Sept 22nd, 2008

I was thinking tonight about constants...
Ya know, the things that never seem to change no matter what. With a world that seems to be constantly changing and evolving and me as a person constantly changing some things and evolving and adapting...I wonder how some things stay so constant. I think about the seasons how I know that I can live in Indiana and that I am guaranteed to have 4 seasons. They may come at awkward times or be super long or super short but eventually the leaves change and the snow comes and winter seems to last forever and then spring comes and then WHAM summer and it feels like it's hotter than vietnam and then you start the process over. There's the smell of my grandparents house. It's never changed in 23 years of visiting them I know exactly what that smell is and it's in every fiber of that house. Grandma's corn smells like her house, Grandma's cookies smell like her house, Grandpa's gun cabinet smells like their house and that smell brings nothing but comfort to me. The other constant for me is the pumpkin jar. The pumpkin jar is set out every fall around this time. I came home today and there it sat on the ledge between the living room and the kitchen just waiting for me and i walked up to it and reached inside and it was empty. I was perplexed like, "why am I doing this???" I realized that constant had somehow triggered this Pavlovian response in me and I was looking for candy corn. I can only eat like 2 pieces of candy corn and I'm like...gross, I hate this stuff why am I eating it???!!! But, this didn't seem to matter to me. I still reached in to get a piece of candy corn and it wasn't there. I returned home tonight and walked by that pumpkin and sure enough...it had been filled with disgusting candy corn and i grabbed a piece and talked to my dad. While chomping on that compact bit of sugar discussing football with my dad i realized what a creature of habit I've become.
I do things because they seem like the safe thing to do. They seem like the "smart" thing to do and I've always done them so why should i question my methods they haven't killed me yet and then i began to think, but is this best?? I've often been known to wrestle with the question of is this good or is this best and many times I choose what's good because what's best is hard or terrifying or both... Why is it that i get lost in the constants? Why is it that I, have programmed myself into this pattern of self-destruction? This pattern of good over best. What's convinient over what is prudent? I sit and i wrestle with one hand in the pumpkin jar...