Star Date 3: Biological Perspective Overview.

Lately I have been seeing the world in an entirely different way.
Through my previous years of schooling, I always took the time to focus on the things I already had a solid knowledge of. This kept the world behind my window while granting me the type of bliss that is found only in ignorance. I have understood the words on the pages for years now, but that knowledge never changes the information on the signs in the world around me.
As many know, a few months ago I resigned my post as a journalist with Lee Enterprises to return to school and venture into the field of bio-chemistry.
Previously, I had never been much of a science person. I managed to get through high school physics with the help of a particular Derek Schipul and his ever present worksheets full of answers. I always tuned out during lectures and PowerPoint presentations designed to teach me the differences in endoplasmic reticulum structures because I was narrow minded enough to assume that the knowledge would never apply to me.
I was going to go out, grab the world by the boot straps, and pull it all up with me on my way to the top. I don't know where the sense of entitlement I used to posses went to, but now, most days, I am happy that it's gone. Over the years I have come to the conclusion that ignorance often times leads to arrogance, and that you rarely find one without the other.
Throughout the course of my studies, my math and science skills have been severely weakened due to a lack of motivation and diligence. The simple truth that the natural sciences have been neglected and disadvantaged in my education is what drew me to them as a life path.
I have no idea if it was an intelligent move to sit down and decide: "I'm going to figure out what I am the worst at, apply myself whole-heatedly, and see if I come out the other side successful."
Some days I wake up and consider that the decision to focus on improving my weaknesses may have not been the most intelligent. There is the possibility that the seasoned veteran would have continued to stick to things he hated but excelled in. I was no longer willing to do that.
Once the decision was made, the bricks were not hard to put in place, and the benefits were not slow to follow. From the first day I arrived back on campus, enrolled in a daunting slate of science focused classes, I began to learn. The learning that began has continued and been unlike any that I have done before.
In the past, the education process consisted of my sliding by on my natural intellect and as little actual work as possible. As I have moved into courses designed for individuals who have been driven to study biology or chemistry for years I have been forced to play perpetual catch-up. The knowledge that is taken for granted by many of the individuals in my classes is still foreign to me. It is as though my peers and instructors correspond with one another in a language I don't understand and am only just now beginning to learn.
I have become the American tourist standing on a corner in Merida speaking broken Spanish to all who pass in hopes that someone can point me towards my hotel: Clean and ready with a smile, but still lost none the less.
The lack of familiarity has set my efforts on fire, providing me with the motivation to get out of bed and better myself each and every day. I have begun to learn information that was never previously in my head before. Never did I contemplate molecular structure of foods or the present global crisis of fresh water shortages.
I was always somewhere from mildly to excessively political, mainly hoping to appear different and somehow more enlightened than my peers. This affinity for beginning arguments with people who could easily refute my points and make me look unintelligent was my only experience with environmental issues. I had never heard of the nitrogen cycle, or the phosphorus cycle, let alone how to construct the chemical equation for sulfuric acid. I was uneducated, but unaware of my deficiency.
As I have continued my uphill battle to better myself I have found knowledge espousing from my head several times a day. A few days ago I was sitting at a family dinner with my parents and began contemplating the differences in molecular structure in varying types of butter and margarine substitutes, and where exactly the Country Crock on my dining room table would fall in the range from spray margarine (which is the most healthy due to the hydrogen bonding) to hard stick butter.
I have also been cutting my consumption of meat and animal byproducts due to my increased awareness of how the world around us is always working. I will posting a full reasoning behind this at a later date, but it involves the conservation of resources, not a love of animals (but I do have that as well).
This burdening passion for science continues to change my life each and every day. Yesterday, on the first day of expected snow, I began to contract cabin fever. I have a storied history of seasonal depression, and already I am longing for the outdoors with my heart and soul. I fled my home in hopes that I could shake the demons that had taken up residence on my shoulders.
I ended up rendezvousing with a particular lady friend I am quite fond of (Marissa), and we began to pace the continually browning countryside.
My thoughts wandered and circled, turning from subject to subject as we watched the freshly harvested fields slip past the dirty windows. Simply driving the stretches of concrete was not going to be enough to cure my restlessness, I needed to go outside.
Finally, as we cut north of Mason City and began to head west, I remembered a lecture I had been present for several weeks ago where my instructor highlighted several of the local attractions that were must sees for all biology students. Among the activities she listed and described was the possibility of a trip to the Lime Creek Nature Center.
Marissa and I had very little in the way of afternoon plans, excepting the possibility of a nap, so after I asked her permission, we were on our way.
The Lime Creek Nature Center is not somewhere new to me, in fact, I have been there a handful of times. The only real hindrance to me being an expert on the facility and its services is the simple fact that I had not been through those heavy doors since I was just over five years old.
We arrived at the Center and parked in the gravel parking lot across the blacktop road, fighting the crisp air as we scuttled to the front doors in the hopes that they would be unlocked.
They were, and we went inside to discover and discuss many wonders of our natural world. I would suggest you go to the preserve just north of Mason City on Highway 65 and explore the Center for yourself someday, so I will not bore you with what was personally interesting to either of us.
Without an education in biology, I would never have thought to go there, I would not even have been interested. Now, it was an excellent way to spend a quiet Sunday afternoon with the girl I love.
Biology and the rest of the natural sciences have impacted me greatly as of late. I am planning on starting a series of sorts on the impact that particular things I have learned throughout my studies that relates how particular facts and figures have led me to making personal changes in the hopes of bettering the world around me. Stay tuned.

