The Meandering Mind

Tag: books

  • Want vs. Ought: Discovering Life’s True Path

    When we are kids, we often dream of what our futures will hold. We dream of being doctors, police officers, race car drivers, all of what we as children consider the coolest and best jobs. As we grow older, we gain experience in life what we want to do tends to change. I personally still struggle with what I want to do with my life. For years I have always gone back and forth from one crazy idea to another, believing that I was destined for something great, but not long after beginning to attempt to pursue these great things I come across roadblocks. I struggle to find my personal drive to continue pursuing these things. It is almost maddening.

    So, I did what came easy to me which was being a mechanic and fabricator. I love fixing mechanical things as well as welding and creating things. I started learning how to weld when I was in middle school, and throughout my life have learned most of the various welding processes. I managed to find a job working on semi-trucks and trailers. Over the course of thirteen years I was able to learn everything from federally required testing on tanker trailers to repairing the engines of the trucks. Having the ability to repair everything involved with semi-trucks from the engines, brakes, product pumps, hydraulic systems, electrical, and pneumatic systems. Having such a large understanding of all systems on a semi-truck made it very easy to find work. Over time I have lost my drive, I lost the love for it. Part of it has to be because it seems like no matter how fast you finish something it is not fast enough. The customers you deal with have a tendency to want everything done yesterday, and for as cheap as possible. When you go as cheap as possible with repairs they generally don’t last very long, and that is when the customer comes back mad. At that point the customer no longer wants to pay for the repairs, they want it done right and they want the mechanic or the shop to cover the cost. Over the years that really began to weigh on me, it makes me feel as if I’m not a good mechanic. I have worked with many mechanics that are still turning wrenches in their sixties and seventies due to the fact there is not much opportunity for mechanics to move up in to management positions or other positions where you are valued more for what you know than what you can physically accomplish. Yes, before someone comes after me, there are companies that are good about promoting mechanics to these positions, but these companies are hard to get into and you need to work there for many years. This is just my experience. Once I got to a point where I dreaded going to work at any shop, I knew I needed to find a new path.

    The path I decided to take was going to college. So here I am at thirty-eight years old a freshman in college pursing a degree in philosophy. The reason why I chose to major in philosophy is because throughout my life when I am struggling to find my place in the world I turned to reading philosophy. I feel there is so much useful information provided in so many philosophical writings. It is almost calming for me. The first philosophy book I ever picked up was “Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius. Once I started reading it, I could not put it down. I started highlighting passages as well as taking notes on different parts that I found. I started journaling and trying to actually apply the things that I read about. Now that I am in college, I have developed a mentor/mentee relationship with my philosophy professor. The other day I asked if it would be possible for us to meet up and talk. As our conversation progressed it eventually led to me mentioning how I don’t know what I want to do with my life. That is when my professor hit me with a statement that started to make the lightbulb in my brain flicker. He said that I need to stop trying to think of what I want to do and instead be asking myself what I ought to do with my life. This is the type of statement that is so profound it could only come from a philosopher.

    You may be asking yourself what the difference between what you want to do and what you ought to do. Well, you are not alone because I found myself asking the same question. Like most people these days I turned to Google to help me figure it out. “Want” implies a desire or a wish; that makes sense because you “want” to be healthy. “Ought to” expresses a sense of moral obligation; we ought to be empathetic to others. Now that clarifies what the difference is between the two but leaves the question what my moral obligation to the world is. Moral obligation is often referred to as a duty when you read different philosophies. In Christianity these duties would be the ten commandments. If you follow Aristotle’s teachings from Nicomachean Ethics your duty is to live a virtuous life. According to Aristotle the way to that is thru what is referred to as the “golden mean”. The “golden mean” refers to finding excellence in the middle between deficiency and excess. To find the mean between deficiency and excess, in my opinion, requires experience.

    If my moral obligation is to learn philosophy inside and out, what can I do with that? According to my mentor there is a place for philosophy majors in every profession. The thing about philosophy is that it teaches you more of how to think not what to think. It gives you the skill to look at the world in a very different light. My hope is that as I continue through my education, I can find the drive to excel in all of my classes and not just philosophy. That means I need to dig deep and find the drive to push through all of the moments I don’t want to do anything. As someone who has always struggled with ADHD it gets very difficult to stay focused and push through some of my moods. Since I really enjoy writing, and I seem to have a passion for philosophy is a combination of the two my moral obligation? I guess as of right now only time will tell, and I hope that if writing and philosophy are what I am supposed to be pursuing I will receive some sign from the universe. If you have taken the time to completely read this thank you. I know in today’s world everyone is very busy trying to make it, so everyone who takes the time out of their day for this I really do appreciate you.

