Chrisonomicon

Monday, December 9, 2002

The first Monday of my 24th year and I feel a little older, a little more responsible, a little more famous than the year before, and even though I may have found job security, a great new apartment and love in someone's arms, I still don't feel as though I've made the significant strides I'd imagined just a year ago. I have to ask: Without discontentment, would there ever be progression? And do I want to be content for that matter?

To live content with small means, to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion, to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich, to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly, to listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart, to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never, in a word to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common, this is to be my symphony

- William Ellery Channing

Beautiful sentiment, contentment as a symphony. Yet, I had always envisioned contentment as a passive, stagnant state, much in the same way passivity is induced by drug use or religion, destructive to both human life and art and there is an underlying fear that contentment often breeds smugness, boredom, arrogance, laziness, apathy, and mediocrity. I want to see myself as part of a larger process than simply a path to good enough, something active, recycling, something always spiraling upwards.