Just as soon as I belong, then it's time for me to disappear

That's a line from one of Metallica's later songs. It doesn't compare well with their earlier work but it's still decent. It was I think part of the Mission Impossible II soundtrack (I never saw Mission Impossible II or III or the TV series, but I saw I and liked it, so maybe I'll get to the TV series sometime and maybe I'll watch a bit of II or III if it's on tv.), but more importantly it calls to a certain part of personality and so perhaps that is what you should remember it for. I am a person with a sort of eternal restlessness. It is partially due to my disease, partially due to my ambition, partially due to a certain force of personality the two contribute two (I'll elaborate more on this upon another hour). But it always calls on me to move. And yet, movement isn't enough, the movement has to actually take me away from somewhere for it to matter to me. When I was younger this was something possible, I could wonder into the woods, or follow a stream under a bridge, or just go down a road for a ways. When I was young there was a sense that there was an external world beyond my home that was still ready to be explored, still unkown, still filled with limitless possibilities. But as I got older I began to understand that the internal world of my home was in fact part of that external world, and all this world was explored. Those few pieces that are not explored are contained, understood, studied, out of reach or empty.

The unknown can no longer simply be walked into. Or at least, well, when I was young I could explore for a while and then come home, the unknown world was just down the road, or just a jog into the woods. Now, just taking a trip somewhere doesn't expose me to a new world, just a little known branch of my world. The way my restlessness calls to me I am tempted to run out into the night and catch a train and go somewhere far away. But I'd still be a phone call from home, I'd still be connected to my old world. And I still would have to come home.

The only way I could really get out into a new world is if I moved, if I actually packed up my stuff and went somewhere else and lived and worked there. But the dilemma is this. Say I did do that, I mean it's one more year till I graduate from college, and I'm porbably going to move (probably to New York (New York, New York!)), at first it will be a new world, filled with anxiety and wonder. I'll have some problems dealing with that, but I'll be fascinated by the city no doubt. But eventually I'll get used to it, understand it, and it will become my home. And then I will belong. And then it will be time for me to disappear. The restlessness does not disappear because I am in a new place. It didn't disappear when I got to New Brunswick, it will most likely not disappear if I go to New York, and so I will want to go elsewhere, and if I do I will be filled with wonder at the occassion, and then I will want to go further. I will want to leave and leave again and again, because the restlessness continues.

But I realize I can't live like that. Just as I realized that it made no sense years and years ago to leave home once my restlessness manifested in this way. But I would like. I would like some place, that has enough of a pull for me that it offers me enough to counteract the restlessness. I mean, home does, Rutgers does while I'm in college, etc. But I'd like somewhere that has enough for me that the restlessness does not bother me. Some place I feel at home. Perhaps that's why I want a girl.

I heard some one talking about how guys just want with a girl is to get laid, but for me I'd think (never having any real romantic relationship, not to mention no sexual relationship (I'm actually not planning to have sex till marriage, which isn't really here or there but this seems an appopriate enough place to put that), I don't know exactly what effect having sex would have on my values, but in most likelyhood they wouldn't change too much) what would be more important in my relationship, was being able to talk with her. When you talk to someone you love, it eases the spirit, it gives you peace. It is hard to imagine a place I can really find that is home, but if I found a girl who I fall in love with, truly in love with, being with her, simply being some place where we can talk, that would feel like home.

Or so I conjecture, so I hypothesize. So I think. Anyways, take it to your head, take it to your heart, and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

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