Any responsibility and pressure aside, this is going to a free trip. Wherever we will go, one thing is sure - I am going to have a good time as a traveler.
Though I was never conscious of it, I seemed to be good at remembering directions or, more precisely, at new routes. This time, I am going to test my my ability against some bigger place. Forestry University has a veritably vast campus, but after all it is loosely laid out. It is much easier to get lost in a place which is intensively built.
What is important is to forget my body, to dissolve into the backdrop of the atmosphere, leaving only the function of my eyes, ears and nose. Nothing is left of me expect the eyes, ears and nose.
Though I was never conscious of it, I seemed to be good at remembering directions or, more precisely, at new routes. This time, I am going to test my my ability against some bigger place. Forestry University has a veritably vast campus, but after all it is loosely laid out. It is much easier to get lost in a place which is intensively built.
What is important is to forget my body, to dissolve into the backdrop of the atmosphere, leaving only the function of my eyes, ears and nose. Nothing is left of me expect the eyes, ears and nose.
"I heard everything magnified a thousand times, like a homunculus imprisoned in the belly organ. I caught the muffled breathing of the world, as if fixed in the very crossroads of sound."(Henry Miller - Tropic of Capricorn)
In the process I am to think out anything theory of art and science I know against the new things that I come across in this brand new environment. If I ache with apprehension and pity of myself, I sink into it, I become the aching itself. I want to possess that time and space totally, and once possessed, it will be mine to keep for the rest of my life...
* * *
I know full well how the atmosphere is of a speech competition is going to deter a young heart like mine, an intense, competitive and overwhelming atmosphere conspired by serious judges, mature hosts, fancy suits of the contestants, which is determined to bend the mind of the young. But really I am intimidated by nothing more than the herd poison. If I can only meet with them one by one, and hold a conversation long enough for me to have a small round-trip to their consciousness, I guess I will just find the majority of them boring and simple-minded, as the ones I meet back in my own school.
Even if they are people more capable, out-going and learned than I am(after all, what do i know - I am ignorant), what are they as an individual? Student body president elections, prestige among his admirers, first-rate scholarship, translation volunteers, running from one building to another, all kinds of formula that are not transferable to real life wisdom, basketball, special love for digital camera just because his parents are rich enough for him to fancy that, basketball... It all amounts to rubbish heap of memory with a golden crown called "out-standing" in a prestigious university.
"As a general rule, people, even the wicked, are much more naive and simple-hearted than we suppose. And we ourselves are, too."(Dostoevski - Brothers Karamazov)
They might have more experience, their experience much more fancy than mine, but at our age, no one is wisdom personified. Thus I shall not be afraid of anyone.
If I shall be deterred by their mere appearance or outside show, I am a coward and idiot, thus does not deserve anything.
If I am beat by someone who is truly strong at the core, I accept my failure.
Even if I died, I would demand to know how. I would transact with the devil to know the truth. And that, even if i turned out to be a spectacular failure, will be my ultimate pride, my last consolation.
Even if they are people more capable, out-going and learned than I am(after all, what do i know - I am ignorant), what are they as an individual? Student body president elections, prestige among his admirers, first-rate scholarship, translation volunteers, running from one building to another, all kinds of formula that are not transferable to real life wisdom, basketball, special love for digital camera just because his parents are rich enough for him to fancy that, basketball... It all amounts to rubbish heap of memory with a golden crown called "out-standing" in a prestigious university.
"As a general rule, people, even the wicked, are much more naive and simple-hearted than we suppose. And we ourselves are, too."(Dostoevski - Brothers Karamazov)
They might have more experience, their experience much more fancy than mine, but at our age, no one is wisdom personified. Thus I shall not be afraid of anyone.
If I shall be deterred by their mere appearance or outside show, I am a coward and idiot, thus does not deserve anything.
If I am beat by someone who is truly strong at the core, I accept my failure.
Even if I died, I would demand to know how. I would transact with the devil to know the truth. And that, even if i turned out to be a spectacular failure, will be my ultimate pride, my last consolation.
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