From Magpie's, With Love

As I was walking out of class this Friday afternoon I crossed across the library lawn through about four different frisbee games and countless blankets strewn across the grass. I would have thoroughly enjoyed it, had I not just exited a philosophy discussion about the futility of all our actions towards happiness. Yeah, rather depressing, but mentally invigorating too. That contrast, of feeling utterly lost and sad and of seeing countless college students seemingly perfectly happy simply to be in the sun and to be with friends, threw me for a loop. Ignorance is bliss. I thought, maybe being a philosophy major won't be as much of a happy trip as I thought. But then I kept thinking (as is my wont, and often my downfall, though this time happily not so), and I realized that I would much rather approach happiness having gone through a genuine philosophical breakdown, having been depressed and disaffected with the mundanity of life, than to revel in an ignorant happiness born from willful blindness. Why I prefer that, I don't know. But perhaps it is because I feel like there ought to be more to life than happiness, that our goal ought not to simply be happy but to genuinely human. Or to genuinely try to understand what it means to be human. That's such a presumption, I know, to say that there really is more to life than pleasure, but it feels to me a better representation of the complexity of life, of suffering and its meaning, than to just be happy happy happy.

Okay and to those readers who skipped that last paragraph due to it's tediously long discourse, a short recap of my week: Monday through Thursday, classes, slacklining, frisbee, studying. Friday some friends and I went down to the river and swam a bit, then I headed to the co-op to do a little journaling. Friday night (which I guess was last night; I'm not used to writing this on a Saturday night) I went to Trout Fry, which was really a fun experience. To those who don't know, Trout Fry is an annual party hosted by the Pi Sigs, a frat that was once chartered by Luther but has since lost that charter. Anyway, it's a big get-together off campus at a campground, and in years past there have been kegs provided at the party for people to drink. This year there has been a lot of attempts by Luther administration to get Trout Fry shut down, mostly because it has been a den of underage drinking and some pretty heavy partying. So they didn't have kegs, but the party went on anyways. I won't go into why I think Luther is being ridiculous about this all, because this is in fact a Luther-sponsored blog, but I will say that I thoroughly enjoyed Trout Fry. And I am definitely going to go again next year.

And now it's Saturday night, and I am at Magpie's, a coffeehouse off-campus. For some reason, it closes at 10, so I have to be out of here in about four minutes. I got a lot of my homework done, and I think I'm gonna head back to campus to hang out with friends tonight. We'll see what happens. For some reason, lately I've been really enjoying my alone time. I know I talked a little bit about that in my earlier blogs, but the solitary bug has infected me anew with the warm weather. I wrote extensively in my journal about why it's important to have alone time, and I think my next blog post I'll write a little about that. For now, I've gotta get out of here.

Take it easy,

Danny

Waste

In philosophy we just finished reading a text about the presumptive nature of all life and the faith inherent in all actions and beliefs, even the belief in truth. I never knew Calvin was such a philosopher at heart, but then again, Calvin is seems to have a keener insight into life than most philosophers I've read.

***

Tonight I went to Magpie's to study a bit with Inga, but ended up getting distracted by so many things that I ended up reading just one chapter in one of the books I have to read tonight. I would start to read, and then decide to check facebook, and then I would answer a text, and then maybe I would drink some coffee and talk to Inga for a bit. I felt almost thinned out, spread over way too many objectives and actions, like my feeling of contentedness was intimately tied with my feeling of concentration. But that doesn't seem right to me, because when I truly concentrate I feel a growing restlessness. I can never seem to find a happy medium, a place where I am both concentrated without being restless and distracted without losing the illusion of progress. It's the ultimate talent a college student can have, I think: to think, but not too hard. Such a banal distinction, but one that people strive for so tenaciously and so rarely successfully.

I feel like I never tell stories in this blog, but I rather just ramble. The problem is I have so many thoughts, and the thoughts crowd out the everyday happenings. I would feel unjustified, or rather, disillusioning myself, to place the highest importance in this one-way forum of mine on actions that have not pressed upon me any lasting impression; rather, my thoughts consume my daily energy and leave me with the emotions that prevail from one minute to the next. What I mean to say is, my life at this point is based so thoroughly on academics, on rigorous mental work, that the very timbre of my life has been adjusted to resound with the nature of my intellectual musings. Thus the more temporal aspect of my life, the comings and goings of everyday college life, the visits to the caf, the hours spent playing frisbee or slacklining, really haven't meant much to me, and I haven't really been moved to comment on them in this blog.

