Well, maybe this won’t be a journal of the strictest type. I’ve decided to write now instead of (or, as we may see later, in addition to) later on this evening. It’s actually still today, a mere 8:00. Wow. That’s less than six hours later than this morning’s entry. Ah, well. Tomorrow’s Sunday, and I’ll need my sleep to get up in time for church. Perhaps I shall go to bed early tonight.
What to talk about? I’m in a bit of a pensive mood, but there isn’t much of anything in particular coming to me. I suppose I shall ramble on about whatever hits my mind. You know, I think that may be why I feel like keeping much of my correspondence. I talk a lot. Perhaps I should stop boring people with my banter and direct it at myself more often. Except that I don’t want to become too verbally fixated. Ah, well. Some things must be sacrificed in the pursuit of ultimate knowledge. Which is where I’d like to think I’m going. At least, I can’t be going backwards. I hope. Perhaps I shall condense out of these journals things to send people. That would work. Then I can remain social, and exercise editing skills, whilst attaining better self-knowledge.
Speaking of self-knowledge, I had an interesting dream this morning. I remember thinking "this is a good dream, I shall endeavor to remember it", but I failed somewhere and forgot it anyway. Which makes my remembered intention to recall the dream more maddening. I suppose life is often like that. More knowledge merely ends up hurting you, because when you know you don’t know something you can’t know, it hurts. Men are rather fundamentally curious, aren’t we? Interesting. Maybe we’re designed so that we keep changing, so that our relationships can keep growing. And yet there is the opposing force of man’s desire for continuity, of unchanging security. I read somewhere once that God designed the rhythm of nature for this reason. Things change, and yet they stay the same. Day sinks into night, which breaks into day, which sinks… And the seasons, as well. Not to mention the seven day week cycle He established, or the longer seven- or seventy-year cycles.
How then can this be applied? I guess that’s the engineer in me talking, or at least the part that seems to think I want to be an engineer. I remember the professor at UMR pointing out that that was how an engineer’s mind works. He had just shown us a piece of "memory" metal, metal that contains a molecular memory of its form and will revert to it under heat, and he asked us what came to mind. I was thinking more along the lines of "How does it work?" while someone behind me in the room answered something to the effect of "Can it be used for car bumpers?" I don’t remember if that was his comment or not, but it was something practical. It feels like I’m writing memoirs or something. I hope it isn’t because of some odd subconscious precognition of my impending death. I’d like to live long enough to learn more, and do more. Anyway, the professor made some comment to the effect that that kid’s comment was an example of the way an engineer’s mind works. I was slightly jealous, or envious, or somehow resentful. I think like an engineer, don’t I? So maybe I start to think like that now because of that. Or maybe I’m starting to see that knowledge doesn’t mean a hill of beans to people unless you can do something. Or maybe that it doesn’t mean said hill to me, unless I can do something for people. Odd how one traces thoughts.
Anyway… how does one use the cycle concept in practical usage? I suppose in massage, circular motions are nice. Rhythm, anyway. People are very rhythm oriented. Music is nice. Also dancing, in a different but fairly closely related way.
Boy, these would be worth gold to that other person, who wanted me to put stuff on the philosophy section. Though I don’t think these are worthy of going up on the site under the heading of "philosophy". They seem a bit too shallow, or low scale to me. Maybe not. Perhaps they’re just not sufficiently directed for my taste.
Well. Perhaps I will address the rhythm thing later, if I can. Right now I’ve been shaken out of my thoughtfulness. Well, perhaps not shaken. Slipped is more like it. I will go do other things now.