In the first weeks (in NC) of my 21 month mission experience I felt like a muppet with a hand in my back and another one moving my mouth. Only my mind was left to think and analyze. I lacked knowledge of my surroundings, words to speak in my new language, experience in my new world, choices within my realm of possibilities, and ability to act for myself because of these absolute inadequacies. My new world proceeded to shape and move me.In the first weeks in Michigan I feel again like I once did. I work for a huge accounting firm that reaches around the globe. I work in a corporate headquarters that is behind the largest pizza delivery network in the world. I feel like nobody would notice if I had a heart attack and decomposed under my desk. I lack experience, words, understanding of my choices and where those choices might lead. I feel the absolute opposite of free. My new world is proceeding to shape and move me.
These two experiences are snow globe versions of life. Shaped and moved by what crosses our paths, and at the same time resticted and bonded because of what doesn't. Some things stick, some don't. Some people go one way and others go another. Some see one thing and others another.
Somewhere I know there is a fat guy in a red coat shaking a globe and laughing while he points at me and YOU.
3 comments:
i would notice if you decomposed!! i promise.
TANGENT: From this post, i am pondering the idea of 'free agency'. it's the most fascinating thing. Like you say, the inadequacy of knowledge of consequences is limiting and leaves one unable to intelligently choose. People can think, hope, pray, and guess but it really is impossible to freely choose. to freely choose (in my opinion) would be to know the path the said choice would lead to. to know all outcomes. so what we all really have is limited agency, depending on how you're defining the phrase. hm. anyway those were just some evening thinkings by the wifey.
This is a great post Aaron. What a lesson we all learn in our own way. Just make sure you ask your boss "why?" when he asks you to shred all of the papers in his office before 6AM the next morning. Don't be his puppet (or fall guy).
Jenn, your tangent made me think of about 75% of all the people I've ever arrested. They usually have a pleading like "please don't take me to jail!", or "I don't want to leave my family!" or "I don't want the neighbors to see me in hand cuffs!" etc.
My response? "Then you shouldn't have broken the law."
When we make choices, we really are choosing consequences. We just need to try our best to understand those consequences, no matter how impossible it may seem.
Aaron, I really enjoyed this. I would also notice if you decomposed, so try to avoid that. Then again, we are all slowly decomposing. We are all slowly dying.....
Anyway, sometimes when my little cell phone vibrates in the morning at 7:30, I think "the three kids I will help cross the street today probably don't even need me". But, I get up anyway.
Your post also reminds me of the Truman show. It is easy to feel trapped in a conformed society but we must find freedom in ordinary things.
Anyway this comment is too long. I would just also like to compliment your advanced vocabluary.
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