Well, if we're onto writing serious, introspective blogs with serious questions, I can go along with that. So, my opening salvo is as follows: Can truth be contradictory? Because I wonder, hypothetically, if I were to say something contrary to what Gabe the babe wrote, could it be at once as true and yet in direct contrast to what he has written, assuming that to be true as well? Now, I don't plan to contradict Gabe's entire written work, as it was a very direct and true statement from a man I admire and trust, but there is a sense in which I disagree (possibly from the ancient habit of ours to take the antagonist's position at any time to render the truth more perceivable, hopefully). My main contention is with the idea of being grown up. Maybe it's the immaturity talking (I don't have a job, a girlfriend, children, or any sort of responsibilities beyond a loan payment and some upcoming plane tickets to pay off), but I think you have to grow up to realize there's no such thing. I think it's a myth, like Atlantis or America ever as a Christian nation. I believe it to be perception, not a state of being or, hoping not to offend or attack in any way those who have so fervently written before me, even a choice. I think it is the distance that I saw between myself and my elders, and I have only watched that distance shrink into nothingness as years past. The actual number of years between myself and my parents hasn't changed, but my understanding of what their lives must have been like, and how mine is similar and different, has changed my perception of them. So says the childless, spouseless, vagrant of a college graduate without direction or form to his general life. Oh, I did have one other comment I wished to make to answer Gabe, or maybe alienate and bring more unnerving silence from everyone. I was thinking about wasting time (something that is closer to my profession than anything else); we all waste time. Much of life is unnecessary at best, and there is solid, godly direction in feeling the need to do more with what we have, to cut out some unnecessary in hopes of instead doing something that meant... something. But, wasted time... now that's perception. Maybe you must lose some precious moments in order to appreciate the moments which undoubtedly contain what matters in this life. So that leads us further; can we categorize life into two simple realms: Things that happen, and things that happen that possess meaning? An example would help. Let's say you spend time with a person (I am automatically thinking of that significant other that is yet alive in my imagination alone); is every moment, every action, every thought and word meaningful? Now, even though it's not all meaningful (everything is only meaningful if you're trying to read into everything that happens, not that people [some female] do that), it's not wasted time, right? Well, can that translate into the rest of our lives? I mean, if every moment was equally meaningful, there would be no such thing. I'm just trying to say that you need the contrast of meaningful activity to "wasted time". Otherwise I have no disagreement with Gabe. I can't say I'm there with him, but I remember similiar times and moods that I have dealt with in the past. I mean, my most consistent interaction during my day is with a six-month-old rambunctious dog, thus giving me the credit of your average 8-year-old. Whatever, I think I'll just complain that nobody is writing so that we'll hear something from Lynnea, because I'm worried about her in that crazy country called England. Anybody else? Or is it just me, Gabe, and Jasmine on this one (Folkestad, I saw your comment, and I'll call you sometime here, or you could just call me). Well, hope that wasn't the most boring thing you ever read (if it is, read some academic analysis of the economic and agricultural causes of the French Revolution, then we'll talk). Where's Duerkop, anyway?