Ralph Waldo Emerson said in his essay Self-Reliance: "In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts ... to-morrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another." And even that is written by some one else.  It's starting to seem more and more that whenever I want to communicate an idea, it is better put by someone else.  Often when I read, I find things that I have thought more abstractly myself, and just didn't know how to articulate.  If I have a presentation to give about something I care about, the parts that I feel communicate best what I want to say are in someone else's words.  When I find some well communicated truth, it's wonderful and frustrating at the same time because though it conveys my thoughts, it's not my own.  All I really want out of this blog is to have thoughts of my own.

Sometimes I wonder what the next crazy invention that will change the world is going to be.  I can't imagine a better, slicker, computer, or a smaller iPod that would hold even more, or higher skyscrapers.  Maybe in 20 years I'll look back and wonder how I got by with what I have, just like it's weird to imagine my mom using a typewriter.  But I also think there's an increasing group of people that's disillusioned by our culture's obsession with stuff and technology.  I think we're forgetting how crazy life is because we're so consumed by this stuff that we don't pause and think about it.  I know that I, just as much as anyone else, have this problem.  Sure, whenever I go on a hike or a mission trip or get outside of my bubble I appreciate it, but sometimes I'm still trapped in it, I prefer it to going without. 

I've begun to realize that I am the type of person who loves beautiful things.  Often a love for shopping is equated with an obsession with surface, material things, but I don't think that's it at all.  There is something about the universe and the life that we live that cannot be put into words, that can only be glimpsed, and different people see and convey unique parts of it.  It's beautiful, certainly, but not simple: it's a beauty that's incomprehensible and bittersweet.

I've also noticed that a lot of what I'm drawn to (clothes, music, colors) matches up with this indescribable thing.  It's not just that I have a certain style or music taste.  What I like goes beyond just liking it... it represents something to me that cannot be portrayed in words.  And I think everyone has this to an extent, that maybe subconsciously, their clothes and rooms and favorite colors match up with something that they are striving towards.  Or maybe I'm just crazy.

The truth of it is... I like things.  But I like them because they somehow help me to define myself, and in defining myself, maybe associating myself with something greater, maybe even with God- who also loves color and beautiful things.