Well it's been one of the most hectic tumultuous summers I've ever encountered and it's almost over. The last summer as an undergraduate student - a bitter sweet experience.
Quick summary of Summer 2018 for your sake and mine:
1) Data gathering and imput for Phosphorus research of Green Lake and Fond du Lac
It's funny cause I now know how much poop was generated by animals that reside there.
Field work for water runoff
Not so funny cause I got stung by a bee above my right ear. So, I ate honey afterward in revenge.
2) Finished a goodbye present of the church St Paul's for a long time friend
Bye Fr. Mark!
3) Moved the Hopad a block (15 hours of move in...)
Note to self: I have too much shit
4) Travelled to Canada and Florida (Tampa and Orlando)
For photography work at the PKT impact 2018 conference and other work. And to please the MamaHo and PapaHo (3000 miles clocked in solo!)
5) Took the GRE and it's finally over!!!!!
3 months of learning esoteric, bombastic language and writing 30 practice essays. DONE! Few words I will retain from all this:
Puissance = influence
Dilettante = amateur purveyor of the arts
Sangfroid = calm
Imbroglio = extremely confused
Panache = Flamboyant
To summarize:
It was a very eventful, stress inducing 100 days of summer but I will relish every moment of it. It taught me more than I could have ever asked for and instilled in me a unique balance and viewpoint that I am going to live by for the rest of my life.
It may sound a little simplistic but complexity doesn't necessarily equate to effectiveness and efficiency.
My Philosophy:
Everything is a system. Be it our human bodies, the cells that make it or even our seemingly invisible puissance we act upon the world- Everything is a system that has an output just as it has an input. But in order to facilitate this system, there has to be order, there has to be constants, there has to be structure. It creates the basic foundation for growth and provides the direction to the awry. However, without spontaneity there would be no protean that enables variation, no uniqueness, no diversity, just a copy that lacks originality. And that's no fun!
So what does that all mean?
We are entrenched in system working in tandem within a system on a universal scale. Though it means that our life is insignificant in the grand scale of things, we can always and I mean ALWAYS affect everyone and everything in the echelon we reside in with our daily actions and intentions. However, we would only be able to efficiently and effectively enact any changes if we are fully ourselves. Sometimes we get so lost in the swing of things that we tend to diverge from our truest selves, the self that we are at the least odds with. Preoccupations with any phantom prejudice that haunts us is a complete waste of time and should be dismissed immediately. For any setbacks, Lessons should be learnt, its poignant distress forgotten and problems never repeated. Problems and feedback are the best indication of the foundering of the system- So relish it and utilize it for our future success.
As Clarissa Pinkola so beautifully put it,
"That is, to be ourselves causes us to be exiled by many others, and yet to comply with what others want causes us to be exiled from ourselves.”
Why would we want to lose ourselves in this rat race of trying to be better than everyone else when we could just be better than our yesterday's selves.
So why shouldn't we strive to forge success in our own system with our own strengths and faults, so as to propagate success with others and in others.
Hence, live your system that you strive to be: Retain your structure but always be spontaneous to change for you never know what life would entail..