A Resurrection

Eight months ago, a dear friend died. This friend graced my life for 5 years before being tragically lost in a duel with fate. Careening from a height of more than four feet, my friend fell on her head and her neck snapped away from her body with the violence and the despair of a glacier falling into the Arctic sea.

For months, my friend was entombed in her black coffin. I tried to forget about her. I tried to make new friends, but that only increased the pain. I was away from America and all I could do was ask, "Why?!"

I debated leaving her body on foreign soil. It pains me to think of it now, but I even considered cremating her remains. Something inside of me, though, whispered, "Bury her in America, where she belongs. It is your...destiny."

Glaring through hot tears, I slowly raised my fist to the sky and vowed to bear my friend back to California, even if it meant leaving many of my other belongings behind.

The funeral procession was made up of a solitary airplane and it lasted for 14 hours. I removed the coffin from its ominous hearse and brought it home. I could barely stand looking at the coffin standing in the corner, knowing that I would soon have to dispose of the friend who had brought me so much joy through the years. I trembled under dark skies as I screamed out, "O! How I must confront my destiny now, not as a coward, but as the demigod of my fate!"

A cry became a vow. A vow became a plan. A plan became an operation. The terrible deed would soon be done...but I had to try one more thing before I would plunge that dutiful daggar...Could the good doctors of American acoustic rock restore my friend to me?

YEA! HOW THEY COULD!

After eight months of breathless death, THERE IS RESUSCITATION! MY GUITAR HAS BEEN REPAIRED!

Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, so does my guitar now shatter the skies with its piercing shrieks of pop music! Onward, Simon and Garfunkel! Onward, Bruce Springsteen! Onward, Beatles! If there were any time that the world needed your mighty cadences, O! how it is now!

Civil War Soldiers

One of my favorite things about studying history was the way it irrefutably connected me to the past and to humanity at large. I would often sit in class fascinated by how many unfathomably-countless events led up to me being able to sit in this plastic desk while this old man droned on about some historical period he was deeply passionate about right now. The fact of my minute and seemingly insignificant position in the gargantuan unwinding of human history often left me in awesome terror.

Tonight I was flipping through a large book of my roommate's, full of pictures from the American Civil War. Spread out over a few expansive pages, I came across dozens of small pictures of active-duty soldiers. Every other man pictured looked like someone I knew and they all had the same listless and despairing expression on their faces.

I pored over the pictures and thought, "How many of these men had the same dreams and fears that I have now?" I was amazed at how intimately their humanity drifted off the pages at me, leaving me feeling at once deeply connected to the past, but also abhorrent at my own predisposition to feel beyond those who came before me - a frenzied thirst for significance that greedily expects the future masses to care about who I am or what I've done.

Blogging: The Zenith of Egomania?

My dear readership,

I apologize for the lack of updates these last couple months. Since I returned to America, I've spent a lot of time debating the merits of blogging, namely by asking myself, "In the midst of our culture's informational gluttony, why would anyone want to read what I have to say? What could I possibly add to the general deluge? Is it possible to write this kind of public diary and not be totally self-centered in the process?"

I don't know.

I did see Dave Whalley today, though, and he is pretty good about updating his blog. It may not last until tomorrow, but right now, I am inspired to blog more blog.

Here is where I need your help: please give me a prompt/topic to write about. If you have a good idea, you can either comment or email it to me. If not, I'll find something to write about like my favorite cereals.