3 in the Moanin', Bout to be Zonin'

This will be brief. I'm very tired. I've been doing work on Oracle databases for the last three hours. The three hours before that had me tearing apart computer operating systems and perusing the mysteries of process and thread scheduling. The three hours before that saw me deep into my Soc 300 book, this week's reading being about the rise of inter-ethnic violence in 'lesser developed' (i.e. Third World) countries. I could tell you something about that. I'm from a third world country and there was warfare just about everyday. I'm from West Philly. Bangladesh, Eritrea, and Lebanon don't have much on me.

That course sucks. It's so depressing. Actually, it's a good class, it's just the subject matter. Two weeks ago we were reading and talking about how widespread hunger is, and it just made we sick (with my fat American tail). In my ancestral homeland, people are thickening their porridge with sawdust because that one bowl will probably be the only one they get for the next few weeks. While I look in my pantry and my fridge and my deep freezer and my cabinets and see them bursting and overflowing, I still can't seem to find anything I feel like having. That's just stupid. It's good that I look outside of myself, so that I might look inside of myself, and find myself in need of change. I said,

It's good that I
look outside of myself,
outside my house,
my subdivision
my minivan
my import sedan

It's good that I look
beyond my country
once in a while

So that I can get a good look
at suffering I have never known
Suffering that breaks the hearts
of those who still have hearts

So that I might look
inside myself,
point my finger
at myself
and find myself
not so together after all
but to find myself
in need of change.

I find myself in need
of change.


Still earlier today I was in church, singing my heart out for the Lord, singing to set my soul free, singing because it is something new to me, and I love learning new things. But I got irritated by how lacking in excellence our choir as a whole is. I got irritated with how mechanical and contrived the services seem, and wondered what all of this is for.

I am hungry,
I am thirsty
My soul is parched,
aching
for meaning in my life.


I am not finding meaning in the places I thought I would. At least I have my family, my music, my friends, my writing, my eternally pragmatic optimism. I'm going to bed. Then I can add rest to that list.