pride

it was raining a bit on my bike ride home from school today. it wasn't a particularly eventful day. a three hour lecture on removing permanent fixed prostheses, a lab demo, a long lunch break at the bodega, then another one hour lecture. on the way home i was feeling pretty good. i think it was a mixture of being well rested and feeling content about things. when it started to rain, i figured what the heck, why not get a little wet. i didn't pull the hood over my head, i just let it wash me. the day smelled good. like rain and fresh mulch with a hint of car exhaust. i love the start of spring. when the seasons change, it's always a surprise. it reminds me that seasons are changing in my life too. i've been feeling good and optimistic about things lately. i’ve come to realize that a large part of feeling content is finding purpose. feeling pride in something. take this anecdote for example. nasa develops a space suit that is capable of recycling your air, providing you with all necessary nutrients, and taking care of all your bodily needs for survival. an astronaut wearing the new suit accidentally drifts away from his spaceship and finds himself floating farther and farther away. eventually, everyone thinks he died and he's forgotten about. in the meantime, he finds himself floating around in space, orbiting the earth. he orbits for days, weeks, months, years. his hair grows down and begins to obstruct his view of the world (he can't brush it aside being in a space suit and all). he's just floating there, in total silence, cold, just him and his thoughts.

have you ever felt like that astronaut? just floating around pointlessly. hopeless, forgotten, insignificant. i would venture to say a lot of people get this feeling from time to time. it's not your fault, honestly. the world you and i live in wants so much to make us believe that we are pointless. karl marx (no, i'm not a communist) described in great length how our fast paced, industrialized world has changed us. back in the early days, man had a trade. the blacksmith was an expert in his field. he felt pride in the work of his hands. so did the carpenter, the fisherman, even the scholar. now-a-days, the great majority of people feel minimal to no pride in what they do. our work is mostly a means to pay the bills. a scholar back in the day, for instance, was someone who read because they were seeking actual knowledge and enlightenment, they also wrote themselves. now, they tell you, read this, read this, memorize this. you do it because you have to, just trying to get by. well, i could talk about this for ages, but what i'm getting at is that lately i've been feeling a lot of pride in what i do. my life up to this point was jumping a series of pointless hoops. they often made me feel fake and pointless myself. but now, especially this year, i am feeling really content and proud of my hard day's work. it's a weird new feeling. i think it's in our nature to create and to contribute. i picked up a new book, the screwtape letters (borders is closing so go get yourself some cheap books!). it's about a demon named screwtape, writing letters to his nephew, wormwood, guiding and giving him advice on how to take down man. in the first page he tells him not to try to convince man that what he believes is wrong, instead just confuse him with a lot of different ideas and wrong messages, so that he forgets what he's really worth and what he's capable of. me and you, we’re capable of a lot. don’t let the world convince you otherwise!