and you won't wait for me in some secluded set of trees some christmas eve some god was kind enough to set aside

As stated in last night's burst of profundity, Monday was a day. Off as I always am on Mondays, I ended up at Overton Park with Gabe and then Travis, where we ate bbq sandwiches and looked sketchy trying to dodge the wind on an otherwise beautiful day. I wanted to wander in the woods, so we ate some assorted goodies out of Gabe's assorted goodies bag and I played along some fallen trees while we talked like pirates. I wanted to get lost in the woods, but I knew that if we walked in any direction for more than five minutes, we'd hit a road or the park, and that had me disappointed until I decided I was really glad that I could at least feel lost in the woods in the middle of midtown. You hear a lot about about plans for the destruction of Overton Park, and I just assume that there'd be enough special interest groups and public outcry to keep something like that from ever happening, but it would really be a travesty to lose that place. We were also stalked by a fat man-child in blue pants who watched us from the trees, but I can't confirm this. I wanted to investigate, but Travis got scared.

Gabe casually mentioned that there's no self without other people around (as casually as something like that can be mentioned), and I had trouble reconciling that for awhile, so I asked him to elaborate. He says that we have to accept the grief and growth that comes from our interactions with other people, and that by denying that, we are basically worthless in our existence (as I understand it...I hope I didn't just butcher his point). I argued that the self would still exist, because even if you had lived your entire life in seclusion, you would still be, but he asked me what kind of a shell of a consciousness that would produce, and of course I don't know. He loaned me a book on existentialism and then took it back because he needed it for a paper. Young Gabriel is an interesting dude.

Monday night was a haze of pints, a cute girl from the news, and pool that ended with a close friend in trouble at 3am, and Derren and I drunkenly rushing to help. I can't explain why we didn't all three spend the night in jail, but you can't say we didn't try. And that's all I'm gonna say about that here.

I haven't read Sarte's "Existentialism is a Humanism" and I can't say with any certainty what would happen to the self without experiencing the grief of interactions with other people, but I'm glad I don't have to think about it and that I have people around me that cause me to learn and think and laugh, among many other things. As for the grief, we're doing our best with that; sometimes we take it and we direct it positively, and sometimes we run it right into a bunch of trees.



I need to get out of town, so that's just what I'm going to do. Nashville, here I come. I'm excited to see you.