End of Summer (Philosophical Musings)

Well, after an extremely busy summer, I'm back home, save one more small excursion to Italy for a week with soccer. Junior year, here I come. Maybe I'm slightly fearing it, but from what I heard last year, sophomore and junior year at p. are essentialy the same. I've got my courses and they're set to be difficult. You know what, though: I'm up for it. I'm game this year, whereas last year, I slacked off at the end and was disorganized. None of that this year; I can't afford it. This is my life I'm talking about here, not some game. No longer will I be lazy; I will not be satisfied with anything less than the best. I know it will be a challenge at times, I'll want to quit, but I can't quit. I won't quit, especially on the standardized tests. I'm up for it.

Anyway, enough of my manifesto for the coming year. I just wanted to put up some interested writing I did when I was at Spoleto. I think it's pretty cool and I like my ideas. Here they are:

I need a second chance, over again, what would happen this time? Not the same, certainly. Not the same, it can’t be, it won’t be. But why then do you cry? I only talk, I want it a second time, many more infinite chances, love, hopes, dreams. I would kiss you behind the supermarket, I wouldn’t scream when the bullet flew into my thigh, and I would cry, cry, cry, cry, to see you once more, touch you. I don’t know, that’s what I see in those infinite progressions of water that no man should ever touch, for all is sacred. I’m walking away now, to life, to death, to health, to breath, Away Gentlemen! Away, away, away! That’s what I would do sitting in the empty rain washed square, rain spilling down my hair, my clothes, but I don’t give a damn, never did, never will. I stand, weight’s too heavy, I fall down and lie and lie and lie in the cold bitter November rain. What else could you do?


Looking at that gray, dying New Jersey sky, across the street from where I run and pray and cry everyday I met a small man and he looked at me a while and laughed. “Oppression of the people,” he repeated over and over until my eyes drew blood and I ran home, tripping past the post-modern concrete building in my way and little boys playing football in the streets, just like in the old days and I saw all that and you know what I did? I just kept walking into my fenced, gnomed front lawn, up the steps, tossing open the screen door, sticky from humidity, sitting down at the kitchen table facing the back yard and wishing I was someone else for the day.
I saw the man yesterday, and he never smiles at me anymore, I don’t smile at him, I can’t smile at him and children run when my footsteps echo against the trashed, ruined plazas of the projects where crack sells for 1.50 a kilo and nobody gives a damn how many guns you have cause there’s always someone, most likely the Mexicans down in the building over, who’s got more.

Yes, time will pass and yes, we will age and crash towards the inevibility of death, but why can’t we just live now, forget tomorrow, just …. I don’t even know, release, I guess. Yes, the future will become the present and yes we will all eventually encounter what we fear, whatever it may be, but right now, at this very moment, I’m here, I’m sitting, I’m in Italy, I’m happy.
I saw the lightening last night, flashing far over the hills to the north. Heat lightening. I could see the bolts distinctly and I know now that that’s my future. Too far away to be heard, but seen in occasional, awe-inspiring or fear-inducing flashes. There’ll come a time when the storm is on top of you, when wind batters the windows, when the rain spills through the open door, when all you can do is crouch in a little darkened corner, just wanting to get away from it. Sometimes, you’ll be soaked, sometimes hail will pierce you roof and pelt you and give you red welt on you skin and you’ll cry but there’s nothing, absolutely nothing, you can do to avoid it…

As the days get cooler and the sun sets earlier and earlier over the gently rolling hills in the west, I occasionally stop and ruminate for a time. I glance up and see all the stars I could never see before and I wonder: Is it worth it? All men question themselves at some point in their lives and I am no exception. What will happen?
There is a chance that all the work I have ever done, all the words I have ever written, will fall on deaf ears and mean nothing. I will exist in flesh, then fragmented memory, then nothing. All men play a sort of roulette in their lives, hoping, praying the little ball will stop on the square (the future) they’ve chosen. For most, it will not and they will lost everything, for their life is their bet. But for the lucky few, the cherished ones, the ones who supercede humanity and laugh in the face of death, they have won the bet and stand up and walk away from the table. There comes a point, I am told, in everyman’s life when he must decide if he will do what he loves and remain truly human, or if he will join the ranks of countless lifeless robots plodding through existence. For some, the choice has already been made for them. For others, through luck and skill, the choice is theirs.

So, there you have it. Some things to think about while I try to contemplate the journey ahead of me.