Before the Silver Cord is Snapped

Perhaps too much has already been said about being young.  It seems to have been considered from every possible angle:  As unmitigated blessing, as inevitable struggle, as joyride, as travail, as triumphal emergence, as process of disillusionment.  One might question how many universal statements can be made about it since its environment shapes it so deeply.  Further, there is an apparent irony in studying it.  Those who have a large enough perspective to grasp the vagaries and essences of youth are usually past it; they may have dimming memory of how it felt encountered firsthand.  Those in the midst of youth have vivid, abundant experiences of it for data, but often lack the perspective to fit their experience into a large enough context.

It seems to me that a similar irony exists when the young examine any of life's "big issues."  At the time of life most formative and most crucial in the examination of life's deep considerations, the young are often (due to their youth and lack of broad experience) ill-equipped to wrestle well with these very things.  This seems proof enough that younger people need - not simply benefit from - the consistent involvement of caring older people in their lives, and I would hold tenaciously to this principle.  But let me speak for a moment of how this irony affects me and, especially, this blog.

I am still in my youth (suffice it to say I'm college-age) and find in myself many of youth's limitations.  Yet for years already I have found myself unsatisfied by investing my deepest thought or effort into anything shy of ultimate questions of reality and living.  I have a philosophical bent (and always have), but I imagine many of my fellow young people, whether or not they enjoy academics per se, feel a similar urgency in grasping reality.  I need to think through challenging questions, and having thought through them to the best of my present ability, to enter into conversation about them.  But this puts me in a dilemma.  I believe in - and feel - the human need for wise, tested, true answers to life's questions, yet I find in myself the desire to join the conversation before I can contribute much more than a few hard-won observations and numerous (possibly unoriginal) questions.

Youth is wisest when it is humble.  I felt it was important to say these things before I plunged into topics that many older and wiser people have considered with more insight and grace than I can ever hope to muster at this stage in my life. It is only because I hope that someday I will be one of those older and wiser people that I offer these thoughts.  Let me encourage my fellow young people to do the same:  Join life's great conversation now, whether you have much, little, or even nothing to say.  Come to listen and grow, to coordinate pieces of knowledge, and to appreciate the wisdom of those who have trekked these roads before us.  Never give up the pursuit of truth; never allow realism to sour into cynicism; never let matters too light to build a life on rob you of a sure foundation.  Strive to receive the mentoring of the wise so that someday you can be a wise mentor.  If this doesn't seem to us to be living life to its fullest, we have not yet grasped the terrifying gravity of living.

"Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth,

before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say,

'I have no pleasure in them;' before the sun and the light

and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds

return after the rain, in the day when the keepers of the house tremble,

and the strong men are bent, and the grinders cease

because they are few, and those who look through the windows

are dimmed, and the doors on the street are shut -

when the sound of the grinding is low, and one rises up

at the sound of a bird, and all the daughters of song are brought low -

they are afraid also of what is high, and terrors are in the way;

the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags itself along,

and desire fails, because man is going to his eternal home,

and the mourners to about the streets -

before the silver cord is snapped, or the golden bowl

is broken, or the pitcher is shattered at the fountain,

or the wheel broken at the cistern, and the dust returns

to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.*

Solomon, c. 10th Century BC

*Ecclesiastes 12:1-7 ESV

Color Wheel: Behind the Scenes

Note 11 August 2013:  I wrote this over a year ago, and since I plan to finish the Color Wheel series of posts, I thought it might as well see the light of day.  Note the intensive screentime I mentioned in my last post...

I thought I'd spend just a moment going behind the scenes with the Color Wheel series of posts.  Each one in the series is intentionally wordless, so the pictures will be the sole focus.  But that approach leaves me no room to comment on particular photos that caught my eye or share what crossed my mind as I was digging in Wikimedia Commons.  Hence this post.

Making connections by color is an unorthodox way of finding connections in the world.  Firetrucks and toadstools having nothing in common but red - except perhaps their mutual presence in children's literature, another surprising connection.  It's my hope that the juxtapositions startle and spark interest.  To satisfy curiosity, I link each photo to a Wikipedia article highlighting the item's history, uses, or significance.  (I really, really hope someone discovered that.  Maybe you did?  Did you click through and read something?  Did you encounter the brilliant but fragile achievement of Richard Champion and William Cookworthy or find out that the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument was established in 2006?  If you want to figure out which pictures I'm referring to, you're going to have to hunt.  Hint: neither of them is green.)

As you might imagine, it takes quite a bit of work to construct a post with so many photos.  (Anyone who's tried to drag multiple photos around in a blogger post can relate.)  The first post (The Gamut of Green) took hours to put together.  By now I've streamlined the process, and it goes something like this.
1) Search Wikimedia Commons for the photos.  If you've ever wondered why the photos have no attribution, this is why: they're all in the public domain or covered by the GNU Creative License.  The hardest part about the initial search is thinking of things that are distinct to each color.  It's not too hard to come up with a green basket, but there's no special reason most baskets should be green.  I don't mind including a few items like this, but most should be things whose identities are tied to their color.
2) As I find photos, I insert them into the blogger post and size them small.
3) After all the photos are collected and sized to preference, the somewhat surprising step comes.  I copy the HTML for the post and paste it into Notepad ++ (wonderful computer/internet language editor).  Then I organize all the photos by height, so the rows won't be ragged, decide what goes with what, and place everything in the correct divs (sorry, non-geeks.  It is rather technical).
4) Finally, I copy and past the new HTML back into the post, correct any glitches, and publish.  It always comes with a feeling of relief!

Resurfacing

Hello. I still live. The student life is a busy one (to use the closest excuse to hand). More than that I have come to see a kind of contrariness in a blog of this nature: It claims to be about engagement with the world, yet necessitates long sessions in front of a screen. Inconsistency, although a sometimes amusing fault, is no good for living.

I have considered making an end of this endeavor. Its previous attempts to get off the ground have ended nose-down in a metaphorical dune. But I have decided to make another attempt, because I'm a writer and that's what writers do; we write or we perish. Verbiage will out.

No promises as to what will go up here or when. But if anyone is still listening, please know you have my thanks for your patience and I'll try to come up with something of value to say to you soon.