You wanted profound...

(Well, this probably isn't it.)

From Dec. 19th, 2009:

In the early hours of this morning, awakened by the festive birthday scuttlings and gnawings of our household mouse, I looked myself in the bathroom mirror.

Well, you're 26.  What do you have to say for yourself?

And I remembered what Mr. Hiefield, my high school Religion and Philosophy/Theory of Knowledge teacher and all-around wonderful human being, would request/demand of every student of his who had a birthday in his class:  "Well, you're now 17 years old. (This was true at the time.)  Tell us, what have you learned in your 17 years?"

So what have I learned in my (gulp) 26 years?  So many things.  This certainly has the potential to be a very long post.  But one thing sticks out for me above all the trivia and song lyrics.  Ready?  To be astounded?  To be amazed?  To go, "Well, duh."?

I learned:

There's always something to learn.

Always.  From every situation.  Sometimes it's a small interesting thing, and it shines out like a shard of glass catches the sun - gorgeous, unexpected, cheering.  Then there are times when you really have to dig; and times when the full magnitude of an experience won’t be known for quite a while; and even then, only suddenly and viscerally, like losing your footing going down a step.  Or perhaps it comes on you like a light breeze, when you suddenly understand the punchline of the joke from Tuesday afternoon.


Always, always, always.  Evolution is change over time.  Time keeps going, and one can't help but change, so evolution keeps trucking along at a snail's-- a mudskipper's-- an ostrich's-- a leopard's pace. We learn and change and grow along with it.   If you truly face that opportunity so's not to miss it, and watch the primordial struggles and victories and points where a cog in the brain slips just so - then you become aware of the process itself.  And that is a huge relief.

It's just life.  It just goes, and we just learn.  No big.