40 days and 40 nights

I got an email from Nova today. They're sending me a packet and all so I know what's going on and all, but I have been informed that Wednesday, October 26th is my departure date, and as such I have made my flight arrangements through their travel agency.

40 days. That's all I have left in this country. Suddenly the immediacy of my affairs here are coming into perspective. I suppose I could go off on a touching tangent about how fleeting our time is, and how we never know what we have until we're forced to say goodbye, and all that crap, but...I won't.

My philosophy on life has always been, to learn everything you can, and then move on. Clearly, it's coming to be my time to move on. I've been telling myself it's been time to move on with my life for years, years now, and now I'm finally here. It's odd though, the disparity between what I've always assumed and the way it's turned out. When you're at a point when you've learned what you're meant to, and open yourself up to the Universe, and allow it to bring new things into your life, you figure it's something of a passive process. People here often put that in terms of giving yourself up to Christ, and allowing Him to do His work, without your interference. I don't necessarily subscribe to that partfcular interpretation of things, but I do certainly agree that there comes a point where you have to allow things to change, to accept that there are better things out there and to let them happen.

This process though was anything but passive. I mean, I had to work my ass off to get where I am, but, in a life characterized by passivity and a failure to act, I suppose it was only appropriate that it worked out how it did. In opening myself up to change, I did the one thing which oreviously I had found myself incapable: long term dedication and constant unrelenting vigilance. And I bet you that when I'm on the plane going out there, thinking about everything that's happened and changed about me getting to that point, I'll realize that the changes I wanted most in my life came inadvertently as a result of my conscious efforts. The changes in my life I needed most probably have happened without my ever knowing, and I'm going to have one of those epiphanies where, in textbook cliché style, I'll see that everything I thought I lacked I, in fact, had the entire time. How quaint. It really makes me sick sometimes how predictable life can be. You'd think that being aware of the inner workings of the Universe would allow you some sort of leeway from having to go through it.

Ugh, but, on the same note, I guess the knowledge is what makes it all the more important that it actually happens . Cause otherwise it remains entirely theoretical, which is, as I always say, my fundamental objection to intellectualism and philosophy. Knowing something is completely different than living or experiencing it. Being aware only allows you to be potentially more efficient in accomplishing things. It doesn't mean that you don't have to go through it, or even get to skip steps. Damn our tendency to commit intellectual suicide.

So anyway. 40 days. Yeehaw.