Seeing the World

I’m home on spring break.

I’ve got nothing to do but laze around, work on one calculus three project, and then do writing. So that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to finish the second draft of Agram Awakens, and start the rough draft of its sequel, Slaves to Prophecy. And I’m going to write some blog posts, do a bit of work on that calculus project, and probably sleep in a bit.

But…

Where does that leave me?

For all of that but the sleeping, that leaves me sitting in my room (or the living room) with my laptop and papers spread out in front of me. It involves me staring at two square feet of my life for hours on end.

I’m not here to give a spiel about the evils of technology, or the laziness of this generation, but rather to say: hey, there’s a world out there, and it’s pretty neat. It’s full of art.

The Struggle of World-seeing

Here’s the deal: it’s hard to go out and see the world. If we’re talking outside our normal venue, then it costs money. And I don’t know about you, but I’m poor. That doesn’t lend itself to going out and seeing the world.

I’ve got this drive to go out and see the whole thing. Visit other countries, interact with new cultures, find new adventures in weird places, go to places few people have ever gone before. Climb the mountains, descend into the valleys, run across the plains and just see things.

But…

I haven’t got the money.

I haven’t got the time.

I haven’t got the will.

So I just stay inside and create my own worlds that I can explore.

That’s the struggle of wanting to see the world. It takes things we often do not have in and of ourselves. Instead of actually doing those things, we push them to the side. We save them for later. Maybe someday, in twenty or thirty years, we’ll make it to one of those places: go on a family vacation to see some national park.

Yay.

The Reality of World-seeing

Is the place you live boring?

I know for me it is. I live in a very flat area, where most everything is fields of corn, soybeans, or pastures for cows. It smells of dust, distant pigsties, and the occasional smokehouse. It’s not terribly interesting.

I’ve been out in this part of my world a hundred times, a thousand. I’ve seen the cornfields, the cows, the little rolls in the earth that we call “hills” around here.

It’s kind of boring, now.

I’ve been desensitized to it. Sure, people who’ve never lived in this type of place might call it “quaint” or “pretty” in its own way, I find it… boring.

Except…

Maybe not so much anymore.

You see, if there’s one thing my college chemistry course has taught me (perhaps the only thing, considering it’s an intro-level course and I took two years of chemistry in highschool), it’s that there’s beauty in small things.

Very small things.

From atoms and molecules to the electron-scan image of an ant’s face, there are beautiful things out there.

None of them require me leaving my backyard.

The place you live isn’t boring: you are. You’ve become complacent and “bored” with the “boring” surroundings you live in. So in reality, it’s not the place that’s boring, it’s the person.

The Solution to World-seeing

The first thing I want to tell you is this: never give up on wanting to see the big places. Those places are awe-inspiring and they’re worth your time. The adventures and memories are worth it every. Single. Time.

However, there’s also a simple solution to your wanderlust: take a moment, slow down, and ponder the small beauties all around you in your world.

Go outside (or inside) and lay down. Examine the tiniest details, and open your mind to the possibility that beauty and art aren’t just “out there”.

They’re here.

Now.