was different for my grandpa, though, because he was 50. Granted that is still really young, but Lee died at 29. 29 years is all the time he spent of the earth. I wonder if when he was 15 he thought to himself, man, my life might be over half over. Of course he didn't. Because at 15 you are invincible. At 18 you're still invincible. Heck, you're still invincible at 25, unless you have cancer. Than you die.
I don't know why I have such a hard time with death. I hate the thought of the end of a life. I hate that that person didn't get to experience everything they want to, because lets face it, who experiences EVERYTHING they want to in life? Name one person. You can't. Even if you could, you couldn't do it with certainty. Because deep down, that person wanted to do something outrageous, something so daring or unlike them, that they were afraid to tell anyone about it. I have those things. I have a list of them actually. A list of things I would do it I had more time, or more money, or more courage, or I was less afraid of the consequence, or of how people would react.
I'm a bit of a wandering spirit. My mind is always soaring to different places in the world. In my head, I meet people from all walks of life. They are alive, they are dead, they are legends. But they are real in my thoughts. I'm trying to decide what I want to do in my life. I'm having some trouble, because I have an idea of what my parent expect, and what my teachers expect, and what my peers expect. But I want to travel, and I want to help people. I want my life to mean something. I want to make a difference. I've looked, and so far I haven't found a career that is "people helper" or "difference maker," heck, I would even settle for "world saver," I'm not picky. But there are no jobs like that. They don't pay well. How is a person supposed to support a family, when they are traveling the world, trying to make a difference? How do I know what a difference is? Will I know if I make it? When I die, I want people to say, "Wow, there goes someone who really made a difference, not only in the lives of the people around her, but in many more peoples live." I take that back. I don't even care if people know I made a difference.
When people ask me what I am going to do with a major in Math and Spanish, I will still say "I don't know"...but I will think "make a difference." The only reason I won't say "make a difference" is because most of the people who ask that question don't care about the answer. They are just making small talk. They would feel weird if I said what I wanted to. They would feel obligated to ask me to elaborate, and the ensuing conversation would be way too deep that they wanted to go. I know how it is.
I'm sorry this was a rambling hodge podge of thoughts. I have a lot of things on my mind.
"I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake." -Robert Louis Stevenson
2 comments:
Wow. That was really interesting. I think that all people struggle with death to some degree or another. Except for the few who are blessed with such an incredible faith in God that they never doubt the existence of an afterlife, we all are plagued by the "What-ifs?" Death truly represents the unknown. Death is something we will never understand until we experience it, and that can be terrifying, most notably when we stop and realize that we are not invincible.
It is always a wonderful experience when you can stop and identify a bit with someone. To be able to stop and say, "Yeah, I've been there. I have a secret desire some days to just go against all that expect of me." One of the best parts I've found about being in college is being surrounded by idealists. I love talking to people who want to change the world, people who want to finish medical school and then donate part of their life to Doctors Without Borders. If you are interested in vocation and changing the world, I recommend the book "Mountains Beyond Mountains." It was my required summer reading this summer, but I really enjoyed it. If you want to read the story of a man who want to make a change and has made a vast amount of difference in the world, there is your book. I don't recommend looking at the picture of Dr. Farmer though, because for some reason, he reminds me of Ben/Henry Gale from Lost, and those two characters are very hard to try to connect in one's mind.
If you are really interested in service-oriented occupations that would involve math, research The Grameen Bank. I recently learned about this in my Global Studies class and it is a really fascinating organization. And who says you can't spend a couple of years serving before settling down and starting a family?
Hmmm... I got so caught up in all my thoughts, I forgot the original intention of my comment. I'm sorry about your cousin. That's such a terrible loss.
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