Star Date 2: Milestones.

I recall simplistic days of my youth where great anticipation was pinned and planned for all milestones. Birthdays, Christmas, Confirmations, and anything else that would bring the potential for presents and an assembling of valued individuals.
In my house as a youngster, we even got presents on our siblings birthdays courtesy of my grandmother. This was designed to not make us feel jealous or sad, and it really worked.
As my age progressed, milestones became a mixed blessing. The family holidays in Iowa City became more and more strained as myself and the other kids grew older, gained diversified interests, and learned how to make fun of one another. We all segmented and hung out with specific cousins, gathered as a large group for dinner, and then waited for our fathers to get bored enough to demand that our mothers part each others company.
In Middle School, birthdays started to take a turn for me. In the Pella superstructure of popularity, all of the children would throw 'parties' on their birthdays. These were limited social engagements that included those who had an affinity for bouncing a basketball or the affluence of a Lunchable in the cafeteria. This skewed my perception of milestones for a time, seeing as I was rarely invited to these occasions all though I ran in the same social circles as the other individuals. Additionally, my father was never a huge proponent of me personally having birthday parties, so when this became the in trend, I felt as though I was being denied a birthright of some sort.
In high school, the family occasions became more of hindrance, mainly due to my addictions. At family Christmas and family reunions I was constantly attempting to find ways outdoors and away from the others so I could catch a nicotine buzz. Later I was looking for even greater avoidances. Weekend family reunions got tricky, and I started to segregate myself from the groups completely, usually using a book and a grimace as a hearty defence to any intruders.
Birthdays slightly improved during this time period as an improved social support system provided individuals who would go out of their way to make sure that I had a carton of cigarettes or a birthday cake. I began to look forward to birthdays again, and started taking pride in being an excellent gift giver. There was one occasion where a particular girl I was fond of received sixteen different and equally thoughtful gifts for sixteen days leading up to her birthday. She still broke up with me the day after, but that is a memory for a completely different time (Maybe a post of being taken advantage of unwittingly).
As alcohol entered the picture in the late teen years, birthdays became especially fun, along with all other social occasions away from my parents. Proms, high school sporting events, and most weekend nights became milestones large enough to go out and lose our heads. This made me enjoy them more.
Then I remember the night where milestones quit being fun again. It was during the flood of 2008 and I was back living in the southern part of the state. My dear friend was home from Vermont, and on the eve of his birthday we ascended the barn ladders at his parent's homestead to sit beneath the rafters that had watched us grow old.
Bails of hay were stacked around to provide us company and caution as we sparked lighters on a dilapidated sofa as smoke climbed up and up to encircle the rafters. We spoke in muddled tones about the things that had transpired since he left for America's smaller mountains. He talked of personal discovery, I talked of experience. The hours dropped off our watches and eventually, it was his birthday. He was turning twenty, and we began to talk about the milestone that was hanging from his neck.
He spoke of how now that he was no longer a teenager, the world would be at his doorstep each and every morning. That there was so much more to strive for, so many more expectations. He seemed daunted, prepared but uneasy for the vague things that were about to confront him.
I sat in muted silence as I listened, soaking in the knowledge of a man I both respected and admired. I was hoping to gain some enlightenment, but I had yet to learn that enlightenment is hard to gain from others: it is a gift to be gained from personal experience and often times hardship.
I left in the decaying hours of the graying morning and returned home to slip into a troubled sleep. Two months later I would sit on the same step of manhood, and I felt the milestone weight heavy around my neck. I had similar thoughts to the ones he described that night. I had similar burdens that would weigh on my mind that day.
That is when milestones began to make a difference. They turned from joyous social occasions filled with whiskey slurs and brown eyed girls to the markers they really are in the cemetery of my past. It is easy to forget the day to day, but those days, the ones with added significance, they embed, they stay. They are branded upon my mind in exact details: anything from a floral print tank top to a dinosaur frosted chocolate marble cake.
I quit looking forward to these days, or at least I have tried.
Yesterday I passed another significant milestone: a six month anniversary. This is something I have not accomplished in years, and will hopefully never accomplish again. All week it was a pleasant reminder that I had someone who loves me, and is in turn loved by me. The occasion served as a handy conversation stimulant in the preceding day, but once the calender turned, it took on the heavy thoughts that I now expect from milestones.
It is as if I perch upon these grave markers of my past and look back, hand flattened against my forehead to shade my eyes, squinting through the glare of time and trial to appraise what has transpired.
I saw a quiet girl in a journalism class that wore yellow sweatpants and quietly lamented me for breaking the heart of her friend. I saw the same girl go on an unfortunate date with another man, a date that made me jealous enough to want her for myself. I saw those first few conversations where we were both nervous, struggling to maintain eye contact. Then I saw that eye contact grow, the butterflies stay, and a first date in my kitchen baking cookies that even the cookie monster wouldn't have wanted to eat. I recalled the first few weeks, where I was unsure. The time period where I usually would just abandon girls out of a fear of commitment, avoiding phone calls and making drunk proclamations from red stained lips.
Then I saw how she got me past that. How she didn't give up. What she did, what I asked of her, and how she rose to every challenge I presented for her.
I saw a list of a hundred and one date activities, and the way it became stained with pink highlighter as we worked our way through them one by one. I remembered a move to Britt, and a move back. I saw the time she dropped her fork and walked across the table to hold my head in her hands as I wept for my personal dignity.
I saw the uneasy end of summer, and the dawning of the fall. The distance ripped at my heart as she journeyed off to school. The way we have made it through. The way we will always make it through.
Yesterday dawned my six month anniversary, a milestone that to some is significant, to others is meaningless. It plagued me all morning from between my sips of coffee as I pondered where the future will take us. It made me uneasy, the same feeling I had on the eve of my twentieth birthday. Then, I looked back and came to the realization that: anywhere I am going from here on out, I will never be alone. That simple truth provided me comfort. I will always have a place to lay my head, I will always have a hand to hold.

