Friday, March 12, 2010

The Losses

You never hear about the losses.

A poker player will always be more than happy to pipe up about their latest demolition of a cash came, or a big scoop they took in a tournament. What they tend not to divulge is the wads of cash they pumped into a game without so much as a penny to show for it at the end.

Losses aren't easy to talk about, especially when one wants to avoid self-pity and whinging.

For those of you that don't know, I applied to do a Bachelor of Divinity this coming September. My joke was that in three years time I would become the fourth member of the trinity, a sort of demi-god if you will. Well, apparently my divine credentials are not what they should be. I received a reply of "unsuccessful" for my daring venture.

Unsuccessful. That was a tough word to read. I've never been the most ambitious person in Ireland, but I am nothing if not competitive and determined when I put my mind and heart to something. Just ask anyone who has played a board game with me. I'm that annoying guy who takes things way to seriously and will bring friendships to the breaking point in order to win.

Unfortunately this level of passion and zeal hasn't quite transferred from the board game world into, you know, the actual world. But long story short, I wanted to do this course, and I thought I could do it well. My previous stint at undergraduate education did not go swimmingly for various reasons, and so this was to be my academic redemption; my chance to set right the wrongs of previous years.

For now, that chance will have to wait. Perhaps this was never where I was meant to go. Perhaps there is something better just around the river bend (and yes, that is a direct allusion to Pocahontas). Perhaps I'm just not ready for such an endeavour, and maybe I never will be. That's not to sound defeatist. I simply want to be open to wherever I best "fit". My life remains shrouded in mystery and uncertainty, but amidst the fumbling in the dark I know two things: I am loved and I am called. For now that's enough.

Legendary basketball coach John Wooden once said that failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be. Whether I was successful or unsuccessful with this application, my need for change would remain constant. It remains constant. But hope also remains.

With that, have a listen to the following song on your headphones and see if ***Christian jargon alert*** you get a similar sense of hope that I do. The band is called This Will Destroy You; however, this song will do anything but. It's simple almost to the point of insulting, but damn if that crescendo doesn't make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

2 comments:

  1. I like it Dec. TWDY are probably one of the best Post-Rock/Ambient instrumentialst groups to come out of San Marcos in the last five years. Sorry to see Miller leave the group in January though. Don't get me wrong, Bhore is a great drummer with a wikipaedic, sorry encyclopaedic, knowledge of his craft. It's just that Bhore can't avoid the B.S. in some of his pronouncements. If there's one thing I can't stand it's people who bullshit on about things they know nothing about.

    Keep your chin up mate.

    As for the B.Div. I don't know what to say Dec, but I'll say it anyway. "Dec, you have a future, and it's ahead of you."

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  2. "Keep your chin up mate" should have been the last line of the correspondence, not sandwiched between TWDY and the B. Div., which placing sunders it of the sense of matey empathy it was meant to convey.

    Keep your chin up mate.

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