Wrote this a long while ago.  The first line dates the post.

Well, I watched Les Miserables and I have to say, the movie really doesn’t do the book justice

What I really loved though is how the story really captured the humanity of everyone involved. With so many of our “heroes” throughout history all but a few snippets of information remain describing their faults, their mistakes, or their minor successes and victories. We get an incomplete picture and we build our lives around the pursuit of fractured idols. Les Miserables’ characters routinely break their own personalities, kinda like scrunched up straws do when you put water on them.

I’ve lived a rather negligible period of time, but in that time I’ve come in contact with giants and mice. People who wowed me from the moment I set eyes on them, and people who went unnoticed for years. And if I’ve discovered anything, ever so slowly, it’s that there really isn’t such a huge difference between the two. Everything that divides them can be chalked up to impressions, to social forces. Give a person enough props and you can view any action of theirs through the lens of perfection (or, for that matter, of failure).

And the bigger idea to roll out of it all is that perfection should be sought with all we have, but it is impossible. Idealism should never be abandoned, but our feet should stay firmly on the ground. Rather than fly, stretch your arms to the sky and touch the heavens, then pull it back down to change the world. Very little stands in your way that isn’t in your head, and God has been known to clear the way for those with willing hearts.

In some ways, I just feel like there is some overwhelming freedom in the realization that we are so small, but all small together. Nothing that has been done by man, no matter how great, was done through some magnificent power or will of that individual. But they stepped out, took the risk, and did it.

Life is shorter and shorter every single moment. And each moment becomes more and more valuable than the one before. Yet we live like we’re in this for the long term, like the time to cash out is when our assets are all wasted, our bodies destroyed, and our desires reduced to lounging around on some porch to watch the same sky that has been above our heads for all these years.

When I stand in the shower every morning, I dream about everything. Anything that comes to mind, I follow it and get dragged away into some little fantasy. I love it, maybe I live there. In the shower. I have 3 bars of soap, and I use them to wash my hair.

What I’m saying is this, there’s nothing to blame when we’re hitting mid-life and wondering why the heck we didn’t do X, Y, and Z, especially if those were fantastic things. If we sink down into the deluge around our ankles and let it carry us, so be it. But there is something to be had in dropping things, in losing yourself in living a dream, even if it costs a life. How much will it really cost? I don’t know. But how good do you plan to live on your current course?  Will it be better than that?

I love you all.

As time goes by, you learn more.  You experience things, converse with people, find out stuff.  You grow.  And as you grow, despite learning more, you know less.  Because you know that more and more exists out there.  But the entire process is retrogressive.  You’re walking down the tree to the roots, trying to find out what underpins that simple maxims that govern everyday life.  Try your best.  Don’t give up.  Listen to your parents.  Share.

Why?

The process is tedious, but occasionally filled with such juicy epiphanies that a few more days of searching couldn’t hurt.  And it continues down the trunk, under the soil, across the roots, to their tips.  And alas reaching forward the next big segment of roots crumbles in your hands.  Because it’s not roots, it’s leaves.  You’re back where you started, with only one thing gained: you live in a relatively foundationless world.  Everything is bound, but nothing is fixed.  Everything is sturdy, but nothing stable.

Climbing down again from your new position in despair, you seek out the end to the circle you’ve found yourself on and are repeatedly frustrated by the same conclusion, the same problems, questions with no sure answers and experts who merely are satisfied with what they’ve determined “must be true”.

You wake up from this dream into yet another.  The perspective is different, you feel different, but the fundemental problem remains.  So you thrust forth blindly into the caverns that might be your destiny, never knowing, always hoping.  All with this tinge that someone is watching and caring whether you succeed or fail at reaching something you’ll never know exists.

Welcome to your life.