Another month has passed and I thought I should probably catch up the stalker space faithful. This might be my first day off in a month. Once games started, I've been going non-stop. This weekend all of the teams are away so I'm just waiting for results to come in so I can update the website. I'm trying to make sure that I don't get caught up in going through the motions and forget to actually live in the moment, but the busy schedule is always threatening my good intentions.
The summer feels so long ago... (well it is fall now) and living and working in Maryland feels like another life entirely. I want to remember the lessons from past experiences, but still move forward with the new knowledge applied to today. MethCo is definitely a different animal when you're on the other side of things... especially after a spending a few years away. I miss some of the things and people from my time as a student... but some things will never change... My whole student experience seems so much more valuable and worthwhile now that I can look back on it with some perspective.
Some random musings from another ccm issue compliments of jars of clay...
"'In Africa,' explains Haseltine, reflecting on the band's visit to the continent, 'People embody their experiences, their emotions. When there's a funeral, there's wailing, and it isn't a bunch of people standing around trying to be strong for everybody else. When they're thankful or happy, they're not taking anything away from that experience because they're dancing or they're singing, and there's real joy. In America, there are structures in place that keep us from actually experiencing the fullness of those emotions in life. You find in Africa they don't have much of a suicide rate-- it's extremely low. Compare that to the U.S., where we have these structures in place to keep us at a certain level of emotional status. And what are we doing with our emotions? We're killing ourselves. It's stuff like that that's definitely informed this record [Good Monsters].'"
I was just talking to one of my good friends a few weeks ago about expressing emotion and he was saying he felt like as a man he had to be strong and will not show emotion in public... anymore. I am known for being everyone's local flood and was trying to justify the value of letting it all out. Expressing emotions... good and bad... can be a healthy alternative to pretending that everything's okay when it's not. Pretending isn't being strong. I need authentic for my own sanity and encouragement... maybe I should move to Africa.
