Divine intervention is a thing of literature.<\/p>\n
The protagonist\u2019s journey is often spurred into action because of a sign or an inevitable storm that will come without <\/em>fail. In the Odyssey Athena strings Odysseus along his path to success, and for a more biblical standpoint Moses happens upon a burning bush that charges him with the emancipation of an entire people\u2014straight from the bushes mouth. And as ludicrous as it may seem to agnostics or atheists or as sacred and finite as such events may be to religious zealots\u2014<\/p>\n I\u2019m wishing I had a burning bush of my own at this moment.<\/p>\n I am a slow and deliberate thinker. I\u2019m the species of person who will question every choice they\u2019ve ever made even after said choice has already brought whatever consequences it warranted. I\u2019ve regretted things I foolishly said when I was in 6th<\/sup> grade just as simply as I\u2019ve mourned the lack of common sense I had just a year ago. The point being, I\u2019m incredibly envious of Moses and Odysseus and any other divine celebrity that\u2019s ever had their destiny written out for them by the best adviser in the business\u2014God.<\/p>\n I, however, recently had to meet with my own earthly adviser, and while I appreciate her services I doubt she can give me the answers that I seek.<\/p>\n It\u2019s somewhat laughable that people can tell you all day long what you\u2019re good at, but no one can tell you what to do with your overwhelming prowess at any given thing, and it\u2019s not quite as simple as:<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re good at football? Go out for the NFL!\u201d<\/p>\n At least not for me. And while I admit it takes a certain amount of skill and dexterity to smash into other people and throw a ball with a perfect spiral and hell, catch <\/em>said ball (all of which I cannot do), I feel that football is slightly less open ended than say being a writer\u2014or not even that really. Further breaking it down would be saying that I love English and communication, and when one loves English they go to college to earn their bachelor\u2019s in some sort of liberal art. They then become a teacher and attempt to spread their esoteric love for the subject to a group of people who are overwhelmingly unenthused by the alphabet let alone a 400 page long Charles Dickens book. When one loves communication they become a speech teacher, right? They coach the debate team and teach kids how to form arguments and ensure that they all know how to properly talk over another person who may have a valid point. And when someone loves English and <\/em>communication, they become a thespian which I don\u2019t believe needs any elaboration whatsoever.<\/p>\n But personally, it delves so much deeper than subject or major. Breaking it down further would be saying that I don\u2019t truly love English or even communication really. I am captivated by having something to say. But no, that wouldn\u2019t be quite right either in the end. Hitler had a lot to say. Charles Dickens had a lot to say. Abraham Lincoln had a lot to say. Even Dr. Seuss had a lot to say, but clearly they all had very different affects on people at wildly different times in history.<\/p>\n So if that\u2019s not right, then I am forced to break it down further and say\u2026 I love emotion. I like to feel, and I like to make other people feel\u2026 But that can easily be the case of a therapist or perhaps even a serial killer, and I\u2019m positive that I have no affinity for either of those things.<\/p>\n So, what am I exactly? And what is it that I like to do so much?<\/p>\n If it\u2019s not English, and it\u2019s not communication or saying something or feeling, then what I want to do all day and what I\u2019ve gone to college to improve upon can basically be equated to marking a whole bunch of meaningless scribbles on dead trees that I want to be spread to other dead trees.<\/p>\n But that\u2019s not quite right either and\u2014<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n Not anymore at least. Yes, I want to write. Yes, I want to feel. Yes, I want to make other people feel with my scribbles and dead trees, but:<\/p>\n What am I supposed to say?<\/p>\n For one thing, there\u2019s an overwhelming amount of \u201cthings to say\u201d in my head, but they\u2019re so rarely released into civilization due to their wild and at times exotic nature; but on the other hand, I don\u2019t want the wrong thought to escape either. One cannot change or persuade without the correct language, and that\u2019s what I\u2019m fascinated by. That\u2019s what I\u2019m interested <\/em>in\u2014involved<\/em> and invested<\/em> in.<\/p>\n Change.<\/p>\n The type of change that happened when Moses abided the bush. I want to set spectacular things in motion that supersede my own life. I want to be a mover or shaker and change languish into action. I want to tear things down and raze what holds me\u2014and maybe even others\u2014back, and if I destroy something in the process then let it be known that my destruction is in the name of creation\u2014it\u2019s me going back to the building blocks to improve faulty architecture.<\/p>\n Simply put, I want to be the change that I pray for. However, if I do that\u2014if I do commit to change\u2014then I\u2019m at the mercy of my own words\u2026<\/p>\n This is all very lovely and existential, yes, but let it be known how I conceived such thoughts in the first place. Just yesterday, I saw a one woman show called “Truth Values: One Girl\u2019s Romp Through M.I.T.\u2019s Male Math Maze”. Simply put, it was beautiful. It was simple (I mean, it was a one woman show) but complex all the same, and the one, simple line she said that continues to resonate with me and that I remember so fondly was:<\/p>\n \u201cThis is me\u2026 Telling my story.\u201d<\/p>\n And in that moment, I was reconnected to everything I have ever thought I wanted to do since I was a child because as of late, my vim and vigor for and of writing has been rather weak\u2014fading even. I was considering simply turning away from word-smithing\u2014if the mental-atrophy lasted long enough\u2014but you can\u2019t turn away from who you are, and that\u2019s what college does. It either teaches or reminds you of who you are.<\/p>\n So who am I?<\/p>\n I\u2019m not a writer. I\u2019m not a lover of English. I\u2019m not a thespian.<\/p>\n I\u2019m Austin Hughes, and that\u2019s what college has taught me thus far.<\/p>\n I\u2019m just me, and while the University of Iowa may have reminded me of my incredibly rare identity, it can\u2019t tell me what to do with who <\/em>I am; and if I don\u2019t meet any burning bushes or small girls with water jugs to tell me where it is my life belongs in the grand scheme of the world anytime soon, oh well.<\/p>\n I\u2019m simply going to have to tell my story\u2014the story of me and my beliefs and my hopes\u2026<\/p>\n And that\u2019s going to have to be enough for now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Divine intervention is a thing of literature. The protagonist\u2019s journey is often spurred into action because of a sign or an inevitable storm that will come without fail. In the Odyssey Athena strings Odysseus along his path to success, and for a more biblical standpoint Moses happens upon a burning bush that charges him with … Continue reading Divine Silence<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/austin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/austin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/austin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/austin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/austin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/austin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/austin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions\/34"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/austin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/austin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/austin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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