Wind swept

I drive. The cold November air flows through my open windows, nipping at my cheeks. I feel truly awake for the first time in days. Until now, I have felt removed, dismembered, powerless. But here and now I remember the threads which cross time and space - bonds that shape my identity. Life is so precious, and yet so many of my moments are stolen by the sleep-like state I drift through. Where are my bright eyes and awe-struck hope?

I envy Henry David Thorough - his escape to Walden Pond. How can I keep from becoming a simple solute in the solution of society? I am being dissolved, barraged by advertising and culture with no true escape in sight.

Is there something in the wind and moon and stars that somehow sets things right?

We are barraged birth with external forces. These forces weave and wind around us and yet , somehow - in some way - WE emerge. "I" emerges. We are marketed to unlike any generation before us. We are connected to unfathomable amounts of information. And yet, in the face of advertising and cultures and education... we sometimes still become something unique. We exist as individuals - even if that existence is within a cocoon of conditioning.

Nature verses nurture is more than a silly undergrad catchphrase. A huge part of us exists because of the conditions in which we live. Am I my experiences?

I am a dirt-man, made of earth and influences.

But something more, too.

It's that something that makes me feel truly alive. It's that something which awakens from the cold breeze on my face and hands. It's that something that purrs deeply in my chest when I dream. That something is more than the influences that define me.

I want that part of me to grow. I want it to blossom and grow roots deep into the rest of me. May true life spring from the shell of the man I am expected to be.

I drive. And I tap into something pure and small. It's just so hard to find between all the rest. But when I do, it's like waking up.