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jovian moon There is something vaguely sad about an entry devoted to cleaning. It all seem so hollow and trite, but then I quickly tell myself that life is full of dull moments. Then I continue on with this line of thought by remembering what the film American Beauty tried to beat into my head. It told me that I could find beauty in these things. The key scene with the plastic bag being swept up in a circle by the wind was meant to be a moment of insight. For the neighbor boy who filmed that moment it was the most beautiful thing in the world. Meanwhile I just yawned in my seat and mumbled whatever to myself. However, maybe I am missing something here. Perhaps if I wanted to have a mild religious experience I could have thrown a plastic bag out my door yesterday and watched the wind beat it around. Personally I find that even more sad. I could not take any of that imagery seriously, because it reminded me of a story that my first college roommate told me years ago. Matt saw a mentally retarded boy runnning in circles when the wind did the same thing to a pile of leaves. He thought that it was the funniest thing in the world and he proceeded to demonstrate to me how the boy whirled around and around for minutes in pure glee. So what was meant to be some kind of metaphor in the film became a reminder of a humilation story to me. After work this morning, I saw a row of stretch limousines lined up in front of the middle school near my house. I have no idea why there were there. Even though I have lived here for almost three years, I know very little of what goes on in the community around me. It just isn't that important to me. I imagine if I were married and had children, I would take a more active role, but what goes on in the schools has very little meaning to me at the moment. It isn't as though I wish ill will on the schools, they just are not a part of my life. Despite having been alive for nearly three decades, I still find it hard to believe how little of the world that I actually come into contact with on a personal level. Through technology I have access to images of faraway places that I may never see firsthand before I die. Even without using the Internet, I can expand my world through books, television and magazines. Humanity can send a piece of technology to photograph the moon of another planet, yet for most of the week I manage to stay within a ten mile radius of my house and that bothers me. Each day I drive over the same roads and see the same houses. Each day I work with same people and do about the same thing at my job. I have to wonder if people create ruts for themselves or if we can only handle so much information at one time and form routines to keep us sane. The world changes in so many different ways, but most people dwell within a small fraction of it and so do I. Each of us chooses what we think is important in the world whereby we create our own personal vision of it. Sometimes these visions clash, while other times they exist in complete ignorance of the others. I wrote the above paragraphs hours ago and I have no idea anymore where I was going with that line of thought. Now that I read it over some more it almost sounds like I want to be an astronaut or something. Actually I think that I was trying to say how people seem to limit themselves. There is so much to see and do in the world, but we can only deal with so much of it at any given time. So to compensate for this failing, people settle into what seems best for them without knowing what they might be missing. Then again maybe I am just talking about myself here.
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