But that's a shame isn't it? That I place all my eggs in the basket of academic experience, and none the very real and very powerful forces of the physical world. I ought to strive for a balance in the placement of my energies and in the investment of my emotional endeavors; I ought to try to simply be more present in the corporeal world. How that translates into action, I have no idea. But perhaps a little fun distraction might help- something to get away from the collegiate grind. Any ideas?

And on that note, I really have to get back into my homework. Only three more days until the weekend. Take it easy,

Danny

At Least It's Done...

I've been trying to figure out what kind of classes I want to take next year, and have become rather stressed with the idea that eventually I might have to know where exactly I'm heading with this whole education idea. Sometimes the whole idea of a career frustrates me; some of the greatest thinkers and doers in history were authors, engineers, inventors, statesman, economists, etc. all at once. Tack up the loss of such genius as a casualty of modernity's frantic obsession with productivity and production. Anyway, as I am trying to decide what courses I take next year, I've been thinking a lot about what I am going to actually "do" with my life. Law school seems like a viable option, so maybe I will do that.

When I was home this weekend for Easter break I went over to visit my friends at Augustana College (the one in Sioux Falls); it was a lot of fun but pretty weird to spend some time in their dorms... weird how similar it was to ours, but how it had its own flavor, too. One thing that I really appreciate at Luther has been the sort of open atmosphere we have, at least in Ylvi. Next year I'll be living in Dieseth I think, and I have no idea what thats gonna be like. It has the reputation being rather "dirty," but I think the social atmosphere will definitely not be lacking.

So we've only got five weeks left, and then I'll be back for summer. It feels like the year has just flown by, and I'm already almost one fourth (or one-third, depending on how fast I go) done with my whole undergraduate experience- what have I done? I look back on the year and kind of wonder what I've done that I will remember in a year. This whole blog post has been so scattered and disjointed- I have to apologize for that. There's a contingent of guys in my room watching T.V., talking, and being very loud. I suppose that's something I could note- its pretty much impossible to do anything coherent when you have six guys in your room talking and socializing. Tip: go somewhere else if you need to do something academic.

Well, off to bed. Take it easy,

Danny

Decisions

Why is it that we show our love in such backward ways?

***

It's Monday, I guess, and that means we only have four more days till Easter vacation. It definitely feels like we just got back to school, so while I'm excited about getting to go home for another four or five days, I kind of wish the timing would have been better- more to the middle of the remainder of school we have left. Ah well. I've just got to take it one day at a time, and for now I just want to get through Monday. For some reason, today is my busiest day, with classes, Chips articles overdue, and Tuba stuff at night. Poor planning for a guy who already has a perpetual case of the Mondays.

This weekend I went up to Gustavus for a Tuba-Euphonium conference, Tubonium. It was... educational. And enjoyable, but mostly educational. I have to admit that by the end I was ready to be done with anything remotely relating to a tuba. But I did get to spend some time with my high school friend who goes there, and I got to hang out with some of his friends. It was weird to see that my friend from high school sort of played the same sort of social role in his new group as he did in our old group- perhaps we just naturally gravitate towards certain social behaviors, and aren't purely placed there out of circumstance and organic social development. The important thing, though, is that he doesn't resent that position, but rather accepts it as a natural condition.

For those of you who know me well, you know that for a long while I have been considering transferring out to the University of Montana. It has probably been pretty evident in my blog entries that I've not experienced that sort of idyllic college high, or even remotely found a comfortable position here at Luther. But I've kept my thoughts about transferring to myself, in respect to this blog, because I really feel like my job as a blogger is not to ruminate about the potential benefits of a different school, but to give an accurate picture of what life is like at Luther, what I have found to be the most fundamental experiences and feelings accompanying my time here.

But I feel comfortable talking about my desire to transfer now, because I've decided to stay at Luther. Don't ask me to explain why, because I don't really know. But it does feel a lot better to have made a decision- at least now I know what I'm going to be doing next year. I was pretty much certain I was going to transfer- I had applied, gone to visit, gotten financial aid, even talked to a friend out there about looking at apartments- but something just stopped me, and now I am staying here. Perhaps in a week or so I'll be able to explain why.

Well, class is about to start so I have to go.

Take it easy,

Danny