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Some days I wake up feeling as though I’ve been awake all night, watching myself sleep. As I get up, a feeling that feels something like an out of body experience overwhelms me, and I find that I am watching myself move about through my day.

Chuck Palahniuk’s unnamed protagonist in Fight Club described insomnia as feeling as though everything is a copy of a copy of a copy. I can relate. Although I most certainly do not have insomnia, the feeling of being a copy of a copy of a copy definitely sounds familiar. Except I feel like I am the original, watching the copies do the various things I do on a day to day basis.

It’s hard to explain. Kind of like watching a dream.

So, this past weekend I found a little Asian food store which carries natto. Not knowing a thing about preparation outside of the one way I was shown, I decided to get adventurous.

Although I doubt you ever will, if you should ever manage to get your hands on the stuff, for Heaven’s sake, whatever you do, do not cook it.

The smell is gutwrenching.

Why is it when we think we have control, we wield it with absolute certainty?

Yet, when we lose control, we are unsure of our every move, and make the most feeble attempts at getting it back?

This morning brought a very pleasant surprise.

Around 11:00 my phone rang. The ID said “Unknown.” When I answered, I was greeted with a stammered “Hello?” followed by an unsure “Mr. Jared?”

It was Koji, and with him was Kyoko.

Kyoko had been singing at Django and afterwards she and Koji had decided to give me a call.

It was really nice to hear from them again.

Do I control me?

If my future is as I foresee it, do my choices make it become reality?

If I do not control me, where does my control end and His begin?

I may choose to follow His path, but is He not free to change it?

And if so, who’s path am I then following?

His, or mine?

How do I live free, walk with Him, and know that I am?

When my mind changes, is it Him, or is it me?

Is the future that I see just a bad reflection of what He has planned?

Is living in a box worth being happy in the long run?

If I step out of this box and decide to live free, am I still living in Him?

Does He want me to be happy now, and happy later?

James 4:13-15 (ESV)

Come now, you who say “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit,” yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”

Where am I going?

Do I really know?

I know He does, but do I?

Okay, I haven’t posted in weeks. I’ve been really busy with school and work. So I haven’t had much time to get my thoughts together to write anything outside of the obligatory academia which seems to fill my life at the moment.

So, this is gonna be short. As they all should be. Because who ever said that I have to write a freakin’ book every time I post.

No one. Me. And I can change that. So I am. Right now.

So, with that, I am done. For now. I’ll post more later. When I have time. And I won’t feel bad about it if I don’t. Freedom. From myself. That’s what this is.

In the meantime, I think I may start posting funny little pictures from my phone every couple of days. What’s the point of having a camera on your phone that you can send email from if you don’t use it for something worthwhile, like meaningless blog posts?

Of course.

Anyway, enjoy the holidays, I know I will.

I feel like I’ve been doing nothing but school and work for the past month. I really haven’t much time to do anything for leisure. I guess this is what it will be like for quite a while. I should probably get used to it.

I’m considering going home this weekend. I’ve got fall break for 5 days and it would be nice to get away for a few days. Not that going home is really a get away, as it has a whole host of obligations all it’s own, but I haven’t been home since July. I guess, in the grand scheme of things, that three months really isn’t that long of a gap between visits.

There are plenty of people right now that haven’t been home in 6 months or more. There are also a lot of them that left and are never coming back. That’s a different story altogether. One with political opinions that I do not feel like addressing at the moment.

A month after I return from fall break, we will have Thanksgiving break. So I’m considering waiting until then and just working through fall break. I have plenty of homework that needs to be done anyway, and if I go home, I know that I will get about -40% of it done. Yes, I will actually have less done than when I left. I don’t even know if that is possible, but I’m sure I can find a way to make it so.

So over the course of the next few days, I will decide whether or not I want to make the trip home. Until then, I guess I’ll work on more homework, work a couple more days at the store, and try to get some sleep in between.