Life on an abacus

I know it was for the freshmen, but something that Dr. Correll said during the seminar today resonated with me. I wish I could quote it, but I can't produce what he said, verbatim. So instead, it's story time.

Back during my freshman year, I took a class called EDU 100; the introductory education class. Not being completely convinced of my calling to teaching, I decided to give this class a shot to be my make or break in the field. Now, everything was going well until I began my classroom observations. My assignment was to observe a typical 10th grade biology classroom-- my projected stomping ground after graduation-- for a few hours every week. That which I expected to be an eye-opening experience made sure not to disappoint. It was interesting to me enough, as a scientist, to watch cause-and-effect relationships all around the room; to break the act of learning into a cold science. I'm not saying that's all that happened, I'm just saying that was my reaction. My life, as I knew it, would be built around a daily seven-hour block of tables, figures, definitions, and dissections; hook-ups, break-ups, dances, and assemblies. Some people have no trouble living life in a predictable schedule. I declined. It was in that moment in time when I used college to discover something about myself, and that was that I handle routine the same as a plague.

So, back to senior year. I sit in White Auditorium, next to the greatest core instructor ever, contemplating the way I live. When I returned to my room, I looked at my daily schedule on Facebook... and sighed in relief. What was presented to me was as much of my life that may be presented on a table: the portion of my existence that shows up on a graph. Let me tell you, and you can check for yourself, it's not much. Others need me to be predictable, and I understand why. But even more so, I need... I desire; I am unbridled in my desire to be unpredictable.

After all, who decided life should be that way? The tedious comparison of every second against the colored paper table on the door... the dull, grayscale moments of my day slowly descend into obscene cold in my soul. My soul, then, exploding from being compressed, somehow, into a cubic representation of a "productive" existence. Screams pour out from under the lid of the casket where a childlike approach to faith and living is contained, as rays of light in the darkness. The overgrown path to the Father, warmed by the bare footsteps of indomitable children, guides me through every day.