  • Norse Myths and Legends: A Budget-Friendly Read

    Recently, as I was perusing through Barnes & Nobels, I came across a book about Norse Mythology and Legends. The book is beautifully bound in a hardcover with fancy designs on the edges of the pages, immediately I was attracted to it. Once I picked it up, I saw the discounted price tag. Only twelve dollars! I had to get it.

    As soon as I got back to the house, I began reading it, I was extremely excited. The fact that the book is so beautifully decorated, on the back it says it is a retelling of the sagas and myths, so I knew it could not be an in-depth type of book. By the end of the first chapter, it was clear that it was going to be essentially summaries of the sagas and mythology.

    I read the book in its entirety, and I must say for what it is, it was well worth the twelve dollars. It was the type of book that gives you just enough to make you want to continue learning about it. I feel this is what makes the book good. Not everything has to be in-depth or fully reproduced, sometimes it is nice to be able to just get a brief version of things. This allows a person to start to gain understanding without having to go all in on something.

    If you are interested in reading this book it is titled “Norse Myths and Legends, Tales and Sagas of the Gods & Heroes”. While there is no author listed on the cover and title page, there is a reference to a Mrs. Emilie Kip Baker in the introduction. According to the introduction, Mrs. Baker published a few volumes of re-told myths and legends with the goal of making the stories accessible to a wider audience. There it also references that this collection was first published in 1914 as “Stories from Northern Myths”.

  • Demented and Damned

    Picture this, a story so excellent, so bizarre, so full of fantasy and wonderment that page by page as you read, you immediately retain what has just happened. This story has everything! Struggles that make you really identify with the main character. A love story that at points brings tears out from their hiding spot in the corner of your eye, to being front and center perched on your lower eye lids. The tears staying perfectly in place as your eyes race from word to word, your mind processing and imagining each scene faster than blue fin tuna snatching bait fish from the sea. From my experience in life, I have learned that there are many different reasons why people love a story. Some love it for the story itself, they will say it’s because of the lessons it teaches or maybe because the story inspires them to push forth. I have even heard of people saying they like a story because of the way the authors words paint every aspect of the scenes the words are depicting. For myself, I often find most enjoyment from the characters.

    The fact that I enjoy characters most, brings me to my top reason this was the greatest thing I have ever written; it is the main character! Look, whatever qualities a person could want in someone, the main character has them! They are strong, intelligent, tenacious, caring, loving, empathetic, and most importantly virtuous. You want to talk about someone getting into wild situations while merely trying to do what is right? That’s our main character! For example, he was walking down a dark forested path when he noticed, through the trees light from a fire. He cautiously approached it, then as he got closer, he saw the fire in the center of a clearing. Creeping closer and closer he finds the fire surrounded by people wearing robes and chanting in a language he had never heard before. Scanning across the opening, carefully studying the ones encircling the fire. Then he notices, locked in a makeshift cage at the edge of the light across the clearing, what appears to be a fair maiden in (what he thinks) desperate need of help. After some more reconnaissance work, our mighty main character decides on a plan and executes it. After the battle has been waged and our lone hero the main character is left covered in the blood of his foes do we find that the fair maiden in the cage is actually a Gorgon. But because our main character so heroically rescued this Gorgon, she demands that he allows her to join him as his companion. Page after page you are left wondering what is going to happen next. With each word you read you start to feel like you are really there, standing alongside our courageous hero and his band of ragged renegades. One page its monsters on the high seas in a ship beaten by gale force winds. Everyone on the ship, our main character included, are exhausted, hungry, and thirsting for a drop of precious water. After hours of fighting, fighting off monsters, fighting off the sea, and fighting off the desire to just give up will leave any person longing for a drink of cool clean water. Yet by the next page the storms have calmed, the monsters returned to their peaceful existence deep beneath the waves, happily cradled by the eternal darkness of the deep ocean. Our main character and the others on the ship have been able to eat their fill of hacked off sea monster tentacle chunks. At this point in the story when we start to get properly introduced to the other characters and find out what brings them all together.
    Would you believe me if I was to tell you that the way our characters were all brought together was the number two reason why this is the best thing I have ever written? They all came together in a manner that was wrote in such a way that it has you thinking how there must have been divine intervention. It leaves you wanting to know more, more about the details of their lives, their looks, their attitudes, and their hopes for the future. Throughout the writing piece you learn more and more about each of the characters. For example, the Gorgon our hero rescued is named Anne. We find out that Anne was captured by the people in robes because they had mistaken her for Medusa. As Anne and our main character go along on their travels, she tells him all about how horrible it is to be constantly mistaken for the famous Medusa. Along hard journeys, as all of our characters fight, bleed, and hunt, they most importantly begin to open up with each other about their pasts. We learn how all of our characters connected to our main character, the effects this connection has caused, and what is to come of their futures makes this something I just want to keep reading over and over. Our main character quickly becomes the glue that holds everyone together. Telling tales and becoming closer after every storm they weather together, closer after every battle they successfully come out of, and even closer after months of being in tight proximity with each other they develop a bond like family. Like an expert seamster I sewed a tapestry of the characters histories. Each and every one of them connected by nearly meaningless circumstances yet brought together on what turns out to be a grand odyssey. While you find out how everyone is connected, where they all have crossed paths with each other, and where they are going, you are left wondering why the main character is there. It is not until the very end that you find out the key piece of information needed to tie it all together and understand what is actually going on. What we find out is that our main character, the hero of the whole story, the mortar between the bricks, is alone locked in a dark damp dungeon deep under a massive gray stone castle. The other characters that joined him along the way? Merely the rats and roaches that crawled around his feet and over the chains around his ankles and wrists.

