Buzz Buzz Buzz...

This semester I have been moving at a million miles per minute, and I like it. But now I am on spring break. Everything slowed down, and I feel like I cannot even function. Even now, trying to write this blog post, my mind just wants me to move onto something else. I cannot engage my own thoughts at the moment because my mind has moved past them. So this post, I suppose, is primarily an attempt to slow my mind down.

I am trying to write this 15 page research paper, and I am having the same problem. I feel like I cannot gain momentum. I feel like i am a bee that has been buzzing and buzzing and buzzing, but now someone has asked me to push a rock. With all the energy that a bee exerts in a day, there is no way that a bee could push a rock (I'm thinking about a baseball sized rock). So who is the stronger? The one who can push the rock or the one who can buzz around all day? Which takes more energy? Or is different, once again, simply different?

I'm not going to answer any of those questions... not even going to try.

So I'm this bee still. I have been buzzing and buzzing collecting pollen, or doing whatever it is that bees do these days. Then this kid named spring break comes along with big glasses and a jar, and captures me in the jar. At first I am going nuts. Buzzing and buzzing, flying into this wall, then this one. I know that I am trapped, but I need to be able to go, I have things I have to do. So I buzz into every possible surface of the inside of the jar. All the while the kid, spring break, is just laughing at me with his stupid big glasses.

As you can tell, I am frustrated about this.

But I am also realizing that maybe, just maybe this is a good thing. Being forced to SSLLOOWW DDOOWWNN (how long did it take you to read that?). Take longer to do things, take breaks, think, engage my mind, read... read? yes. read.

Or perhaps this is a taste of mediocrity. That poison I have been trying desperately to avoid by buzzing... or perhaps someone can buzz all they want, but the true mediocrity is accomplishing the world and losing yourself. Who is this buzzing bee? Just another bee? Or is this bee still Ben Ripley? Does this bee still have purpose and soul and life to live and love to give?

Can I move from buzzing bee with no time to do anything but buzz, constantly fearing the days to come when he knows there is more homework, another paper, another late night followed by another early morning... buzz buzz buzz. Can I move from that to more organized, pushing harder, and slowing down? Actually planning time in my day, every day, to slow down. To do things that do not actually have meaning?

But that is time I could be spending practicing...

Perhaps this would have done better as a journal entry then a blog post?

Oh well.

It's a blog post. And since it is, what are the readers takes on this? Is it worth it to slow down? Someone else somewhere else is aspiring for the same things that I am, but they are not slowing down. Will they win? Or will they lose themselves in the buzz? Is the buzz a good thing? Can we buzz and buzz and not lose ourselves in the process? Is a 20 minute lunch enough time to slow down for the day? Does it count if all I am thinking about is what I have to do that day?

And I retire to the warm grips of sleep, to begin work early on my research paper tomorrow.

Enjoy the peace or buzzing or whatever it is you chose today.

-Ben