So I realize that I haven't been the best at keeping my blog up to date. After being underway and having that huge break with absolutely zero creative writing exercises in my days, it has just gotten hard. Even writing in my journal underway was bland. Every day was the same and the only excitement was getting cereal in the morning for breakfast before others swarmed in like birds and took it. Today is the first of the year. Today marks the day where everyone comes up with resolutions they'll keep for a month and eventually fail. So here is my vow to be better at writing daily. Who knows if I'll be unsuccessful in this endeavor, but here's hoping!
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Who actually knows what they want to do when they grow up? My dad majored in accounting or something, worked with the bank for years, dabbled in real estate and now plays music and manages tours, driving a trolley daily. Similarliy, my mom doesn't work in th field she has a college degree in. I have a degree in nutrition and dietetics. A degree! What have I done? Did I waste my entire college career on something I have no interest in? And how does that happen? I love food, but the thought of restricting others from the foods I love? What am I the calorie police?
I tell my friends all the time that I want to be a feather and just float through life. I'd never worry about the future and what I was going to be when I grew up. I'd be a feather and wherever the wind took me, that's where I'd land and that's what I'd do. It would be a sign that I was where I was suppose to be. I believe in that. And whenever life was too hard to bear and my feather was trampled upon, I would know it was time to pick myself up and fly again and trust the wind to carry me to greater heights.
So maybe my college days meant something. Maybe I'll never be a dietition but that major was a neccessary camel hump for me to climb over. All of this feather nonsense makes me think of Forrest Gump and how his life panned out. Give yourself a moment to ponder his life.
"I don't know if we each have a destiny, or if we're all just floatin' around accidental-like on a breeze. But I, I think that maybe it's both." -Forrest Gump
Do you remember the very beginning of the movie? During the opening credits, a white feather floats in the breeze as Forrest sits on that infamous park bench. He picks it up and tucks it inside the book sitting on his lap. He then tells his life choices to individuals that sit down next to him and how they have had an effect on his life today. At the closing credits, the movie shoots the last scene of the feather floating up into the wind and flying away from the park bench.
So, are we just accidentally floating through life like the white feather in Forrest Gump? Or does the feather provide our lives with fate and destiny to believe in. Does the feather know where its going to land before it lands? Forrest believes it's a little of both. If destiny does exist where does free will come into play? If our lives are controlled supremely by destiny and fate, are all of my life events predetermined? If destiny is true, are we just puppets on this earth being controlled by some grand scheme? I get it, this is crazy. I am spending entirely way to much time reflecting on a movie that maybe isn't suppose to be studied on a deeper level, but I cannot get over this white feather, "floatin' all accidental like."
Forrest was a very naive man. All throughout his life, he was nothing but honest, respectful and kind hearted to everyone. He’s proof that good-natured innocence can survive. Nice guys finish first, not last. The feather, in the beginning, represents the raw honesty that Forrest gives to everyone he encounters. It's a symbol of hope. Hope from his mom that he'll be able to walk. Hope that he'll survive the war and hope that he'll one day see his love, Jenny again. Forrest would probably be made fun of if he lived in 2012, but I admire the honesty in him. I admire the way he says exactly what he feels. There's a simplicity in his nature that is easy to read. I wish more people were like him. No games. No lies. Just the truth.
So the feather must be both- destiny and unintentional events left up to chance. Half of his life, (if he were a feather) was led by purely dumb luck. That feather was not his destiny. Who knew he was going to take off running for three years, just because. That feather must have led him to just keep going because he wasn't done yet. And coming up with the saying, "Shit Happens." That just happened. There was no fate behind it.
Even if there is fate behind my feather, I can't control it. I don't know it. Like he said, "Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get." So for 2013, I'll put faith in my feather. I'll provide kindness to others. I'll evoke niave, honest emotions and aspire to be like Forrest Gump. Maybe he wasn't filled with intelligence. He didn't have many friends. He never knew where his life was going to take him, but he lived.
DG
