A note on concentration.

6:00am: Alarm goes off.

Nope.

6:10am: Alright, alright.

I started working on this art project that's due later today -- copying a painting on 8.5x11 paper to 18x24. Yay. Not a trip through the park for someone who's not naturally apt at making lines on a paper look like real life.

About halfway in, I could feel my brain starting to fuzz.

>Need. to take. break.<

I moved to another section of the painting to try to distract myself.

And then moved again.

And again.

By 6:50, I thought I was going to explode.

>Just make it till 7:00. Just make it till 7:00.<

I ended up making it until 7:08. Not bad, if I do say so myself -- it was almost a full hour.

I was frustrated, though. Frustrated with my own ability to concentrate for even an hour. No wonder I can't get any schoolwork done. Then I got on my computer and realized why.

I'm scrolling through my newsfeed and ---OHLOOKANOTIFICATION! -- >scrollscrollscroll< -- Ooh, this looks interesting. A few clicks and pages later, and I'm on a completely different track than I was to begin with.

Technology is altering my brain cells, conditioning my thinking to move along the same lines that they do when I'm on the computer. (oh wait, hold on, I've got a new email)

I'm not joking, I really did have an email right there.

Where was I? Ah yes. Did you know your brain is constantly growing and reshaping itself in order with your activities? If I spend tons of time on the computer hopping from one short lived moment to another, my brain will do the same thing in real life.

I wonder what we would look like if we did in real life what we do on the computer.

Say I'm chat messaging, blogwriting, watching a youtube video, and scrolling through facebook -- alternating between the 4 different tabs on my computer. In real life it would be as if I was writing in a notebook while watching TV and talking to a friend and reading the newspaper all at once.

"So what are you up to these days, Sophia?" I would say.

"And now, the friday evening news," the TV responds.

>Sophia is typing<

 I laugh spontaneously at a joke from the newspaper.

"I've been doing a lot of songwriting," Sophia responds.

I answer by writing down a quote I read from the newspaper.

Art, science, literature, history, the whole of creation -- most importantly human beings -- deserve our full attention. I won't talk to my little brother while I write an email. If he has something to say, I'm going to listen to it in full.

And so ends one of Hannah's rants about technology.

Beyond

Beyond doing, there is being.
Beyond time, there is eternity.
Beyond mortality, there is immortality.
Beyond knowledge, there is faith.
Beyond justice, there is mercy.
Beyond happy thoughts, there is joy.
Beyond communication, there is communion.
Beyond petition, there is prayer.
Beyond work, there is rest.
Beyond right action, there is virtue.
Beyond virtue, there is the Holy Spirit.
Beyond appreciation, there is awe.
Beyond sound, there is stillness.
Beyond stillness, there is the eternal song.
Beyond law, there is grace.
Beyond even wisdom, there is love.
Beyond all else, HE IS.

by Christos Jonathan Seth Hayward

So I've been taking this astronomy class.

And THIS is basically what I have wanted to say but couldn't quite.

It hurts like heaven.

My brother writes beautiful things.

Come closer, dear reader,

I am telling you a story.

The Tricky Part of Dreaming

Two delightful reads for you, friends:

This amazing article on teaching and learning,

And a post about the beautiful, complicated, very twisty turn-y thing we call growing up.

There comes a day when, you look at your life and realize you are in that place, that time frame that everyone reminisces about when they are 30. You're no longer "too young" to live alone or have a boyfriend -- because right now, you are living those precious days that shape the rest of your future, forever. It's when you're young enough to do stupid things, but old enough to make it happen on your own. It's when life begins to change in ways you never thought it would -- not drastically, not tragically, neither for the worse or for the better -- just change. When you realize you are growing up, not in that way of turning 12 and being allowed to stay home by yourself, or turning 16 and being able to drive. It's your person, it's your being, it is struggling to free itself into the new world of adulthood without losing the joys of childhood. When you realize that your parents' stories of "we met freshman year" and "that's when I decided to major in history" is the timeframe of life that you are living right now. There is so much at stake, so much that could change at each move -- yet to recoil and hide in fear would be detrimental. You have to fight for what you want, risk failing at it, you have to be able to be in wonder, to be vulnerable, like when you were 12 -- but to respond to it with a heart and soul that has been molded by time. You have to move forward, you have to take a deep breath and cling to the people you love, who love you back, to what little truth you know, because the world is dark, and light is precious.

Two of my favorite modern instrumental artists in the world just collaborated to make one of the most epic music videos I think I have seen in my life, ever.