Human

I am discovering something, or rather a lack of something: I do not actually know what it means to be human...and for myself, what it means to be a woman. What is more unsettling to me is that I do not think that this is just the age I am at or where I live or even just who I am right now. I do not think there is any rule that says, "You will eventually figure this out." As best as I can tell, we are too often a species content with not knowing. I really hate it when it is not comforting to not be alone.

I want to know. I do believe that I need to know if I am to build the sort of life that I want. I have a lot of cheap answers and maybe even some good ones but nothing has been sorted. This is not the kind of thing that will resolve itself without at least the small effort of seeking. And I am excited, at least, in part. It is my project for the summer. It may last longer, I can hardly hope to know that this will all be wrapped up beautifully at the end of the about 70 or so days I have left of summer before I am back into classes and routine and schedules.

People do not usually make sense, but I have long justified this by saying that I do not know enough about them...that I am merely reading them out of context. But now, I want to know what it is that we are...and what we should be...and if there is any hope of bridging whatever gap there may be.

I believe that people have the right to be themselves. As a whole, we are not honest enough or secure enough most days. Too many of us are who we think we should be without a clear idea of where these standards came from or why. But I think it is important to be different...not for different's sake, but for honesty and beauty and all the makings of art that somehow pour out of the souls and minds of men and women. There is a way to see our similarities without laying aside what makes us different and unique.

Doubtlessly, I am a product of Western society; but I hope that I am not so entrenched in culture so as to never meet with Truth. I am what I am, and I cannot pretend to be anything else. We will see what this search brings. As I said, I am excited. I am also a little be wary of finding what I do not want to know--but more than anything I am curious. There is a life that I am looking for, and I will give up so many things to have it; but how will I know it if I do not even know who it is I should be?