It's my life

It's been once again a ridiculously long period since my last post... I know I keep saying this but I really think I shall make more of an effort in future to jot down my random thoughts in passing before I let a year go by once again. Miss me? ha ha

I recently ran the Two Oceans half Marathon (21,something kilometers) and the whole experience of my first race got me thinking once again about the absurdity of humans...

What other animal would make a journey of that length (I say this relatively because I have no doubt many animals travel broader distances, but I'm speaking in terms of human physical travel) for the simple fun of it. That's it. Wildebeest and Zebra partake in Miles and miles of travel each year to reach better grazing ground, but to run a huge distance for the sake of running (and to perhaps tell other human beings how far you have run) seems silly from an outside perspective. The things humans do to keep themselves occupied...

That's just the surface value. What was my experience of the race itself? I was haphazardly shoved in between some eleven thousand people at 06:00 in the morning (still dark), I could not see much (being a head shorter than the rest of my fellow runners, but I still felt this sense of anticipation and excitement. My heart beat faster then than it had perhaps the entire race thereafter. We sang the National Anthem and then the cannon sounded. Ready to run! Not really... I only actually ran about 5 minutes into the race. I only crossed the starting line 5 minutes into the race... we left the excitement of the pumping music and the cheering crowds behind us and a weird silence engulfed us. it was not a deathly silence, it was the silence of the hum created by eleven thousand pairs of tekkied-feet pounding the road. the grunts and pants of fellow runners striving to keep up with the crowd. here and there a joke flies out from somewhere and you giggle from the randomness.

It's been a while... let me check my Garmin and see how far I've come... What?! 672 meters?! How can that be possible! Got to speed it up a little... I wont make my time... there are people everywhere and there is no where to pass... you are held back by the slow people around you.

The breathing is getting heavier, the sky lighter, and I feel pretty good. Its been about 10 kilometers and you know that you still have some way to go so you reserve your energy for the hills. You want some water, but there are such crowds around the watering posts that you'd rather leave it. can't stop running now...

Completely lost. I live here and I don't know where I am. This is good. The scenery is beautiful and the fact that I've never seen it before distracts my brain temporarily from thinking about how tired my legs are. The people around me are quiet now. No more jokes are being passed about flippatly.

4 kilometers to go. I know now where I am. I jog here often and this is very discouraging! I know how far it is to go and more importantly, I know how far it feels! Far from being finished! Won't it end already? I'm not exactly tired... I mean my legs are starting to strain, but they're not painful and I'm not breathing heavy. 4 kilometers...

It is about 1 kilometer to go, I am running as fast as I can but I cannot estimate just how fast that is because I don't really care. I just want to be done now. I'm like a horse, who after a tiring workout knows that it's home-time and I'm getting there as quickly as I can with what energy I have left... I'm waiting for the screams of "Go Eden!" or "You've done it, Eden!" but either I can't hear them or they're not coming... I'm on the grass, the final stretch! I race to the end line... or what I think is the end line - only to see that it is a little further on... on my last legs, my waning energy, I pass at least two other people raising my arms in glorification for the photographer that I see, unable to smile... did he get that? I'll only know a little later I guess. But this is it! Jarringly I stop running - for the first time in two hours and thirty-one minutes and my legs feel fuzzy. I'm numb and it feels weird to walk, but the cold steel of the medal in my hand makes me feel glad.

That's after all why humans run so pointlessly isn't it? for a shiny cold piece of metal on a ribbon...

Of all the natural wonders of the world, the magic of a growing seed, the secret transformations within a pupa, the smartest advances in animal intellect, I find the human race is by far the most perplexing. Age after age seems to pass, and although we modernise our habitats and quality of living, we seem to do little to change our habits and responses to certain people and situations.

It's the early middle ages. Various people are being tortured and burned for practicing 'witchcraft', people which today would be known as mathematicians... scientists... People who could research into alternate points of views, swim upstream and could find different ways of doing the ordinary were persecuted, banished. People who thought outside of the box were considered demons, laughed at for their attempts to create light, to capture images, to fly... Today all these people have made huge contributions to how we percieve the world. A world full of technology, fast-paced and loud, even if perhaps a bit intoxicated with poisons.

We can look back and laugh at the foolishness of these people who burned what they feared, and mocked what they did not understand. Has it really changed? We can look to movements of 'equality' and 'freedom of speech' but in my opinion ffom observation, humans don't take likely to 'difference'. Change seems like the enemy, and in an ever changing world, it is a bad enemy to have. Many conspiracy theorists have presented alternate views on the world (a very likely occurence as all humans are entitled to their own opinions) and in a similar stance to witch-burning are accused of lunacy. Take the 9/11 conspiracy for example: Here are people (with some viable evidence for what they claim ) that are shunned for what they question. The presentation of a different view is at times threatening to another human as it challenges their state of consciousness. This, I think, causes the animal-like behaviour of aggression to dominate the challenger and to bite them down. Why else are these conspiracy theorists so brutaly handled?

On a slightly different note, this leads me to violence as presented in the media. People are so easily offended and like to pretend that their sophisticated ways call for less violence in the media, and although I do not necessarily agree with it, I accept it as not only part of our violent world, but as part of an even more violent and lustful history. In the Roman empire Coliseums were arenas of death to entertain the emperor. Gladiators, ravanous wild beasts and sometimes even random spectators were tossed into a cocktail of gore for the pleasure of thousands of onlookers. Various torture methods (among which the mildest were beatings) were fit punishments to sinners, handed out readily by (obviously sadistic) executors. With our past written in blood it is hard to think of people as pure and non-violent creatures in ourselves and once again, an animal blood-lust lies within our race. Why then, do we find our violent Television programs so offensive? Why was heavy metal and violent programming to blame at Columbine's shoot-out? Is it not perhaps our simple nature?

