November 5, 2006

• Strangers

  I am now seventeen years old, although a trifle part of me is incredulous of that fact because when I was young I could never conceive of actually being one of the “big people.”  Despite my skepticism as a child, however, I actually did continue to have birthdays and my extremeties did gradually enlarge into proportions that now allow me to look at some adults on the same eyelevel.  The process of growing up was a bit too gradual, however, and I still view home videos of a younger me with a natural inclination to dispute that this person I am seeing on the screen was me, and that I said those things and I acted that way.  The entire idea that I as a large, cognizant creature must be informed that I used to be this smaller, nonthinking creature, but of course cannot remember being that smaller creature because I could not then think, seems … sketchy.  Regardless of my doubts I do somehow find reason to believe that I once was that adorable, unbelievably cute organism, and have slowly learned over the years what role I am playing: a human on planet earth.  

  I do specifically recall thoughts and sights from shortly after the time that I had a party with a cake that had seven candles on it.  It was at that time it occured to me that I was a small person, and everyone else was a big person, and since I didn’t seem to be getting any bigger from day to day, I concluded I would forever be one of the small people.  Now, at age seventeen, suddenly taking time to think about how old I am is like waking up after a long family car trip to discover that we have arrived at where we were traveling to; that place that once seemed so far away but is now undeniably all around us.  The surreal nature of realizing you are currently in a place you had previously thought you never would be is comparable to an episode of the twilight zone.  The shock comes from the fact that although I didn’t consciously realize throughout the transition that I was changing location, it is indisputable that I am here. 

  In this particular moment, as I sit here writing out my thoughts, life does not seem so fast after all.  Of course it seems like I raced to age seventeen, but now that I am here life’s pace has slowed significantly.  Here is why that is: experience is fastest the first time around.  While traveling life’s course in my first years every facet of life was like meeting someone new, and finding out all about them: my family, the world of science, the history of mankind, diverse cultures, emotions, virtue and vice, friendship, language, religion, eccentric people, philosophy, disappointment, politics, ideas, days,  humor, American culture, tragedy, great persons in history, the universe, everything!  During our first years we are exposed to simply … everything.  

  Life on planet earth is much like a person I am getting to know.  On top of that, everyone else is getting to know him too, and I have had the privilege to hear what others have found out about him to add to my own collection of thoughts.  Now with all these things experienced it seems that the variables of life are standard.  Not that there aren’t new things to discover, but the majority of life’s basic elements have been exposed by the time a human reaches around my age.  The frisson of discovering something truly new, like we do as children, is just about as big of a thrill as it gets.  And this makes it plainly seen: our first years shock us with all of the things we find out, and eventually we lose our shock and settle down. 

  One by one, the bits of information we learn about life build up.  Too often the gradualness of this process blinds us from remembering the initial premise of our existence here on earth: we learned about the world, we were not always a part of it.  It is easy to forget, we came to this planet as strangers.  It’s an odd place we’re in. 

  So here I am.  Everything is in focus.  I am aware that with every passing moment, with every strike of the key, humanity is amassing statistics in almost every imaginable category.  Somewhere a couple is in love, a birthday party is thrown, a person is sad and alone, someone dies, a child learns a lifelong lesson, a wrong thought occurs, a person is starving, and many other things are happening.  At this time I am aware of what goes on in the world: the good and evil, the pain and pleasure.  I can picture my personal, subjective existence as a human next to the collected, objective existence of all humans.  Growing up is like zooming out of our small little minds to see the world in its place in the universe.  It is as though the world were a model, and the inventor has just swept off the sheet covering it over the last sixteen years, and I may now inspect it. 

  Some people, I find, never stop to think about life in an objective frame of mind.  If the analogy of life were a person in a room waiting to be permitted into another room, then some people could be described as spending their time simply waiting, unaware and unconcerned with their surroundings, never waking from their dull stupor to realize what they’re staring at and the room they’re standing in.  Others, however, instilled with innate curiosity, will spin ’round and examine their surroundings, interested in the environment they have been thrust into.  There is so much clarity in the air, for there is ample time to study the room; and once studied, questions arise.  Every person is an investigator of life, an interrogator, trying to coax it into telling him or her what this whole thing about.  Is this a joke?  Who sent you?  Why do you hurt?

  You and I, my friend, have lived these years investigating a crime scene.  Something absurd has happened here on earth, that much is obvious, but what has happened exactly?  Collecting samples of evidence from the strange inventory of life is what has preceded this time, this time in which we are now in the lab ready for the results.  This is what growing up has amounted to.  What is this place called planet earth?  Who are these people?  There’s pain—should we hide in a cave?  There’s pleasure—should we indulge?  It’s necessary that we decide.  How will we then view things?  These first sixteen years were a movie.  A test run.  An initial showdown.  A short tutorial.  We all encountered our firsts.  Now I question—what the heck was that?

  • 10:34 pm
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