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1) rut, n, 1 a: a track worn by a wheel or by habitual passage b: a groove in which something runs 2: a usual or fixed practice ; especially : a monotonous routine

2) rut, n, 1: an annually recurrent state of sexual excitement in the male deer ; broadly : sexual excitement in a mammal especially when periodic  2: the period during which rut normally occurs —often used with the

One of the joys of learning a new language is the acquired ability to rediscover your own native language.  Often this is a pleasure that I feel in passing moments that rarely account to much more than trivial knowledge in my own mind.  I am to emotionally stable and impatient to be poetic.  If there is a story inside of me to tell, I have yet to find it, and writing for the sake of writing has never been my thing.  But I can still appreciate the discover of new forces of power within old words.

I have been in a rut of one kind, but sadly not the other.  Before I looked up the word, as many people had been using it around me, I had a vague sense of what it meant.  I thought I knew the word in the idiomatic sense of “being stuck in a rut,” but I was missing a very key point.  In my mind, I had visions of the groove in the ground (even though it seemed more like a ditch than a narrow channel to me) and the sense of being stuck in it.  Well, actually, the idea of being stuck in the rut came out of the idiomatic phrase, though I always associated a rut as being something one gets stuck in.  There is an element of action within the definition of a rut that makes being in one so much more perilous.   Read the first definition again: “a track worn by a wheel or by habitual passage.”  There is a necessary action for the rut to exist.  It must be worn into existance.  How is this done?  Does one actively seek to make ruts?  No.  There is typically not a conscious effort to dig out a rut.  That would be “digging,” a different verb altogether.  “Wearing” simply occurs (here’s the kicker) “by habitual” means.  It is repetitive and takes time. 

A rut, in the figurative sense, does not occur overnight.  Waking up one morning and not feeling chipper does not mean a person is in a rut.  They are having a bad day.  These things happen.  A rut is when, drawing from the secondary definition, a “usual or fixed practice” becomes “a monotonous routine.”   This is where I am at.  My life here has become a static fixture of getting up, doing little, and going to sleep.  I am hardly active (although I can tag that one more to the fact that winter is making it more and more reasonable to stay inside and curl up in bed) and I am starting to worry that if I don’t change my habitual passage, I’m never going to get anywhere. 

My inspirational thought for the day comes from Capt. Jean-Luc Picard.  One of my other simple pleasures in life is stumbling across a Star Trek TNG re-run that was written by whoever on their staff was so engrossed with philosophical questioning.  There were two doozies on this episode.  The first was the time-traveler’s parodox, that is, if they go back in time and somehow change history, then their timeline might be altered and affect their existence.  This was brushed off by another question, that being, how do you make a decision in a dilemma, that is, a choice with two options, neither desirable.  The premise they set up made it so that with one choice, a terrible event would happen, but with the other choice, an even worse event could happen.  The decision is made in favor of the risk.

“To try or not to try. To take a risk or play it safe. Your arguments have reminded me how precious the right to choose is. And because I’ve never been one to play it safe, I choose to try.” 

Damn right, Jean-Luc. 

I need to get out of my rut.  Maybe into a rut (see definition 2).  But I need to do something.

I need to try.

Blog Canibalism or Blog Incest…?

This quote was written for a blog on www.huffingtonpost.com by Richard Schiff of The West Wing fame.  It is a very well put thought.

“If you are like me our most powerful epiphanies find us after their effect could have been put to good use. We are often too late with our brilliance. We are on time delay. The only instant gratification comes in the form of potato chips. The rest will find us by surprise somewhere down the road maybe as we sleep and dream of other things.”

I feel like that often, followed by the inevitable pain in my shins that come from kicking myself.  Just a reminder for that lofty ideal of awareness in the moment.  Never stop striving for it.

Writing to myself.

I didn’t know how long it was going to take me before I was overcome with the urge to post another entry here, but it turns out that it was less than 24 hours.  This, however, is less proof that I really have something to say, and more that I just have nothing better to do with my time. 

Today was a fairly terrible day that consisted of pacing, staring at a computer screen, trying to make follow-up phone calls for applications and resumes I had sent in, and being overwhelmed with the sense that I’m really just meandering through life right now.  I tried to pick up Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion again, since I had put it aside for the better part of the last week in favor of Millionaer, but that didn’t seem to help my mood for some reason.  This passage might be why:

“Man, it is true, can, by combination, surmount all his real enemies and become master of the whole animal creation: But he does not immediately raise up to himself imaginary enemies, the demons of his fancy, who haunt him with superstitious terrors and blast every enjoyment of life?  His pleasure, as he imagines, becomes in their eyes a crime: His food and repose give them umbrage and offence; his very sleep and dreams furnish new materials to anxious fear: And even death, his refuge from every other ill, presents only the dread of endless and innumerable woes.  Nor does the wolf molest more the timid flock than superstition does the anxious breast of wretched mortals.”                      ~ Dialogues, Part X

Rather uplifting reading, huh?  The point Hume was making at the time was that individuals often succumb to the irrational and imaginary fears of their mind.  In the face of external challenges and enemies, mankind has the ability to find the strength needed to overcome, but may still be destroyed by the demons and humours that too often define our weakest moments.  The context of this was as a counterpoint to the idea that man knows a deity exists, because one can be reasoned to exist through cause and effect, and that everything appears to be designed after a greater model.  Thus, man exists, therefore was created by a similar, but more perfect model.  Hume challenged that if human grace and kindness were created by a divine model, where was the kindness that would allow a creation to destroy itself by inherent and seemingly natural causes.  It’s a delicate way of saying, “if God exists, why do bad things still happen.” 

Actually, in that same part is another great passage that puts it sublimely:

“Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able?  then he is impotent.  Is he able, but not willing?  then is he malevolent.  Is he both able and willing?  whence then is evil?”  (And you thought Rabbi Kushner was making an original point…)

I felt today the way Hume describe above, caught up with the demons of my fancy.  I have put out resumes, and heard nothing.  I keep searching, but there seems to be little out there for me.  My dad is now starting to put pressure on me to go to a hiring agency and sign up with them.  But that wouldn’t do me any good, as it would still be leading me nowhere I want to go.  Besides, if I’m going to allow myself to get a crappy temp job, I might as well do it in a place that I want to live.  Let me move to Boston, find a roommate, live cheaply, be closer to the opportunities I want, and if I need to, get a crap job to survive.  I just feel like somehow, finding a job to have a job seems like giving up.  I don’t want to surrender my life. 

But maybe I already have, because I’m not really living right now.  Then does that leave me with two options?  Shrug my shoulders and accept things as they are, or pick up my life and take a huge risk and see what happens.