Recalculating

I've been tired lately. I've been somewhat busy, somewhat lazy, somewhat productive, but somehow I feel like I'm running in place. I look forward to my days off so I can do what I feel like doing (read Harry Potter-entertain myself-and write-express myself-and bake sweets-something to do with myself). I look forward to lunch, so I can treat myself to yummy food. I look forward to Skyping my family so they can first ask me about my life (sorry family! I do also genuinely want to hear your news!). I draw, so people will look at my drawings and like them, and ultimately, like me! I begrudge my school the hours I give them, because I want to do something that comes to me more easily, more naturally. Maybe none of these things are bad by themselves, but I just realized I'm always thinking about me, me, me. Mr. Barthold, a jokey man who went to our home church, asked what the most selfish creature is? It's a cicada, because in Japanese it said, "Mi-mi-mi-mi-mi."

  I was reading a book that my friend lent me, and chapter 5 is about "Transforming Beauty." It talks about the search for beauty, and how beauty actually changes us when we encounter it. The author quotes Simone Weil: "It is not, she says, that [in the presence of beauty] we cease to stand at the center of the world, for we never stood there. It is that we cease to stand even at the center of our own world. We willingly cede our ground to the thing that stands before us."   I want to cede my ground to the ultimate source of Beauty! So I'm doing a bit of...recalculating. (Try saying that last word with GPS lady voice)