Palmtree Contemplations

The past semester has been a journey of discovering more about me and what God desires me to do. Coming here to John Brown University has forced me to ask myself important questions. Who am I? Who does God want me to be? How can I use what I am passionate about to change the world? Who am I? I was born on November 24 th , 1991, in the beautiful, old, grimy, modern city of Manaus, Brasil. I grew up at an American boarding school twenty miles outside of the city where my parents work. My early childhood was filled with swimming in the Amazon, building forts in the jungle, and reading any books I could find. My father has been collecting books for years, something he passed onto me. He taught me everything I know about good literature by giving me good books from the time I could read. When I think of home, I see myself sitting at the table with him, both of us reading.   My mother passed on a lot of things to me, among them her love and gift for music. Even when I was little, I was the o

       Our lives are incredibly fast-paced these days. We have so many things that we tell ourselves we must do everyday.  The Narrator in Zen understands this and he believes many people go through life like ego-filled mountain climbers. This kind of person will miss the little things in life like "a beautiful passage of sunlight through the trees," and "rejects the here, is unhappy with it." An ego-climber is always looking ahead instead of experiencing and taking joy in his surroundings.  (p. 267)         In contrast, the Narrator believes that, "Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire...You climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion...To live only for some future goal is shallow." (p. 258) Instead of being ego-filled mountain climbers, we should be self-less climbers, aware of what is happening around us and enjoying the moment.      I was inspired by this idea of becoming a self