sea of ennui

May 25

Anonymous asked: What has something that you like taught you about life?

I’ve always really enjoyed traveling. And yet, one of my favorite parts about traveling is not the destination itself, but the journey to it.

Planes are pretty nice because you’re in the sky and it’s like, this soaring machine crafted by man that you’re sitting in. Beneath is Earth’s ground where everyone you love and know are going on about their noisy lives, hustles, bustles, but then right above you is this completely foreign world. You can’t see it, because if you looked up while you were in a commercial airplane, there’d be a yellow oxygen mask, and if you’re like me, you’d want to try it out for shits and giggles. But that’s beside the point. When I was younger, I wanted to be an astronomer. I was in awe of the sky, especially at night. I still am. The night sky is like a vast sea of glimmers that just envelope your world for a few hours, and during that short period of time, it is absolutely stunning and a great pleasure to see. Being in this interstitial space is the closest you’ll be to the rest of the universe and the furthest you’ll be from the ground you’d walked on all of your life. The plane itself doesn’t teach me anything. In some strange way that I can’t really explain without sounding stupid, being in it just reminds me of all there is in this world – all there is to see and learn, how important it is to charge your curiosity, explore and inquire. I can’t quite make the connection between flying or planes and what they teach me about life to anyone else, my mind just takes everything into account: someone invented planes because they wanted to fly, they wanted to fly because they were curious, their curiosity spurred aviation and aeronautics, aviation and aeronautics has allowed us to go places and see things that would otherwise have been impossible to go or see, etc. Dumb stuff like that. So I think about that and look down at the earth (yes, everyone does look like an ant or microorganism) and all of my trivial teenage girl problems don’t go away, but it reminds me of how insignificant they are. How insignificant we are, yet all we have are one another and ourselves. Our minds are the most marvelous things. Capable of so much, there are literally no limitations on what we can imagine or create. And all we have to do is think. In life, you can, and you should.

“At school, they told us that if we ever see drugs, call 911 because people who use drugs need help… I thought the police would come get the drugs and tell them that drugs are wrong. They never said they would arrest them. It didn’t say that in the video. The police officer held me by the shoulder and made me watch them put handcuffs on my mom and dad and put them in the police car. I always thought police were honest and told the truth. But in court, I heard them tell the judge that I wanted my mom and dad arrested. That is a lie. I did not tell them that.” — Nine year-old Darrin Davis, quoted in Lost Rights, by James Bovard, p. 208. (via letterstomycountry)

(via press5formorespam)

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