The kindness of strangers

If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world.


Francis Bacon

Change. Change is good. Challenge is good. I’m not the same person I was two days ago, nor will I be the same in two days. I strive to grow. I strive to be more.

I’m upset with myself that I wished I had been another person in the past. If I had not been me, I wouldn’t be living this. Had I not been me, then I would not know challenge, I would not know adventures.

Even people in D.C. think I’m neat. I’m not another face to them, or maybe I am and they are playing me for a fool; however, the people I have met here have been genuine, and honest, and so helpful. Most of all, the people I have met here have been encouraging. They have been inspiring. They see hope in the future, which forces me to see the same hope. The hope that things change, that the future is mine to do as I wish. And to do as I wish, requires some judging eyes along the way, but those judging eyes hold no candle to my desire, to my drive, to my motivations to stand witness to a complete upheaval.



I met a professor-esque gentleman at the wine bar I visited this evening. He finds law school necessary. He found my motivations and goals admirable. He found my dogs to be the same amazing creatures as I know they are. He took time out of his day to encourage me. To tell me to continue, even when it sucks, even when I think I have nothing to give. To continue because I’m needed, no, wanted. And I wouldn’t be here, right now, on this journey if I was not to be part of some movement.



Movement. It’s funny. I joined my “notchurch” in Knoxville right before I left for D.C. And as I think about it, I didn’t join a church, as much as I joined a movement. I joined a group of people who question the world as much as I do. I joined a group of people who question the status quo, who want to know where their food comes from, or why you believe what you do. People who don’t judge. A group of people that may practice Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Paganism, Taoism, you name it someone practices it. Yet I’ve never been judged. I’m welcomed. And when it’s all said and done, no one ever agrees on any one thing, however, we all desire change that for the most part is similar; therefore, we work towards a goal.



So I push forward. Although I may have been discouraged and hopeless a few days ago, I see hope today. Thank you, Greg, fellow wine enthusiast, doglover.

The unreal is more powerful than the real, because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it because its only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles. wood rots. People, well, they die. But things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on.


Chuck Palahniuk