Week 1A: My Blog Theme

 The theme of my blog is quotes and stories. I have always been fascinated with and bewitched by lines of words spoken or written in such a way as to enrapture a person and wring them of emotion, that motivate and captivate the mind, body, and soul. Through my life there have been poems, quotes, and stories that followed me as I went through trials and tribulations and progressed through my life. Many quotes I remember have served as reminders of checkpoints of sorts marking important events throughout my life. Since recalling stories and quotes I associate with them inspires me and causes blooms of emotion, I decided to create a blog where I will pick a quote of importance to me and write along with it, a story at a point in my life. I don't well believe that my words can possibly be chosen and organized in a fashion to elicit emotions at the same level of those authors whos quotes I have chosen, but if I can cause perhaps a tiny curl of the edge of the mouth or a chuckle I will be more than happy. 

The visual theme of my blog is like that of a library which relates to the content I intend to publish in my blog which are stories about me and quotes from great individuals, quotes I hope you and anybody reading will enjoy and gain something from. The image I chose is a stylistic and beautiful image of a classy, rustic, beautiful library filled with books along with a spiral staircase. I wish I could shuffle through the books of such a library, searching for a story, or quote, or something of importance that was written by somebody in an attempt to gift to others something from them. I imagine doing this with hot coffee and low coffee shop jazz in the background. 

This is one of my stories. 

I was in elementary school when a teacher of mine, the name and face of whom long forgotten, blended together with those of countless others presented to the class a poem: 

Harlem

BY LANGSTON HUGHES

What happens to a dream deferred?

      Does it dry up

      like a raisin in the sun?

      Or fester like a sore—

      And then run?

      Does it stink like rotten meat?

      Or crust and sugar over—

      like a syrupy sweet?

      Maybe it just sags

      like a heavy load.

      Or does it explode?

This poem stuck to me, and over the years I would recall it from time to time, thinking to myself  something along the lines of "I pity those poor fools who as children decided on, or most likely had pushed upon them, a dream which over the years lost it's color, as they lost theirs - and who eventually gave up on the wonderful dream they promised to themselves over and over they would achieve." 

When my dream of becoming a doctor started to dry up, I thought to myself -

"But surely it won't be me..."

My dream finally dwindled to a small ember, gasping for oxygen that I denied it and confusingly rather than watching it diminish and become reduced to ash, I stomped out its ember and dashed the remains -

"What was I thinking? 

How could I have convinced myself that their dreams were mine 

That a distinct lack of joy and gratification in what I was doing was fine..."

I cursed the idea of a dream deferred -

"How absurd..."

I was at CSUSM studying biochemistry, during the previous couple years I experienced a significant decline in my motivation and progress. I was riddled with health issues. Chronic intolerable nerve pain down my leg from a skateboard accident years before, depression, anxiety, and more. I experienced a variety of personal, familial, mental, and health issues that led me to where I was - 

A lab classroom on the second floor, I was walking up to the teacher, my goggles fogged over and sweat droplets falling down my back - like rain on a window in a storm. I had just lost, or thrown away, or destroyed a protein sample that took 6 hours for the aids to prepare. The teacher admonished me and gave me the last sample in existence. Walking back to my desk I began to sweat more, a pit in my stomach formed and I thought "I am screwed" - I did not read the lab guide, let alone prepare directions, let alone understand what the hell I was doing.

My hip was orchestrating a symphony of agony, nerve pain that felt like a hot nail hammered into my hip joint with pain cascading down my leg all the way to my ankle. On top of that, I had a deeply embedded aversion to lab rooms, but I had convinced myself that I loved them - that I loved doing all of "this." Thinking "How can I not completely enjoy everything leading up to and included in actualizing my drea..." It seemed as if I had blinked twice and it was gone - the second sample the teacher had given me, "Ah ****"

I felt the eyes of the whole class on me as I told the teacher "I'm sorry, I can't find it, what should I do..." I felt embarrassment and intense discomfort rise and bloom into something substantially more traumatic  "Perhaps you don't belong here. Perhaps you should drop the course. Perhaps this isn't for you." I agreed wholeheartedly. With my heart in my stomach, I attempted to drown my thoughts in static nothingness as I quickly put away the few random lab items I had taken out previously in my impossible attempt to complete the lab.

I grabbed my backpack and left the classroom with my lab coat and goggles still on. I sat, stunned and soaked in swear in my car for lightyears and eternities. As I came to like a soldier out of shellshock, with tears in my eyes I forced a deep breath... and began letting go. Of all the grandiose images in my head I crafted of me - of myself walking down cold hallways with a nameplate saying "Dr. Clark" of thankful patients saying goodbye to me, of fat bank accounts, of success...of all the feelings and attachments and dreams...

Of all the feelings, and attachments, and dreams... that had been drowning and shackling me. I drove home weighing...probably ten pounds less...and cried tears of immense relief. I woke up a few weeks, maybe a few months later -after a period of intense recovery - and stumbled over to my table to scribble down an idea that sprouted in my mind and simultaneously in my heart sprouted an intense burning desire. 

“Want the change. Be inspired by the flame

where everything shines as it disappears.

The artist, when sketching, loves nothing so much

as the curve of the body as it turns away.

What locks itself in sameness has congealed.

Is it safer to be gray and numb?

What turns hard becomes rigid

and is easily shattered.

Pour yourself like a fountain.

Flow into the knowledge that what you are seeking

finishes often at the start, and, with ending, begins.

Every happiness is the child of a separation

it did not think it could survive. And Daphne, becoming a laurel,

dares you to become the wind.

- Sonnets To Orpheus, Part Two, XII”

― Rainer Maria Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus

What happened was after a few grueling semesters ridden with the aforementioned issues combined with an overall distinct lack of joy and gratification in what I was doing, I took a step back to re-evaluate what I was doing and received letters from doctors and from my psychiatrist recommending and granting me a medical withdrawal from school.

I took some time to rest and recuperate and find solutions to the problems plaguing me. I began a period of intensive recovery in which I found solutions to my mental health problems and a few of my physical health problems with the help of doctors and by developing an unwavering resolve and unbending strength of will to find solutions to my problems and come out a much better person.

 This led to a period of comprehensive self-examination, rumination, "soul-searching," in which I developed a clear vison of the identity of the person I wished to become and uncovered deeply seated strengths, passions, and desires which led to the pursuit of my definite purpose in life. 

 I immediately began taking steps towards this identity and definite purpose. 

Although my trajectory changed, my deepest seated passions and purpose remain the same. I envision doing this through starting my own company and developing a mobile application. I am now taking courses assisting me towards that goal; business courses towards an AA in entrepreneurship/business and computer science courses towards a certificate in mobile application development. I aim to soon start my company and begin working towards my ultimate goal.

Self-mastery and self-realization are the seeds which bear the fruit for the betterment of mankind and the world. 

Each of us owes it to ourselves and has the ability to become the greatest versions of ourselves. 

Every and every individual has an indisputable obligation to become the greatest possible version of themselves, and along with the proper systems in place they may overcome any obstacle preventing self-mastery and self-realization.

By planting and nurturing the seeds of self-discipline, self-improvement, self-realization and self-mastery we each may play a part in growing an enrapturing garden and nurturing the fruits of a captivating and beautiful world.

If— 

BY RUDYARD KIPLING

(‘Brother Square-Toes’—Rewards and Fairies)

If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!