Dismissing Complacency.

From Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh:

"What are you reading?" Harriet asked.
"Dostoievsky."
"What's THAT?" asked Harriet in a thoroughly obnoxious way.
"Listen to this," Ole Golly said and got that quote look on her face: "'Love all God's creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God's light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.'"
"What does that mean?" Harriet asked after she had been quiet a minute. "What do you think it means?"
"Well, maybe if you love everything, then...then--I guess you'll know everything...then..seems like...you love everything more. I don't know. Well, that's about it...." Ole Golly looked at Harriet in as gentle a way as she could considering the fact that her face looked like it was cut out of oak.
"I want to know everything, everything," screeched Harriet suddenly, lying back and bouncing up and down on the bed. "Everything in the world, everything, everything. I will be a spy and know everything."
"It won't do you a bit of good to know everything if you don't do anything with it. Now get up, Miss Harriet the Spy, you're going to sleep now."

So I’ve been talking with a lot of people about my moving. Most people in Georgia ask me, “Why Oregon?” I think that’s the kind of question that facilitates the reasoning for the move. Some people even ask, “What’s there that you don’t have here?” People that I know and love (really, really love and care for) in Georgia don’t know anything about Oregon. I know many people that know very little apart from what is in our own little region. I don’t want to be like that. Much like Harriet I want to know everything. According to Ole Golly, this will make me love everything a little bit more—I’ve been trying to be more emphatic with the world ever since I started learning about Anthropology.

Something my anthropology professor Dr. Richard had always told us was to open yourself up. You have to un-learn things in order to gain knowledge of brand new ways of life. I think people are very afraid of un-learning things. To every day get up, go to school, sit in the same buildings, work in the same spot, see the same people, dress the same way is stagnant, and it’s not doing anyone any good to be stagnant. Things are changing so fast and there’s no reason to sit still and be complacent.

Then again, I’ve always been an avid fan of people who are complacent. They are peaceful, and as long as they do not disturb the world around them, are what you could call peacemakers. Being a real revolutionary, I’ve sometimes thought, it to figure out a way humans can exist without bothering each other to the point of negativity, and just keep doing that. It seems that complacent people have done that.

I guess I’m just not one of them. I want to shake this world up, rip it into pieces, throw it all over the floor, and form a committee to place it back together with me.

~~

And for those of you who don’t know that much about Eugene, Oregon, let me show you around a little. I’ll be showing myself around a little bit too, because I haven’t looked all too much into it—I’ve always loved surprises.
Eugene is called the Emerald City, so I might be seeing the Wizard when I show up . . . hopefully, he won’t try to trick me using his green fire trick. It would save face if everyone was just honest about the whole thing. Eugene’s motto is "The World's Greatest City of the Arts and Outdoors.” Sounds right up my alley, if you know a thing about me! :D

There are about 138,000 people living in Eugene, way bigger than my town’s 45,500 approximate population. The largest employers in the area are the University of Iowa and the Sacred Heart Medical Center. The University of Oregon is the Alma Mater of Chuck Palahniuk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Palahniuk). While Palahnuik is all well and good (I occasionally think he’s a little gimmicky), this Eugene is also the hometown of Ken Kesey. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Kesey) I’m as surprised about this as you are! I had no idea until I just looked it up.

With every day I get more excited about this move.