I love you darling,
I really do.
Always and forever.

Star Date 1: A Brief Introduction

So this is where I have arrived, a unique plane of existence centered around a day to day struggle that never has plans of ceasing. A shuffle from blankets, to coffee, through a shower, and into a day so predictable that one might be led to imagine it happened yesterday.
There have been rumors around the mill that once you grow old, life just passes you by. I used to not believe, but more and more I am seeing the truth. The younger kids all know the hippest trends, the most inspiring music, and how to seem on the cutting edge. I used to be among them, however, too much time on the razor's edge will eventually get you cut.
I left the place of my youth prematurely, before I was ready. I ran north to lick my wounds and have seemingly found a place to stay. An area of adaptation that has turned and shaped me into an unrecognizable figure, only half resembling my past self.
Many claim to still know me, so many have rested judgements by simply letting the words: "I can relate," from their lips. I hope that someone can, because through relating, there must at least be marginal understanding. My head has become a tangled web of ideas and concepts, lies and truths, and desire. I always leave out the desire. I feel guilty for having it, for wanting more. Like Oliver Twist, I am constantly wanting more.
I was speaking with a dear old friend about the differences between comfort and happiness, and I have decided that although starkly different from one another, they are revolving on the same axis.
One will never be comfortable with at least a sizable pocket of happiness. One will never be happy without finding some sort of comfort. The world keeps on spinning quickly, and the longer I have stayed in one place the more clear it has become: Adaptability is the bridge between happiness and comfort. I would go on to hypothesise that if one has the ability to adapt, then one will always be open to both comfort and happiness.
The peril lies in over adaptation, a malady I feel I suffer from somedays. There is no variation, just the warm light of creature comforts provided through the painstaking task of repetition. The same keys in the same ignition, turning the same gears to move down the same stretches of concrete. The same foodstuffs to provide the same energy to tackle the same amounts of work. The same blankets in the same basement to provide warmth and security and a place to dream the same dreams.
Dreams of freedom encircle my head. I want to cut ties like the dumpster diving saviors on the north side of Des Moines. I want to be forced to migrate south with the winter trains, keeping the company of other lost souls on a back-track freight liner. These things plague my dreams, so I hope that they are one day coming. However, I know I will never leave the comforts. I know I will never give it all away.
What would I then be giving away? The American dreams of peace, calm, and prosperity that keep each and every individual bound to a desk, to a house, to a corporate structure with no hope of escape. I do want these things, at least I think so. I just no longer want any dark mornings where I can only think about the way we all scuttle around like bugs in a bowl, upside down on this only life sustaining planet.
Billions of people fighting for the same things, the same enlightenment, the same scrap of bread. There is so much hate, so much negativity towards our fellow man that sometimes I just want to stop and scream from the bottom of my lungs: Please just realize what you are doing.
Each man is an organism, the same as any other eukaryote, just a system of molecules working together, forming hydrogen bonds to accomplish shared goals and visions. There is no reason for judgement on such a process. There is only admiration for the incredible miracle of science that we all are. Trillions of individual atoms conspiring to draw a breath. Billions of cells working together to move us forward.
I hope that someday I can figure this all out, the way that life really works. Billions of people have been trying for thousands of years, but still, sometimes in those perfect late night comfortable drives home, I catch a glimpse. I almost see where I can cut behind the scenes and truly discover what is really pushing us forward.
Until then, I will let you know what I find. Right here.