in the past week, i have been increasingly aware of a certain absurdity that cloaks everything. (if thats not a blanket statement, i don't know what is) in america, this absurdity takes the form of people trying to fill a spiritual or emotional hole with things never meant to fill them. posessions won't make you any more aware and celebratory of your true nature as a human being then pouring alcohol down your gullet will. i mean absurdity not in a rude way, "thats simply absurd!" but in a when-you-really-think-about-it, it-makes-you-chuckle-and-shake-your-head kinda way. the thought that being happy starts anywhere but inside us is sad. it makes me want to sign.
the absurdity here is different. it stems from the fact that we are all here, living on coral gorwn on the rim of a submerged volcano a couple thousand miles from the nearerst real land. why is this place here? how have people been living on it for more than 2,000 years? what made it worth settling? its a precarious place to live, without the size to support large-scale agriculture or populations of large food animals. the absurdity is that it is here, that it is home to 60,000 souls and, even more, that i'm here. i step out of my classroom, turn one way and see the bright blue lagoon, and turn the other and see the deeper sapphire of the pacific. all i can do is smile and shake my head; shake my head and smile.
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