[3272] in Depressing_Thoughts
the cliff
nosaj@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (nosaj@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Sun Aug 2 01:45:22 1992
sigh.
I was just walking home about half an hour ago, and I suddenly
thought to myself, "What am I doing here?", not as in "What am I doing
walking on this sidewalk now?" but in a larger perspective, like,
"What am I doing here at MIT? What am I doing here programming
this summer? What am I doing trying to get a EE degree? What am I doing
trying to write a story? etc. etc.", and I find that I can't answer those
questions; things seem so futile -- not because I can't accomplish them
(and I suppose I should consider myself fortunate because of that), but
because... well, I don't quite know why.
When I was at summer camp seven years ago (! how time flies), the area
for one of the merit badge classes I was taking was on the far side of camp,
and there was a shortcut back to our campsite which I had been on before.
I took a wrong turn, and ended up on a trail which left the camp, entered
the Indiana State Forest, went back inside the camp, and went up to a place
called "Explorer Point" which was atop a steep hillside across the lake
from our campsite; you could see the rest of the camp from there.
The road kept going (and maybe it did go all the way around the lake) but
I turned back and walked three miles to the campsite (which was a few
hundred yards from Explorer Point as the crow flies). "Where were you?", I
expected people to ask, but they didn't. I told my friend while we were
eating hot dogs for lunch, and he listened, but I think he kind of looked
at me like "Why were you stupid enough to go out there?"
I haven't thought about it much since then.
This past December (the day before New Year's, in fact; I remember because I
had to go to a stupid New Year's Eve party at my parents' friend's house)
I pulled _Cat's Cradle_ off the shelf and read it. (Read it. It's another one
of those good Vonnegut books. :o]) Near the end of the book, the main character
is standing on the edge of a cliff on an island (I forget the name), and
"something happens" to the ocean (I won't spoil the plot). That image struck
me when I read it. (though it didn't remind me of my trek to Explorer Point
until now) The character is at the edge of the earth, even though he's nowhere
in particular, and there's a real sense of aloneness, futileness, endlessness...
I need my own personal Total Perspective Vortex, I think, so that I realize
my importance in *my* world, rather than my importance in *the* world,
because the latter obviously isn't going to be very great.
Ho, hum.
