An exercise of self-understanding

I once arrived at the conclusion that I only find enough motivation to blog when something significant/fascinating/cool has happened and my life is lame enough that I have nothing better to do than write about it. To that end, I'm pleased that entries are sparse.

I suppose I am here tonight in defiance of that conclusion. Indeed, I did something cool fairly recently -- going to Dubai with a group of good friends is pretty cool, but I understand that I'm not a good enough writer to do the trip any justice by writing about it. Besides, I'm certainly not in lame mode right now; my second semester in Qatar has kept me moving.

I'm not here to write about any of that.

For the last week or so, I've been harboring what may be a pretty cool idea. It'd be a long entry for my blog, actually.

I thought, what is life but a series of encounters with individuals (well, among other things). What a cool idea it would be list a few of them, maybe a hundred, maybe rank them, and write a paragraph or two about the impact each of them has had on me. It would be an exercise of self-understanding. So there would be no running into some of them in the future and realizing how much they mean to me but how few of my thoughts I have spared for them. So I will be able to look at them in the eye and think to myself, you have something to do with who I am, and I have not forgotten.

Perhaps significantly, I realize there are many from whom I have veered away, some consciously, some inadvertently. There are individuals whom I want nothing to do with, some who view life with bitterness and distaste, and some who embody everything I don't want to be. Nevertheless, even those who fall into these categories have had an undeniable hand in shaping the person I have become. Somehow, a peculiar satisfaction comes with the strange realization.

Ranking individuals would, of course, be strictly arbitrary. A cloud of people come to mind. If I were to spend days sifting through these individuals for a top-100, I would undoubtedly conclude that every one of them has had an impact on a different aspect of my life. Predictably, though, two names loom above the rest. Many who know me well would find them obvious: my father, who is dead, and Marianna, who I am certain will not stumble upon this.

I could write a book about each of them, although for neither I would know where to begin. I could write freely about both perhaps because both are lost, both just memories.

As for the rest, I realize I could not do the same. Not on a public forum such as this one, even if no one will read it. Perhaps it would be unfair. Maybe some of my thoughts are best kept to myself.

But maybe I will scribble it away somewhere anyway. I read last night that maybe "Adulthood is a glacier encroaching quietly on youth. When it arrives, the stamp of childhood suddenly freezes, capturing us for good in the image of our last act, the pose we struck when the ice of age set in." Maybe I'll write it while it's still worth writing about, while I may still wake up not believing anything I wrote the night before. I will be gone years from now and maybe someone will find it in my drawer.