Topic: Rambling && Daily Info
Yeah, I've done some heavy thinking in the last couple of days. Losing someone who isn't much older than your own father is kinda weird. I think it bothered most of us.
Lynn knew a lot of people. The procession line must've been half a mile long. And I don't think it felt real to anybody until they gave Lynn his last call (he was a volunteer fireman for a long time). I'll tell you, that was a really sad and lonely sound, that siren, out there on that hill in Kasota. The Hansen plot is more or less out there: Grandma Hansen, Uncle Harold (a Kenyon, but close enough that it doesn't matter), and now Lynn. Not sure how my Grandpa is taking all this, he won't talk about it, but its gotta hurt to have your son go before you.
Apparently I'm considered top of the family, light-years ahead of all my cousins, even the older ones. I guess I'm the smart one, with all the capacity for learning, and the curiosity. I dunno, I don't know how to deal with that. Not used to being on top, three semesters at the U have me used to being just one of a group of smart people, so that its the norm.
As I think about it, there really isn't all that much different between my family and me in the intelligence department; we're all smart. I think the difference lies in the drive for something. Part of my drive results from that really hard time in my life without friends, where there was nothing else to do but learn things, figure out how things work. The rest of them had things that they worked for, but their environment kept their goals at a different place. My goals have always been flexible. Maybe its delusions of grandeur. I don't think that those born into power really understand it. My immediate family was poor, dirt poor, for most of my conscious life, and according to my brother, for a large part of his life too. And so I want something better, bigger, greater than I have. Its a drive, a race away from poverty, away from my mom figuring out how much she and my dad would eat so my brother and I could get food. There is truth that if you have nothing, you want everything. But the things aren't the end for me, just little comforts along the way. It's the knowledge that I want, knowledge is worth more than all the oil in the middle east. Think about it for a moment, especially in the context of oil. That oil has always been there throughout human history. The peoples of that region had it in such a plentiful supply that it was cheap, and used as a lighting oil. It is not until someone figured out that you could use that oil to power more than just lamps. And then someone figured out that you could split that oil into pieces that were good at different things, some at slow burning, some at fast burning, some at lubricating and the list goes on. Yet, if someone hadn't wondered about that oil, hadn't postulated on it, hadn't played with it, it would merely be just lamp oil, and all that we know would not exist. You can tell me nature is all important, but don't get too high-and-mighty as you get into your car and drive back to your home which is filled with synthetic materials whether you like to believe it or not. All just from a bunch of someones that postulated, someones that didn't just respond to the environment, but rather sought to shape it, to make themselves independent against the randomness of nature.
Alright, time for bed, catch ya later,
JBJ, JPH, J