songbook # 726: waitith on the Lord all ye eager sons of Adventure

I saw some awesome pictures this week.  My friend Laura is in Spain right now.  She's living for a semester in an apartment in Madrid next to a luxurious park.  Several of you who will read this just saw the Grand Canyon, and the Pacific, and a lot of stuff in between.  And I'm not going to lie, I've seen your pictures and I'm jealous.  My aunt and uncle just took their kids to Disney World last month.  I've never been to Disney World.  I'm not sure I really regret that to be honest though.  They're going to Portland in a few months.  I'm invited.  I was also invited to the Grand Canyon. . . and Spain.  When I meet people I could fill up hours with conversation about places I almost went.  

But the truth is that I don't give a damn about any of those places.  The world isn't a better place for me having seen it or not, nor am I really any different of a person for having gone or not gone.  I have to remind myself of that on weeks like this one.  

I could be recovering from sleep debt and attempting to salvage my grades for the grand experience of having spanned half of our continent.  Or, I could be working my ass off at a crappy hospital right now, saving money to go stumbling across Europe.  Those were definite options.  Instead, I tried to grasp how algae can stay alive inside a microscopic organism which for all intensive purposes should destroy them as food.  I got to learn a bit of how to make sense out of scientific jibberish as is published in massive volumes every month.  I got to reacquaint myself with the wonders of the human integumentary system.  And I got to read a little theology on the side.  These are my adventures.  People get bored when I try to recount them.

I hung out with a friend last night.  We reviewed the last few years, and how our friends lives have progressed.  I have close friends with kids now.  . . . that presents me with a major existential crisis in a lot of ways.  

Basically, I want more things out of life than I'll ever get.  Finitude is very disappointing.  

Seriously, how do we choose?  I'd like to do the family thing at some point, but that point appears on the horizon for me long after it is really something that is physiologically possible.  I'd also like to see the world and explore it like I've done in the past.  But, when I really boil it down, I feel like the greatest 'talent' the Lord has given to me is intelligence, and that being the case . . . I feel I need to act responsibly there.  Basically, I know on some essential level, that if I don't do a good job with that gift, I'll never be satisfied with myself or anything else in life if I let that opportunity slip me by.  So I live vicariously by looking at pictures of my friends who are looking at the Grand Canyon, dancing in the Pacific (however briefly), and aimlessly stumbling through the streets of Madrid.  Then I go back to learning how to differentiate sweat glands.

I think what really bothers me is missing out on community.  Or rather, I know that's what bothers me.  I always feel like God gives me quick little tastes of community to keep me alive, but I always miss out on the feast.  Sometimes God annoys the hell out of me.

Friend:  "Remember that time in Madrid . . ."

Other friend:  "Yeah, running from the bulls was amazing!"

(laughter)

Me:  "So the sweat on your forehead is actually much different from the sweat on your shoulder.  You see, you eccrine glands are much different from your apocrine glands . . . ."

(awkward silence)

This is my life.  It's not tragic, nor pitiable . . . just frustrating.

I guess I do it this way because I know that adventures are possible when your old; med school is not.  And one huge triumph/accomplishment seems to me a much better aspiration than a thousand small ones.  Delayed gratification I'm told tends to pay off.  So I chant it like a mantra.  There are days when it seems true, and days where the syllables are monotone and lifeless.  Still, I guess I'm satisfied in knowing that I'm not letting the difficulty of it all intimidate me.  I hate feeling that I'm missing out, but I would hate it much more to think I was settling for a life that wasn't challenging.  Say it with me people (monotone please):

(awkward Eastern instrumentation)

"Delayed gratification pays

Delayed gratification pays

Delayed gratification pays"

Thus someday in the future when my chanting leads me to Nirvana, I will return to you enlightened.  I plan to cure many diseases, and solve our country's political issues.  I'll then travel the world aimlessly with reckless abandon.  In my old age I'll probly write books for the New Age sections of nationwide stores.  I'll finish my illustrious writing career with a brief autobiography entitled,  Boredom:  How I Became a Badass.