"Don't say I've changed because, man, of course I have"

I was out at a bar last night with an old friend. And as usual we got into some great conversation. During our back and forth he made the comment: "You've changed. You used to be so carefree about life." This led to a lengthly discussion, but even more thinking after the fact.

It's true I have changed. In my younger days I didn't worry about anything. I lived life for the moment. When I was 19 I had decided that I wanted to have 20 years of life experience in 2, mostly because I'd determined I wasn't going to life past 30 (I wasn't suicidal just convinced fate had a tragic end in my future), and I feel that in many ways I accomplished that goal.

One of the first things that changed about me after this was my relationship with the idea of death. I'm not exactly sure how or when it happened, but I no longer believed I was destine for an early grave. I think that this is largely attributed to the overwhelming amount of reading I did on the subject of religion, spirituality and specifically gnostic texts.

Through their study I was able to realize that while God/fate/whatever you want to call it can be cruel it's overall reason for being is to bring about good. And not good like a candy bar tastes good, good in way that we can't describe with our faulted human languages. I'll still make an attempt to. It's more in the sense that there is a perfection that coats everything like an thin dusting of snow that is often difficult to see, if possible at all, but is always there.

I actually used this concept in titling this blog, as Desomnia is a portmanteau of desolate and amnesia that I use to describe the life outlook of trying to forget the unfortunate or ugly parts of life. And Drull is a desolate and forbodding sense of forgiveness, or the good that I spoke of early. I struggled for a long time to find a way to express this idea and in the end there weren't any words for it yet so I found words. And it went far beyond just a blog title and became a sort of ethos for my life.

This is where the most substantial change came from. Where as before I had a very loose idea about life and it's grander implication I was able to live my life without caring about anything. As I developed these ideas I found myself becoming more and more grounded in them. That's not to say that I lost my free spirit, but instead of letting it run wild it has a rooted foundation that I find allows me to grow more and more as time passes.

It's easier to just go with the wind when you're younger, as you get older you have to decide which gusts will guide your life. However I still allow myself to be shaped by the winds of fate much like the trees that grow along the Oregon shores.

Now I'm not really sure where I'm going with all of this. Mostly just thought it might help me to try to express these ideas and hence better understand them myself. Especially since I'm about to throw myself at the will of fate yet again. Lets hope it all goes well.