Random Thoughts at 1:00 AM

When a person has very little to do at night and possesses the inability to fall asleep at a decent time his mind wanders. My mind wanders. It pokes at the fabric of my being, the reasons to why I am where I am, who and why I am, and who I have become. Answers to these questions can seem simple at first, but then I inherently dig deeper, looking for a better, more detailed explanation. The answers to this series of questions are the result of being alone with no internet, tv, or even books to wrap my mind around.

To start off, why am I where I am physically and mentally? I am currently sitting in Providence Court apartment P204, chilling by my corner desk in the “master bedroom,” while swiveling left and right on my new twenty dollar chair from Wal-Mart. Pretty generic answer. What happens when I dig deeper into my thoughts? Why am I here? Well, to start off, I want to be here. College seemed like the next step in my life after I graduated high school. However, I did not make it easy for myself to be here. After the nightmare that was trying to find money to fund my first year, the second is about to start. Is it selfishness or a greater purpose that drives me to be back in Pullman despite how hard it has been? I suppose. On one hand, it is selfish. I am the bane of my parents’ wallets. The reason for the countless tears shed, the voices lost screaming, and frustration. The grounds for lack of sleep and longer hours spent at work. Did I make it any easier by finding a job during the summer to help fund my seemingly pointless spending? No, I have done nothing but take for the last year. On the other hand, I am working toward a degree. In today’s world, you have to have that piece of paper that says you have learned what you know during college. That piece of paper that takes four to five years of your life to attain serves as a basis for you to be judged on whether or not you qualify for that line of work. By being here and working towards my piece of paper with Old-English font and a few signatures, I am shaping my future and, by definition, being selfish. Do the ends justify the means in this situation? That depends on how I put my resources to work. I cannot just sit idly by and waste my time here like others can. I do not have the luxury of having life be served on a silver platter like others do. I am here for the betterment of my life, even if it seems like I’m destroying others in the process.

When you throw a rock into a body of water it sends ripples throughout the entirety of said body of water. Living a life and making connections with other people creates that ripple effect as well. But the connections you make with each person you meet serve as their own stone cast into the water which, in turn, creates more ripples. To understand who I am I have to consider who I have met and what ripples have come back my way. To find the answer to whom I am I must also take into account why I am. So who is Anthony and why is he the way he is? For the longest time I always characterized myself as a people person. But as I reflect on memories past, I see now that I am very much more introverted. I rarely ever strike up conversations with people I know little about or have no common base. I am terrible with small talk. When I am in a group of people that I am not close to, I am just the quiet, polite one. I will flash a smile your way and throw in my two cents occasionally, but in an unfamiliar setting you may never get a chance to really get to know me. I stick to the comfort that is familiarity. I believe that is the reason why I made very little new connections during my first year of college. My inherent fear of rejection and losing is another reason for a layer of brick I like to keep in my fortress. I encourage people to take chances, to leap in the face of danger, but seldom do I ever jump into something without over-analyzing too many times. I do not care if people disagree with how I carry myself though. It is not my problem if you think me calling something “gay” or “retarded” is offensive. When I talk like that it is usually because I am with people I am comfortable with and we understand that there is no deeper belittlement when using those words to describe something. I would not use that banter in front of a professional. If you think that is shallow or fake of me, consider this; language changes depending on your audience and everybody has different dialects depending on who and how you are talking to somebody.

Hmm…I really got off topic. Look for my thoughts on people being too sensitive in a later post. Now, back to the subject.

I am who I am because of whom I surrounded myself with during life. I established a close-knit group of friends during middle school and we still share the luxury of our dood-ship. The ability to fall back on them whenever I needed to kept me sane. There was never a moment too serious for us. No fight lasted longer than a few days and when it was resolved, it was forgotten. The bond I share with those guys is unbreakable and I cannot wait to see where life takes them. I only hope I get to share in some of those adventures later on.

I did a poor job in trying to stay on subject for this, but what are you going to do, I am not turning this in to a professor to be graded.