It's a great life; it really is. But its complicated. Horribly complicated.
It's almost impossible to think of a macro-version of life. Too many decisions, too many fates, too many sliding scales for varying aspects of the human condition.
But I say almost because of our ability to draw maps, conceptualize consciousness, and make exceptions.
There was always a map/diagram down in the bottom of the science building at my alma mater, Warren Wilson College. I mean, to finish that thought, it always perplexed me. To this day I still don't know exactly what it was describing, but it was as tall as your standard wall and about 7 feet long. I think it had something to do about mapping the way proteins fold to replicate and build DNA, but I'm not quire sure.
Anyways, that map/diagram always caught my eye when I was down there. (Usually the few opportunities I had to have basic General Education classes for my science requirement.) I wondered if such a map could be drawn to explain the intricacies of the human condition. Or if it would just end up looking like a spectrum of different sliders, somewhat linked in a tentative dashed lines in certain places.
With the human mind, it's really impossible to classify something because of our ability to recognize opinions, and to choose them on our free will. I find it exceptionally annoying, but mandatory at the same time to retain the wonderfulness that fills us.
I see a lot of friends struggling with self-identity/life issues, either with themselves, or while comparing themselves with others. It's something I struggle with as well, like that ever present background app of "explorer.exe". Necessary to keep open (it is essentially your user interface for your computer, if running windows), but you can't exactly see it working because you are too busy using it to get to other applications.
Then you stop and examine each and individual bit running that background program. Its huge, unfathomable, and takes some time to "get" the picture of a system. Then it clicks. Suddenly you can see pretty much all of the classes.java which exist, and how they reference, link, and work with each other. Sometime a map helps (it sure does for me), but some folks can work it out on their own.
The mind is the computer, and it finally compiles the code, and returns it with no errors. You have the blueprint set up, now its on to debug the damn thing.
Debugging will lead you through how the blueprint is constructed , and that is where I am right now. Working through the problems. And I think that is where many of my friends are at as well. We've setup the framework, and gotten it all arranged correctly, but actually executing that code is giving us the hardest time in the world, and we are learning that working out the kinks is a littler harder than we thought.
But for now, we have the blueprints for the ramparts of our castles. Now its time to build a sight to behold. And the best part is: We all have our own unique designs.
So far our foundations are looking great.
