Rejoice!

Clockwise from top right: Pennies for Peace students, Ben Folds, Pre, Will Hunting, Kyle McAlarney, David Cone and Jorge Posada, Andy DuFrense, and a generic (but very cute) baby

I haven't had the best of weeks due to a number of various things, but just now, after coming back from Dawg Mass, the following was in my inbox.  I know feel a gazillion times better (statistics approximated) thanks to Very Young Stuart (the first).  Brothers need brothers.

Rejoice!

 I have seen the end of the rainbow.  Running through the school parking lot last Thursday at the end of cross country practice, light was refracted through the swirling rain onto clouds in the distance and the cars right in front of me.  There was no leprechaun, and there was no pot of gold, just the gift of beauty, more valuable than any metal in the universe.

Rainbows have puzzled mankind for centuries, an inexplicable link between Heaven and Earth, a rare piece of insight into the laws of the universe.  They have been the topic of scientific studies, literature, and music.  According to Christian and Jewish doctrine, the Rainbow is a sign of God's promise to never again destroy humanity.  The Norse believed that the Rainbow was a path between the Gods and themselves.  For me, it will always signify something more important: the eternal presence of light, even in the darkest storm.

People worry too much.  This was brought to my attention a month ago by my mother, who had learned it from her yoga instructor.  During the moment in which worry occurs, the person is rarely experiencing any discomfort whatsoever.  In fact their condition is usually very content.  When the worrisome event actually occurs, it rarely comes close to living up to the hype from the worrier.  People would be much happier and less stressed if every time they found themselves worrying, the instead turned their attention to how pleaseant their present state of being was.  If people stopped for a moment to appreciate the detail in a leaf, or the glory of a blue sky, or the warmth of a smiling face, the world would be a better place.  Instead, worry clouds our skies, darkening our lives until it threatens to block out the light of the beauty in our world.

People want too much recognition.  It's one of the underlying (and urgent) problems in our education system.  Students cram their heads with facts, regurgitate them onto answer sheets, and then move on to the next subject, not once stopping to explore the significance or interest that lies in the piece of information they have just learned.  Those who seek enlightenment are looked at as oddities, weeds on the well-tended lawn of conformity.  Meanwhile, countless others push themselves through classes that don't interest them, learning to associate school with busywork and useless knowledge instead of creativity, innovation, and progress.  As a result, few people truly enjoy learning anymore.  They strive for A+'s, a high GPA, admittance into a top-notch university, for what benefit?  So they can live a life doing a job that they don't particularly enjoy to earn money that they can spend in ways to make people think well of them?  Desire to conform leads to a blurring of what is truly important to a student.  They no longer want what they want, but rather what society says they should want.  Even at Crystal Lake Central High School, a wonderful institution where teachers encourage true learning, and not just working for points, I listen to countless students a day tell how they are enhancing their college applications with honors and advanced placement courses that they don't learn from and don't enjoy.  They brag about the latest shortcut they've found to make homework take less time or how they convinced a teacher to give them extra credit.  They worry about being what society tells them they want to be instead of asking themselves what they truly want in life.  They fail to see the rainbow; instead worrying about getting wet.

I am extremely happy with the grades I have in school, but this means nothing.  The one thing I am most proud of, the thing that separates me from other "students," is that I love school.  I love learning.  I don't do assignments if they aren't enjoyable for me.  I routinely spend many extra, unnecessary hours working on an outline for my history class simply because I get caught up in the stories and the inticacies of the text.  I find myself whizzing through Physics in wonder as the universe is broken down into numbers and laws before my very eyes.   I stride into English looking forward to what that day's discussion will bring, hoping that another article is made available to me to analyze, praying that I get to write something.  I try to explain this to my peers and they look at me as if I should see a doctor.  I pity them.  They find no joy in school, the one activity that takes up the most time in their waking lives.

Don't conform.  Stop trying to make people like you.  Be happy.  Find joy in everything you do.  If there is no joy to be found, it is not worth doing.  Never sacrifice personal desires for societal ones.  Do what you love and love what you do.  See the beauty in the world.  I have seen it.  Search for the end of the rainbow.  I have found it.  Enjoy life.  I enjoy it immensely.  Rejoice.  I rejoice.

- Stuart Streit I