Germany Post, Sans Pics (Scroll Down)
Ok, ok, so I've been copping out for a month on Germany blogging. I know. I'm sorry. I really do intend to tell you all about the pics when I get them, but until then I'll talk about more general things - fun things - less laundrylisty things.
All my life, I have known I was lucky. Granted, I haven't always felt lucky, but intellectually I know that I've struck the jackpot. I have a family full of people who love me, amazing friends, a halfway-decent brain in the walnut, and enough financial resources to go to a school with more money than the GDP of several small nations combined.
I know that I am lucky, but I seldom feel blessed. I usually chalk that up to the agnosticism, but there were times on this trip when I could almost feel the finger of God reaching down to whack me on the head, whispering, "look what I gave you".
It's hard to explain, and I know it's coming out incoherent, but there were entire hours of the day when I could just feel my whole body hum from the pure joy and appreciation of being where I was, doing what I was doing, exactly at the right time and in the right place.
The night we stayed in the hostel in Switzerland, I felt it. We hadn't even done anything special that evening; it was too cold to walk around and we were too poor to eat out, so we sat in the commons room playing pingpong and Connect Four and watching The Simpsons in German. But I remember climbing into my bunk that night and listening to Jorge and Juan talk about music in Spanish, switching straight into German when Kristina came back into the bathroom, and sedgewaying into English as I threw in a Monty Python reference. I listened to the four of us jabber away in whichever language we felt most apt, and I just remember that I was drenched by this wave of joy so strong I thought I'd be swept away.
I can't explain it, really.
I've kind of lost the urge to blog now. Bwahaha! You lose. I'll come back to this later.
posted by Allison @ 12:50 AM
4 Comments:
I am so happy that you felt this way about what you were experiencing. Also, regarding the languages, your great grandfather would have been so envious, and also proud of you, that you had the opportunity to use several languages to communicate with friends. When I was young, he would use many languages in one sentence or paragraph, just for fun, and to see if I knew what he was saying.
You explained it very well, my dear! And I'm so glad that you had the experience!
It's "segueing", just so you know. You don't know me from Eve, but your post touched me in an all-too-familiar way, so let me just nudge a bit.
You sound an awful lot like the way I used to be not too long ago. Your insightfulness is a nifty thing to possess, and I get the impression that you have little strokes of brilliance and clarity quite often. For the love of whatever hang on to them. In the future, it won't matter how many of your so-called friends have posted comments patting you on the virtual back. What will matter is how the future you will react.
This probably meant nothing to you, and you're probably reaching for the delete button to erase this crazy woman's rambling, but I just figured, with "a decent brain in the walnut," you'd at least smile politely at some potentially useful advice.
And agnosts (speaking as one) do have feelings of being blessed just like anyone who is (really) faithful to a particular religion. I mean, since agnosts actually DO believe in the existence of a higher power, just not necessarily Iehova or Krishna, etc. Athiests, maybe, would have more trouble counting their blessings, but just from the angle you came from it was slightly offensive.
You're right, it is segueing. However, I am emotionally attached the the Sedgeway and try to include it in conversation as much as possible. The Duke cops ride Sedgeways, actually. I'm sure they'll be very useful in a real-crime situation. Also, I should have said "incoherently" instead of "incoherent", and "laundrylisty" is not a word. Thank you for your help.
Secondly, I have always been taught that agnosticism is the belief that the existence of a higher being can be neither proven nor disproven, not the unwillingness to believe in any specific religion as a way to approach divinity. Interestingly enough, this website as well as this one seem to agree with me. I would call what you have described theism. I could be wrong; I'm not a religious philosopher. If I am, please let me know - but as it is, it was never my intention to offend a group to which I feel I belong.
Also, I don't think athiests have any trouble at all counting their blessings, nor do I think they're immoral. That would put me in an interesting place, seeing as how I'm related to half a dozen or more of them, and they don't like being insulted (they're used to it, though).
Thank you for the advice - I don't mean to sound insulting, as I'm sure you didn't - and, just out of curiosity, how did you find me?
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