Well, those are my random ponderings of humanity for today and with that, I will leave you to contemplate our existance for yourself.

Dominance. This word is reminiscent of those nature documentaries one watches lazily on a Sunday Afternoon.

Dogs for instance, show their dominance to one another by making sure their heads are higher than their opponents. I remember this from my childhood observations when our small, mix-breed bitch would use our Labrador bitch as a stand post on which she lent to display her dominance. Of course, the Labrador was not fond of this treatment and responded by body-slamming her down WWE style, thereby showing her whose "Boss".

What gets to me though, is that people scuff and dismiss this as prime and instinctive animal behaviour. i.e. this is not what us civilized people do.

Whilst going for a drive the other day, we noticed houses build all the way up the slope of a mountain. Curiously, we wondered how on earth those people got to their houses, and proceeded to drive up that way to investigate. After criss-crossing our winding path up to the houses (or rather, mansions) we eventually got to the top. Beautiful and expensive-looking as the houses were, we both had to ask, was it all worth it when it was such a belated mission to reach home?

Why were the houses right at the top more expensive and more wealthily looked after than the houses that were only slightly less escalated? One of the answers I could come to: Dominance. This I suppose, is the civilised method of 'dominance'. It boosts the esteem of people to know that their 'heads' are highest above all, to know that there's no one above them, that they are in fact the highest they can get.

Just a thought... Just pondering about the strangeness of mankind.

Wow! It certainly has been a while since I've last posted. This is probably inexcusable on my behalf, but I will try to justify it nonetheless.

Since My last post, I have started the life of a student, which is altogether a new and different experience. Apart from knowing absolutely no one (since it is a new Town I moved to), there was a flurry of colour I am unused to (for one having occupied dryer regions of South Africa and attending a school with uniform) and a frenzy of others just as confused and unfamiliar as I was. It was exciting, but nerve wrecking as well, and before long, I realized what I had had in friendship back home, and longed to have it back.

I soon managed to adjust however, and new friends came, new opportunities, and ultimately a new me developed. Independence took its natural course and shifted to its rightful place as instinct. Its strange to me how people are capable of adapting to their situation, and wonderful. How, lost and confused, they can soon find their wings and soar. The town I now live in is the most beautiful I have ever seen, and has a piece of everything to offer: From mountains, to ocean, to forest and sun. In spring when the flowers bloom there is the most exquisite display of colours so bright! I find the quote by Lester Burnham in the 1999 film, American Beauty sums up my feelings and experiences of life quite accurately,

"I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me... but it's hard to stay mad, when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst... And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life... "

Many things have changed, but I feel my life surging forward like the waves of the sea, and its leading me to exciting places and possibilities that I never dreamed possible. Where I am, right now, is where I feel I aught to be, and I feel that this year has been one of constant mobility and development, springing forth towards who I can and want to become. And in all this, I wasn't completely left in solitude. Without this, I don't think I would have gotten half as far as I have. I'm overjoyed that I could share my experiences, joys and fears with another...

Until my next post, (which I promise, will not be seven months later this time)

Keep breathing, stop and listen, and enjoy Life!

Picture from: http://gilad.deviantart.com/art/A-slice-of-life-64298703

Well, well, well... We all well into a new year, Chinese included and I must say that it's been a very busy one so far! What with all the piles of boxes and furniture we had to labor 1000 kilometers, squeeze through the door and unpack its been exhausting really.

Ah! November... its funny how a year can sit still and quiet upon a rock, sunbathing and at the strangest of times, take flight like a seabird. Yes, my mind is already at the seaside as I sit day dreaming at my desk, the open textbook beyond my vision, waiting patiently for my attention.

My final Matric exams are underway, and I can only wonder through them, lost at sea until the day comes when I spot an island of comfort. It is a strange feeling though, this leaving business. One I cannot fully comprehend or yet come to any direct terms. I feel the excitement, splendor, jubilation of the first toddling steps of my future and career beginning, and yet, left on the shores of childhood so many friends and family that watch me take off with... how did Shakespeare put it? "drowning an eye, unused to flow."

But change is an inevitable factor within the lives of individuals. Some for the worse, others for the better, but I plan on making the most of my ever changing livelihood, ans as for so far the changes have brought me all the more joy, and I plan to keep it that way. For now I must sit though, in the dusty exam room, watching the hours tick by, the low scribble of light pens dancing frantically on their pages, filling out inevitable futures that I can wonder further, deeper perhaps than my minds knowledge and find wisdom there?

May it be an evening star shines down upon your papers, fellow matrics,

and May it be you journey on into your futures, to light the day!

Have a smashing matric rage! ;P

~Eden~

Today, I can honestly say that I've had a good day's work.

Thinking of my last blogging, I can honestly say that all the needs on my hierarchy are met and I am content with my life. The only really pressing thing on my mind is that my gym card has expired and I am in need of a good work out!

I managed good results for last term and all went well. Now the pressure is on to just keep it up. But through my happiness and contentment, I am confident that I can tackle any challenge that surfaces, or at least most. oh, beautiful life and all its intricate complexities. How beautiful it is to experience it to its fullest and to highest fulfillment. Sweet, wonderful pleasures!

I'm done Hippie-ing now... ha ha! just thought I'd drop by with a post to say that my hierarchy for this time is complete.

Take care!

Eden

Picture from: flickr.com