My Five Life Classes

So my fantastic friend Shell tagged me for another one of these blog adventures.

I'm supposed to devise a list of 5 courses I would take to improve my life.
It’s more fun to be in classes with friends, so include one class from the person who tagged me that I’d also like to take.
Then I'm supposed to tag five friends to go back to school with me.
I am tagging Nicole, Hannah, Rachel, the other Liz - plus anyone else who wants to do it cause I'm truly curious but those are just the regular bloggers I know and would do it if they so choose.

Well first and foremost I would take World Religions & Philosophies 501 with Shell.

But I would call it Understanding 520

Her description sounded like the most delicious class ever.

"I've taken world religion and philosophy both before so I want the advanced course. I want the advanced version of this class. I want field trips to monasteries, Shinto shrines, kaballah centers, Hindu temples, sabbath with a rabbi, visits with theological leaders and religious greats. Schedule seminars, which include a review of major doctrinal beliefs, introduction to scripture, and a question & answer period, with the Dalai Lama, Jehan Begli, Billy Graham, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, Pres. Gordon Hinckley, Archbishop Williams, Yusuf Motala, Louis Farrakhan, Bishop Tutu, Mary Manin Morrisey, Arun Gandhi, and more Given the religious pursuit that I find myself in, having this class would provide me with the factual information I need and the spiritual experiences I crave."

Shell - I am TOTALLY there with you. And I think we could rock that Tibetan Monk Orange robe ensemble together.

Course #2 - The Mother/Child Relationship 345

But it would be team taught by Bear Grylls, Jane Goodall, Steven Hawking, Theodore Roosevelt, a Shaman named MoonTree and many others. It would be a Survivalist/Naturalist course.

I would learn everything I need to learn, biology, oceanography, cartography etc about 1) how nature works, 2) my relationship to her, and 3) how to survive with her. We would have MANY awesome adventures where Bear would show us how to navigate something and Jane or MoonTree would explain why it is the way it is and outline the layers of life and influence that goes into scaling a waterfall or shark fishing etc. We'd sail and hunt with Orcas in Alaska and shadow elephants in the Serengeti and dive and live on and around the Great Barrier Reef. It will be marvelous.


Course #3 - How to be Financially Secure and not have to Be or deal with Douche Bags 435
I've thought about this and I've reluctantly concluded that to be financially secure you have to either manipulate other people or associate yourself with someone that has no problem manipulating other people and both of those options seems totally unpalatable to me, so I'd like to know how to navigate that particular conundrum. Because one cannot be totally at liberty to write or create if you're too worried about the electric bill or your car getting towed ya know? You kind of need that mental check mark.

Course #4 - Eating with Dairy Allergies 205 (aka "No More Happiness")

I need recipes and ideas on how to get around the American's diet obsession with milk and not end up chewing on celery and pita bred for the rest of my life. Mama needs some flavor people! I just can't get over how either cheese, butter, or cream have a stake in everything we put in our mouths on a regular basis. These are strange waters, I need some help.

Course #5 - Micro Macro Miracles 580

This would be a course where I could learn things that I can do, support and think about in my small daily life that would cause real change in the areas of the world that need the most help. I cannot go over to Darfur and feed all of the 2.5 million starving victims of the genocide that's going on right now. I can't fix that problem by myself but I can do little somethings that will help and I want to know what those are. I already use canvas bags and recycle with gusto to respect the earth as much as I can but I want to help people too and not feel overwhelmed by the fact that I can't do it all. There has got to be SOMETHING ya know?

So there it is. My class schedule. Thats what I would do and were I would be going if I had a chance.

Ambiguiphile

Oscar Wilde says that "Only the shallow know themselves" implying that those of profound mind or spirit are constantly getting to know themselves and occasionally are surprised by who they are. I agree and disagree with this.

I disagree in the absoluteness he claims for those non-shallow of us. I think you can know your tendencies and know where you'd veer in certain situations but agree with him in the respect of progress -

If you're constantly and deliberately working on your character and habits there will be times of emotional critical mass where you amaze yourself. And there are also those precious moments where you know and feel that more experienced ethereal hearts and hands are guiding your actions and/or words and you get to look back with an earnest keanuesque "woah". I live for those moments frankly. Those are they hyper drive moments of character and make for the life changing journal entries.

However I content myself with little realizations about myself more often than not and I've recently learned something about me (aside that I'm allergic to dairy). I really really love defined non-definition. I love movies with ambiguous endings. I think I love the emotional tie up but not the logistical bow.

A couple of weeks ago the movie Garden State came up between Nick and myself at the gym. Apparently Mr. Zack Braff is more than the clowny dude on Scrubs. Homey had this screenplay in his pocket since high school and soundtrack list on his iPod before they even started filming. He directed the flick as well as starred in it. That's a pretty busy Scrubs clown boy. I was impressed and I had 3 people whose music sensibilities I implicitly trust recommend the soundtrack and that loved it without even seeing the movie. Holy cow. How many movies do you know whose soundtrack is so good it stands independently on its own? Think hard - I did and I didn't come up with many. So the DVD was on the $5 special at Target so I picked it up and I watched it for the first time last week. Holy. Freaking. Cow.

Awesome Flick

But not awesome in the LOTR of Transformers kind of way. Awesome in that it totally didn't resolve much of anything in this sad and angst filled life of a New Jersey boy except that he made one good choice out of a bunch of bad ones and it ends with him saying "what do you say here?" and it kind of faded into this marvelous Frou Frou song Let Go and I literally found myself more moved than I had been in months. I mean usually movies make you feel something during them and then they wrap it up nicely and you leave the theater all ready to face life after a brief brain vacation. But there are others that you feel this explosion of emotion, not in the middle but when its done. Then I reflected back to the last time I felt so much at the end of a movie and it was at the end of "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" where they say "What do we do now?" "I don't know". They just know they're in love and they know its not going to be perfect and that they were OK with that. It's this totally ambiguous ending.

And I've recently learned that I LOVE IT. When it's done right. If its like The Fountain - never freaking mind, I'd rather chew glass than try to get my head around that strange space. But I can't even begin to tell you how refreshed and validated I feel about all of the undefined aspects in my own life after seeing this movie. Maybe its because my life is so full of things and people that my head doesn't completely understand but my heart does or if I just love the space that movies like that give me to get lost in my head on my way back to my car and construct the sequel. But either way they teach me something about me, like all good art should. And for that I am grateful. I know myself just a little bit better than I did yesterday and its pretty good to meet me.

Even if its piece by piece.