I already know, I've got to work on my metaphors. But...

I appreciate education. I do. We all need to know the things we learn through middle school and high school, and processing those extra bits of calculus and senior literature help us to "learn how to learn" other complex ideas later in life. Undergraduate is equally appreciated, understood, and acknowledged. The tests got harder, we understand better the value of hard work, the sacrifice of socialization and relaxation for education and graduation, that following new-found respect for relaxation and socialization, and all the built character we got from the experience. We got a foundation in some specialized skills that will be necessary to lay the groundwork for later job training and organizational survival.

But now, this graduate school business. I feel that I am, at 23, with facial hair and a slowing metabolism, still being forced from all sides to be breast fed. I know I know, it'll make me stronger, smarter; it'll keep me insulated from the cold outside world, experts say it's good for me, but for God's sake, the benefits have come and gone! My teeth are starting to atrophy (you know, if that's what teeth do..), people are starting to pity my condition, and if and when I finally break free and get me some solid food, it's going to hurt a lot more when I bite my tongue from un-use. I'm ready to use all my long-stored nutrients to run around, and not just fatten up from a milky malaise - isn't that what it's all for?

Which is purely metaphorical, really, because no one's getting fat from all this Ramen...

Treatment by the doze

Last night I had a dream in which I had to climb to the top of a mountainous path, through heavy rain and near total darkness, having to clutch to sharp tree branches lining the ill-paved but slick road I was on; and no matter how hard I pushed my legs, I could not walk; and no matter how hard I pulled on those branches, my arms could not lift my own weight. There was nothing I could do. I was stuck with a mysterious disability in life-threatening conditions, and so I decided laying down and loitering about would be much more beneficial than worrying about my quadriplegia. And then I woke up. And saw that I'd slept for nine and a half hours. And I thought. "I must have a terrible disorder! Look at the sleep I get! How can I expect to live like this?"

I dive in...

No toe-wetting here.

This blog exists, if for no other reason, to amuse myself: to keep my verbage active, to salt my creativity to keep it from spoiling, to ensure I have ample strength to pun when I'm 86.

But if there is another reason, then it is to share: to invite you to enjoy the products of this mental exercise, to tear them apart so I can put them together, and hopefully to inspire similar production in those who read me - I think it's nice exercise.

In honor of a first blog post, a bit on the hearing of words:

One thing that would sincerely satisfy me in "making it big", almost more than the money (almost..), is the ability to be heard. Those that have the most pervasive voices are not such because they have the clearest voices, but because they are the most visible. The audience of the world is not passive to the voices of the world; they do not receive all auditory signals and digest the the most trumpetest ones. We are, in metaphor as in physiology, active listeners, listening to those we can see, processing those we can focus our attention on. This is also perhaps what I most enjoy about the broadening accessible grasp of social media. It is the shout to our metaphorical senses - if any person exudes a colorful enough whelp, they will be seen, heard, and perhaps even heeded.