    That is why this is the best piece I have ever written. This piece took a lot of imagination, you see this is only my second semester of college, before that the last time I was in a classroom was twenty years ago. I cannot remember anything I have ever wrote, nor have I ever attempted to write anything of warrant outside of the educational system. So, I just did what I thought was a good idea. I hope it was an enjoyable read.

    This is something I wrote for my college composition class; the prompt was to write about something we previously wrote that we are most proud of and why we are most proud of it.

  • What is the biggest challenge you will face in the next six months?

    For myself I believe that the biggest challenge most of us will face over the next six months is the same. The biggest challenge is to stick to the changes that we wish to make in life. For me, I always can dream big and think of different places in the world I would like to be. Yet I still find myself mindlessly scrolling through social media or YouTube videos. Not doing anything to achieve these dreams. Just wasting my time watching other people pursue their dreams and tell me how to pursue my own. While it is often important, in my own opinion, to find inspiration and input from people who have traveled the road you are wanting to travel. But you can’t allow the search for answers consume all of the time you have to chase this dream of yours. One thing I have found in life is that sometimes the best thing you can do is throw caution to the wind and jump into something feet first. Just go out on a limb and pursue your crazy dream when it first comes to mind.

    Now I am in no way, shape, or form advocating for you to blindly quit your job and chase your dream of being an underwater basket weaver. What I am saying is once you develop the dream take some time to research what all is needed for this dream to come to fruition. Then once you have a basic understanding take it another step. Start the process of making this dream reality. For instance, I have considered writing professionally multiple times throughout my life. Yet, I never took any steps towards making it a reality. I just automatically assumed that to be a writer you had to come from some kind of specific background, or that it was something you just knew you were going to be from a young age. It also didn’t help that my parents would tell me that writers actually have full time jobs. Yes, that is true, some writers do have full time jobs. But much like other professions you have to start somewhere. There are writers who still hold full time jobs no matter how successful their writing becomes because writing for them is just a hobby they are passionate about. Then you have people who want to write professionally but only get to do it as a hobby because they just aren’t very good, or they haven’t taken the risks required to get their work out there. I would like writing to become my career, I hope that my skills are good enough to gain some recognition and find an audience that enjoys it enough I can do it full time. The freedom to come and go from places as I please, the opportunity to get paid for the knowledge I have, and to have my thoughts on topics seen by the masses drives me to want to do this.

    Like most other new endeavors, it is going to take a conscious effort to make this grow into something I can be proud of. The next six months will really show how dedicated I am to this, and if this is truly something I want to do. If by the end of this six months I have lost interest it will be obvious. Now I know that at the end of six months I won’t likely be able to quit my day job and focus only on this but if there manages to be a rising trend in views coming to the site and I am continually finding things to write about then I will gladly continue to do what it is I am doing here. I hope if you have read this and would like to see more, please leave a comment or a like. Thank you, I hope you have a fantastic day! Keep chasing your dreams!