Mental Globtrotting

I was sitting in a decidedly boring and somewhat irritating lecture this morning at 8:45 when I noticed that somebody had scribbled a curious phrase on the wall of the classroom.

"Quit being too busy to think."

I don't know who this anonymous critic of academia or the student body was, but I found his or her caveat to be poignant and telling.

Do not get so caught up in your own inflated sense of self importance as to lose track of why we as students are in university; to grow, to think, to understand and to be open.

Academia aside, I find it hard not to think. Just before falling asleep this evening, I was sitting in my room with lights off, pondering what was to become of the next couple of days, the next couple of weeks and the next couple of months. This is definitely a time of flux and I find it difficult to not just find words to describe how I feel, but to put my finger on those feelings in general.

Where to go?

East. Across the Atlantic. I’ve worked so hard and for so long to establish something, anything in Europe, that I can’t help but wonder if now it’s time to turn,

West. Instead. This continent is a big place with a lot of space and I haven’t done it much, if any, justice these past couple of years. I find it always very odd to write using the all inclusive and exclusive “we”, but I find it appropriate here to pay homage to something that I truly am. I am American. In an all embracing and continental sense, I am American. I can’t guarantee that I’ll stay for long but I have yet to really explore,

Here. Montréal. Québec. The seemingly lost part of our great continent, with a tongue that often falls upon deaf ears on our great shores. What of this province, this place? This great expanse that continues north, seemingly endlessly. Will it be lost in legends of the past the past that once echoed through its chilled valleys, or will it step forward and be an example to the world of coexistence, of two peoples sharing the same place.

There. Lies a horizon. I can’t make sense of it, it’s blurred, but I can’t feel it coming, arriving like the dawn. Where will it lead me and who will it lead me with? What will it bring me?

Californian sun. The delights of centuries of Italian agitation that have brought forth artistic and culinary marvels that we admire to this day. The refinement of the city of light. The hustle of New York. The spirit of Montréal. Beyond?

All these places, all these people, all these things? How can one possibly begin to make sense of it all. We are almost to brush to think that we can begin to categorize it. After four years of forced thought, I have yet to really scratch the surface.
What to do?

Study. Continue. Plan. Build cities. The great gathering places of our cultures, of our societies. The absolutely magnificent and devastatingly pompous realizations of human ingenuity. Are we to believe that we can control such organisms that burst with life? Are we to assume that we can predict empirically a whim on a limb. Would this only lead me in the end to

Write. Feel. Create. Follow what it is that I’ve constantly repeated as my dream? To travel, to experience and to communicate. But then, how do you

Produce. Live. Establish?

The more I try one thing, the more I realize I’m interested in something else. In a place where I'm admittedly pressed for thinking time, that is both a blessing and a curse.