When God intervenes

Just the other day, I was the prospector of a 5k race. It took place in mid-morning during the current cool season of autumn. As I stood on the side of the course, only restrained by an ankle injusry from flushing my soles to the white painted line, a friend next to me said
"I don't know why people do this...why they like to run."
As the runners strided past with a compilation of desperation and sill-remaining hopefulness followed by a look of doubt and fear for most on their faces. Their breath forming a beard as mystical as that of a genie around their red faces. What could motivate them to line up for agony when there can only be one winner to the race? Especially for those unlikely to win. I looked at my friend, the first time far enough out of my element since its establishment in my life, with the capability to hold a "third-party" opinion on my beloved hobby. With sincerity I said,
"I really don't know, I really do not know. In fact," I said, "this looks terrible right now and I'm very glad I'm watching this race rather than being within it, exerting myself in the cold."
With disbelief and a questionable look of patheticness directed clearly at me, my friend wandered at me for explanation to my sudden metamorphesis. Surprisingly, I had an immediate and steadily founded claim.
"I suppose it's the cold which makes this competition loose its appeal for competition." I said.
I was amazed at my stark realization to the matter, for I have spent the last 4 years of my life -simultaneous to my coming of age- daily dedicated to a run. I always wondered what my feelings would be toward it once I was without out it. It was the competative sport season which yoked me to it that had me believing the lack of this physical motion was impossible by my own will. Now that I am injured however, and do not have the choice one way or another I can see that I do truly enjoy it but I'm able to see different aspects on the matter. Not only that I am a fair-weather partaker in this activity, but more importantly that I am who I am aside from this arduous and committing "hobby".
I don't think that I will take running so seriously anymore, having been given the chance to evaluate its definition in my actual life. I understand now that it isn't as important as I thought. It's interesting that when God intervenes and we are not in control, (in my being injured) how He reveals another length to the mural than what we may have been able to see when we are standing so close to it all along.

The Humane Relationship

By definition, a friend is someone whom can be confided in, adhered to as a partner, and waited upon. A friend is to be ever benefited from where in your lack they are available and present to offer assistance, advice, and joy through simplistic common-ends and companionship. The rationale of a friendship whether intimate, long-established to causality, seasonal, out of necessity of desperate-at-best reliance, is classified through integrity as a relationship which is mutualistic where affluence is reaped by any encounter, and commensalism out of those which are of more shallow an interaction. In some instances however -and more and more dominantly at current- the relational status of “friendship” can become a dual-ended parasitism and when not directly, on a long-term and highly affective basis.                                               

Especially typical of teenagers, I often encounter friends who are literally feeding on one-another spiritually. This can be gone about in the most innocent mannerism and by oblivion too. I think that it happens more often than what we realize and in many of our relationships, not limited to those of friendship. Throughout the course of high school, most of us are involved in a multitude of friendships as the vast majority of each day is spent surrounded almost solely by a variety of people who are likewise to our age. I think that the issue of parasitism within these friendships is most commonly in occurrence in situations of long-established friendships. Those who have remained in close friendships and cliques since they were younger seem to be most in danger of being cut off from the experiences, discomforts, and ability to understand that which is beyond the protection and familiarity of these likely- unknown-condemning condolences. The testing and expansion of our territories is one of the most basic necessities in the human life. We must  gain understanding of each other’s positions whether through simple off-stood and autonomous observation or through personal encounter. In order for these situations and opportunities for greater perspective to be made available, we must stand independently as individuals. Because friends often act as sanctuaries protecting us from exposure of the unknown, they can deprive us of the potential to retain understanding which is one of the greater of the virtuous characteristics. Understandingness is the ability to recognize a situation after having been made aware of it and then developing the ability to relate that discovery to morality. The dexterity to understand is essential to life, especially as we are undeniably societal people formed by single persons who are –no matter how spiritually bound- always divided.                                                                                                                    

At the point which it becomes uncomfortable to be alone, one can be sure that they have some desolating to do in order to find not only themselves, but also to take a look at lives around them. Another thing that can result from this unhealthy situation is that we can attach ourselves to others without setting expectations. When this happens, we can end up losing bind on our values by morphing to anyone who is also in desperation where the seasons of life remove previous friendships.

Although each of these aspects seem easily avoidable by maintaining sheer awareness of our positions, it is also just as easy to find ourselves committing social cannibalism with the people we say we love.

The Sense of Sound Investigated

It’s interesting the way a sound can be intercepted and a feeling can be attached to it and creep into our emotions without our conscious attention. The sense of sound can often be sneaky. It is the sense whose sensation cannot be controlled through filtration. Sound is also the sense which can be obstructed from invariably the largest distance. It is for these reasons I suppose, that I think sounds hold the most symbolism of the 5 senses.                                                                                                                                             

Much of the time we do not intend to hear certain things like a train whistle or a bird of the relieving of a an airplanes fuel, casting an over-whelmingness over all sounds present, yet far-set enough to be drowned by those sharper and nearer. At whatever the extreme, we can persist to be emotionally effected. When paralleled to sight, it as though –exclusively- we are looking at a snapshot which brings us to the time and place in which the photo was taken. A sound can only partially be denied and only once it has been expected. Because of this, I think sound can impact mood. Wherever I am, the sound of kids playing outside, raising their voices in excitement and meaning with leaf blowers or lawn mowers, I feel most at home as a sound can bring me to feel. These sounds are familiar, common, and are part of life which is safe and ordinary to me. When I hear jest-skis or boats, I am immediately given the sense of pleasure and my most ideal state. It is that which I am safely immersed in the position of safeness still, but with an edge. I am with my family enjoying the summer at the lake house where exceptions are made; sun-screen is neglected, bed-times are stretched, speeds on the water are tested by bravery, and competition is present as the cousins see who can jump furthest off the dock. This summed up on a summer-warmed, familiar feeling can be achieved by a sound.                                                                                                    

Likewise in effect, feelings can not only be visited, but created by a sound. These are the sounds which are mysterious and where experience is not attached to them. When I was little, the sound heard beneath the water of a pool was scary to me. There is a very distant, magnified sound beneath the water in a pool. It sounds as though the water is not limited to the walls of the pool, but rather is contiguous with the depths of the oceans, every lake, and river combined and as deep as the mountains are tall and continuing into unknown darkness. In the midst of this expansiveness, I can amazingly hear the closest things which cannot be heard above water, like hair tingling.