Stream of Consciousness

It's the weekend before Spring Break is over.

Which means it's empty here at Gateway for now.

This has its pros and its cons.

You have small groups of awesome people up at all hours of the night talking about nothing.

But then you have the fact that sometimes you go downstairs to the cafeteria and find it deserted, which means you pretty much sit there, alone with your thoughts, attempting to write something that personifies your thoughts at the moment, hoping that somebody comes down the stairs, walks through the doors, and you are no longer alone with said thoughts.

You could, of course, be asleep. You went to bed at 4 AM last night. And then couldn't sleep. So you're really not sure what time you went to bed. But sleep evaded you.

You have a million deep thoughts on which you've been ruminating for the past couple of weeks, but you're sick of writing those down sometimes. They don't seem to  come across the way you always want them to.

So you sit down and write.

Aimlessly, actually. You have no thoughts as to where exactly your writing is really going. You just write out thoughts.

And why are you writing in the second person, exactly? Not even the third person. That's pretty cool. Somewhat annoying when people choose to do so in everyday conversation, but meh. It happens.

Are you even going to publish this? Is it going to become a blog? Is it going to become a note? Or will it sit in the archives of your laptop forever where you'll never look at it again? Until someone in like, 100 years, decides that they're going to publish random writings that they find.

So, on that subject, think about all of the countless people who wrote, perhaps aimlessly in a cafeteria like you are now, not knowing that their words would live on, immortalized. 

For example, Anne Frank didn't know that her diary was going to be published. The Apostles didn't know that their letters were going to be published. And yet those things changed society. Life. School kids today still read Anne Frank. Doctrines and beliefs are built upon the letters of the Apostles.

Do you think they knew? Like, I know that the epistles were inspired by God, but did they know how far reaching their words would be? Do you think they sat there, writing things out, thinking "Whoa, this is pretty important."

Not that it matters. It doesn't have really any effect on theology or doctrine. It's just something that a writer wants to know about other writers. Pure curiosity. That's all it is. Fascination, I suppose, too.  Everyone wants what they write to matter. To pass on some thought that touches someone's life. Or heart. Not necessarily in a deep way. But that makes them feel something. Whether the writer wants them to laugh or to cry or to think or reconsider an idea, opinion or thought. You want what you write to matter somehow.

Maybe. Now I'm  sounding like some of the English teachers that I hated.

I loved English. Loved symbolism. Hated that we spent more time on symbolism on grammar. What good is it to know that the kite in The Kite Runner symbolizes redemption when you can't even formulate a complete sentence with correct grammar and/or punctuation. Really? What is that?

But these teachers would always have this idea that whatever an author wrote had deep meaning. And sometimes, I think they would put more thought into the book or poem than the actual author did. Because surely people write things without meaning don't they?

Isn't this just kind of a mass stream of consciousness without meaning? Or is the meaning just that? To prove that there can be things without  a deep hidden meaning? Isn't that a little self defeating?

And does anyone care?