Insignificant Ramblings

Every once in a while, I find my sleeping schedule sliding, seemingly of its own accord. For instance, back in the fall there was a period where I physically could not sleep past nine a.m., no matter when I went to sleep. At the moment, I'm in a restless nights period where I lay in bed for hours before I can fall asleep. I think perhaps my sleep time has shifted later into the night without consulting me. Terribly inconsiderate of it really. But hey, at least I don't have anything going on right now. And who decides what the normal time to sleep is anyways? Obviously society runs on an average of sorts, but few and far between is the soul that is average, seemingly defying the term itself.

But what better way to stay up late than to pour out my thoughts onto a page, digital though it may be? I've been neglecting this exercise (and all exercise if I'm honest) these past months and I have a growing yearning in my spirit over it. When I don't write I begin to feel that I have nothing relevant to say. That my writing is invalid. That it doesn't matter. I'll never be as good as ____, so what's the point? I might as well pack up and go home. Find in a cabin in the heart of the Minnesota wilderness. Live off the land. Fish, hunt, plant, grow.

Then what? I'd want to write about it. I'd have to. Like so many great American novelists before me, I'd write about a man that escaped from the rigors of a world that's technologically advanced, yet socially and emotionally stunted. Broken even. We slowly lose our interaction to the irresistible draw of interconnectivity.

And so I'd write. I'd reminisce of a time I never knew. A bygone era of Twain, or Fitzgerald. Always to the past, always to the wilderness. It's the American ideal. The rugged cowboy. The stubborn pilgrim. The durable farmer. This is the stock we come from. We were never meant for this world of reality stars and celebrity marriages.

We melt away our brains on the trivial while the world burns around us. Untold millions suffer in silence while the western world debates the celebrity of the minute's style choices. #Dehumanized

But I will stand and fight. Turn the machines against themselves. That's American too. Maybe I won't start a ranch but there's still work to be done here. My fingers hold the key.

Writing is an inherently arrogant tool. The writer says "My thoughts are worth sharing! Everyone should know the things that come from my mind." And perhaps they are right. If you disagree and write your own thoughts, are you not guilty of the same thing? Any exchange of ideas carries this problem of course, but words are never more permanent than when put onto a page. Words in the air are just ripples in the air. They vanish, often without having touched an ear to perceive them. But written words can endure the centuries; persist unaltered through the millenia. Who's to say who will read these words, these idle thoughts of mine, in the distant future, unimagined in my own time?

But my thoughts have run their course for now and I will stop the flow here. This is raw, unfettered writing. No structure to constrain and no story to tell. These are just the thoughts that float down the river of my mind at three a.m. on a insignificant Friday morning...