A Space Cowboy Looks At 20

No, this isn't going to be a bad parody of a wonderful Jimmy Buffet song. At least, I won't be typing with a bad parody of a wonderful Jimmy Buffet song in mind. Neither will it be an homage to a popular anime. Neither will it be a thick, strongly-typed, wordy, convoluted introspective on a none-so-dramatic life of your average 20-year old.

Now which one of those did you believe? Hopefully not the last one. What does "average" mean, anyway?

...Wait, 20?

Age is something that is funny to me. My experience with age thus far has been as such: the older you get, the notice and implication of age changes in sort of a... hm. A situation that I can't find a mathematical analog to. Preposterous. Something having to do with an inverse proportion. The older I've gotten, the less age has made a difference... in some respects. I work on professional efforts in Second Life on behalf of the ESPRMC and meet with Drs. Houser and Thoma and talk to them just... no, not casually, but not nervously and not reluctantly. I go on trips with amalgams of demographics, nerdy model United Nations trips to Atlanta and find camraderie everywhere. And yet - perhaps this is where the implication comes in as opposed to the notice - I realize what my age means for me, if not to me. 20 years. 1988 to 2008. It'll be 2009 soon, then 2010. 2015... 2020. I'm in college now, I might be here a semester and 2 more and 2 more and... then what? Maybe I'll get to go to Germany... maybe. It's looking like a stretch as of late, but things always do. What if I live to be 80? What if I don't? A quarter of a lifetime gone getting ready for life?

Gladly, not. Verily, some of this life has to be called development, and thereby might be called little more than "getting ready" for life, but I feel like I've lived a goodly amount across that pair of decades. (Pair of decades - isn't that idea astounding?) And to think I get to do it at least 3 times moreover - assuming that conversative estimate comes to pass - what a world. What a gift.

What a world. A space cowboy looks at 20. All these things I say, all these people I see, all these things I learn, thoughts I happen upon.

Happen upon, you might ask?

It's funny you should question. Especially since you didn't and I questioned for you. I don't know if we ever think up things... replace up with of. Maybe there's just a huge body of thoughts and possibilities and considerations and combinations flowing through the veins of that collective consciousness like life-blood. Perhaps we tap into that reason with our minds, and our gray matter is pumped full with life by those thoughts, those imaginations, those happenings behind the ether of the universe.

Read: behind.
Does it all make sense now? No, of course not. Don't worry, it doesn't for me, either. That's the fun part, dragging you along as if I know something.

I just like trying to figure it out. With an audience.