A Purpose

So, I realize I have been terribly lax with this whole project. I'm learning about the Post-Modernists a bit and most of them said that you're not defined by your past actions, but by what you do now. Today, I can choose not to be a procrastinator (maybe).

We're also supposed to have a theme for our blogs. Veganism and animal rights issues are two things that are close to my heart and really relevant to my everyday life. I don't like to proselytize and I'm not trying to convert people. That's just not me. I just want to expose a little bit of what my life is like in the context of my moral beliefs.

I would like to begin by answering a few of the most common questions I get about my groove. I've been a vegan for about 4 and a half years, and was an ovo-lacto (that's eggs and milk, folks) vegetarian for 3 and a half years before that. No, I don't really miss the foods I choose not eat anymore. I'll answer more of my own questions tomorrow, but it's late and neo-hippies need their rest.

Real Life... What a Drag

Lately I've been thinking about how much I do not want to graduate from college. We have it too good here. Right now I'm on my way to class to sit around in a circle and dish about writing with a bunch of other creative people, I'm reading The Communist Manifesto and comparing different societies in history to ours. I'm learning to break open the mythologies that the modern world has thrust upon us. I get to read so many great works of literature. I get to be in an environment where I can ask people questions and they have answers. Maybe 50 people have 50 different answers, but that's what is so great. Nobody ever says "Just because" in a university. I've seen plenty of real life already and compared to this, it's pretty blah. If only this could be my Neverland... But life goes on and we're swept up in its current. What can be done?

An Explanation

So, I'll bet that most of you have heard the line of poetry that the title of this blog comes from. In case you haven't, it's from Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself". It's amazing how words written almost 150 years ago can ring so truly today. The full line is “Every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you”. I guess what that means is that I feel I want to share the oddness going on in my head with everyone out there on the internet.

The great thing about the internet is that it is a tool that connects everybody to everybody else, no matter where they are. We're building a global community. We're everywhere and nowhere all at once. Whatever you write and put on the internet is published instantly, that piece of you belongs to the whole world as much as it belongs to you.

Imagining a Better World

I've been reading and thinking a lot for a presentation about one of my favorite authors, Richard Brautigan, for my capstone class. I think my favorite thing about his books is the way he re-imagines the world into a place that is more kind and gentle, or at least more interesting, than the one that he actually lived in. Isn't that what we are doing, should be doing, as writers? Inventing a new and better world for ourselves and our readers? Beyond being writers, as human beings we need to reinvent a better world for ourselves, for our own sanity.

I'm taking a break from a rather disturbing amount of assigned reading this morning by doing one of my favorite things, baking cupcakes. Whomever came up with the idea for making individual, portable cakes was a genius. Pictured are the Pineapple Rightside Up Cakes I made for Easter dinner. Whether celebrating a small event, such as the beginning of blog, or a larger event, such as the resurrection of a man 2000 years dead, cupcakes are perfect for absolutely any occasion.