Picking a Method of Transportation

When I go, will it be in a handbasket, an automobile, an airplane, or perhaps a little red wagon?

Well, my classes have started as of Monday. I'm not thrilled to be back, but I am fairly willing to get started and get things over with, since I'm sure they'll go quickly. What is the next phase of my life? Will it be the internship in DC - will that even be a possibility? And if I do that, will I like it, or will it be just one more detour along the way to my ultimate destination?

The summer was too short, as always. My birthday, since I was five, has always signaled the end of summer to me, and the resumption of worries about school. It makes me uneasy. Actually being in class has been better since my hiatus of roughly two years. I'm a little more relaxed. Even when I'm stressing out, I realize that it's either going to work out or it's not, and that seems to be somewhat comforting.

A lot of my friends are (or are certainly going to be) very successful in the traditional definition of that term. In other words, they went to great schools, they're going to have great jobs, and they're going to make lots and lots more money than I ever will.

I used to have a pretty high opinion of myself and my level of intelligence, and occasionally I still do. However, I now realize that barring some unforseen development, I'm not going to be wealthy and I may not even be particularly "comfortable" in the same way that my life was growing up (in a lower to middle middle class family). I may have to struggle to make ends meet in a less than desirable apartment somewhere, and I won't have money to throw at new music and concerts and eating out and buying rounds for friends. Right now I can do many of those things purely because I'm getting student loans, and even with those, this semester is going to be tough. Living on my own is not only quite lonely, it's also expensive. I eat a lot. Grocery shopping is expensive, gas is pricey, and getting into car accidents and picking up speeding tickets doesn't help one bit. Paying back generous relatives and buying computers will be difficult. Going to DC in the spring will undoubtedly be a little challenging too.

I don't really want to get into a big thing on class warfare here, but lots of time, rich people make me very angry and resentful. I'm sure they often don't realize they're doing it, they just take things for granted and say things accordingly.

Of course, another group of my friends may never be wealthy either, but they have established a path for themselves that will allow them to be very happy, despite an occasional dearth of funds. They have found more important things in life to satisfy themselves, and they may be more "self-actualized" in the long run. I am very happy for them.

A key component of their contentment will no doubt be their companion or spouse, and maybe that's all that's missing for me. Hell - maybe there's more to it than that though. I thought I had something good once, but we often argued about finances even then.

I need to cultivate a situation in which I feel secure and content and needed and desired. I am not in such a situation now. I have none of those things. I am seldom very happy when I give significant thought to my present condition. Usually, it takes the addition of close friends to put a smile on my face. Although friends are enormously important, I need to learn how to make myself truly happy in the absence of others. Books have usually provided this for me, but even then, they are only temporary.

Everything, it seems, is very temporary. If and when I get to an afterlife, I hope that I'll be able to experience the feeling of love and kinship that I often enjoyed this summer, but that it will be available on a regular basis. A sense of permanence about our happiness is something we all strive for, I think.

Wow - you'd almost think from reading this that I had some kind of philosophy class today or something. But really that's not what fueled this...though I did have a philosophy class. I've just been thinking quite a bit lately. There's a lot of down time up here in Fredonia with no one else living with me.

That's it for now.