By Nous

                           July 13, 2003

My mouth still tastes like cornbread.
Friday evening I walked outside and realized that it had actually been
a long time since I had set foot outdoors.  The ground was kind of wet
and speckled with pretty little flowers that showered from the arching
tree overhead.  Friday evening I listened to my mother and her sisters
chat about nothing at all, and suddenly realized that they really were
people underneath all of that which covers actual life.  I realized as
I sat quietly Saturday night that not much has changed between summers
gone and the present one.  I understood Sunday afternoon that life and
the bubble it hides itself in, is reflected.  I am alone, just as I've
always been, only I have learned to cope with that fact.
Knowledge gained in moments are bittersweet nothings unless considered
with the gradual knowledge one should gain over time.  It is true that
I am alone as I have always been, and that I have learned to live with
such a fact.  What is also true, and not so readily uncovered, is that
one has infinite potential within themselves; I am no exception.
The limitations harnessed upon us from our infancy are unnecessary.  I
can do as I please, no matter what I choose.  It has become another of
those modern cliches, that if one has the will, then that is more than
half of the battle.  It is not even considered that ideas such as that
of the power of suggestion, and the power of conditioning, hold truth.
If one is taught from a very young age that he or she is ordinary, and
that he or she is normal and has no power or control over anything, or
has no purpose in life, then one is bound to grow up, work at a simple
job with no satisfaction, and live a mediocre life.
So, in that light, I must say that this aloneness is, in actuality, an
honest reflection of what I have been conditioned to experience, and a
result of what I have been conditioned to accept.  I must say that the
conclusion I have come to is to deny reality as it is.
But environment is only one aspect of it, and I am also to blame.