Biology and Blathering

And so, as I sit here in my room, on the eve of my final Final, I ponder what has gotten me here. What extra-personal forces have driven me to where I am today, where I've busted my ass to get, and where I bust my ass to keep myself running in place. I know that sounds rather cynical, but bear with the late-night outlook for a moment.

As I ponder the function of micorrhizae, the origins of our ancestry, extremophilic bacteria and the revolutionary Krebs Cycle, I find myself thinking about the people in my life. No, I'm not implying that I know people who help plants grow, or who can survive in otherwise unlivable conditions (though, I know many people who live in dorm rooms), but rather, I focus on the affect these people have had upon me. Their thoughts, affections, insults, impulses and what have you.

Consider how much original thought we can actually attribute to ourselves. Most all that we (I suppose I should speak for myself on this one) use in communication is things that are familiar to us. In biology, this means using a classification system and nomenclature that is widely accepted by the community which uses it. In our personal lives, this means communicating familiar ideas. As arbitrary as that seems of an observation, I feel like I forget that sometimes.

Anyway, I find that I cannot attribute any one thought, feeling or impulse I've ever had to complete and total originality. Any joke is some form of a cultural reference (though, my execution tends to be poor). My political views are vastly influenced by the sociopolitical stimuli that I receive. My affections are poorly hashed together words to describe indescribable feelings to those around me. It frustrates me, that what I think and say are merely reflections of the world around me. I digress.

The point here, I suppose, is that I feel like at some level, I'm not the only one that feels this way. And if that's the case, there are other individuals standing behind those reflections who feel like I do (in some form). I like to think of this as hopeful. Over the years, I've become increasingly grateful to those that have impacted my life, and I am genuinely indebted to all of them. Good or bad memories, the people I've met, those people I've become distant from, people that I've become closer to - they have shaped me into who I am.

And I couldn't thank them enough for it.

~Eric

So after quite some time, I decide to make a return to this blog that I started oh, so long ago. Some time ago, I began this as some sort of mystical musing. Whether I thought people cared, or not, I decided that some whimsical writing was in my future. Future it would be appropriately termed, since the last post is dated in March. Oops.

So, then. What have I learned in the many months since March? I suppose I could formulate a list.

• I am not invincible
• There are limits to what I can do
• Not too many =p
• Hard work yields success
• Success is preceded by distress
• Friends and enemies often walk a blurred line
• I fail at adequately addressing every social situation

This is a very short, incomplete list. I feel like there is a lot of substance that can be spoken for here, and who knows - maybe someday I'll actually examine these further. Maybe I'll even use inductive reasoning to actually generalize these so they could better represent a wider population of people.

As I look again, I can't deem one more important than the other. Which leads me to one conclusion. All things the an individual experiences are life-altering. Each interaction with other people, every mistake, every speed-induced crash into jagged rocks has the potential to shape the course of your life, and more importantly the course of your mind. In my ONLY other blog post (at the writing of this) I speak a lot to introspection. I think a better, more associative word for that is reflection.

So, what? What point is there to this. If I were to name a lesson, more importantly than all things I've learned so far, it would be that reflecting upon successes, failures and works in progress is what makes us grow. As I've gotten older, I've found myself lying down at night to only think about the future, fantasize about what could be. I have also found myself stagnate, get boring for lack of a better term.

So is reflection what keeps us young? Is thinking about what we've done, and examining our experiences holistically the fountain of youth?

I guess it requires some reflection.

~Cheers =)