Appreciation vs. Self-Consciousness

It most certainly is a never-ending journey. Life that is. Every turn bringing forth a new experience. A new love, a new hate. A brand new friend. A formidable advisory. With every passing day, you learn more and more about yourself and this crazy thing called life. Over the past few years, I've learned a lot. About myself, about other humans, about my planet, about life in general. As I prepare to leave D.C. and live on my own, embark on a new journey all together, I find myself more aware of the world around me than ever, constantly searching for new ways to explore the world that God has given us. I'm learning to ignore everything around me to concentrate on the things in our world we pass on an everyday basis. Annie Dillard wrote,

"Consciousness itself does not hinder living in the present. In fact, it is only to a heightened awareness that the great door to the present opens at all. Even a certain amount of interior verbalization is helpful to enforce the memory of whatever it is that is taking place...

...Self-consciousness, however, does hinder the experience of the present. It is the one instrument that unplugs all the rest. So long as I lose myself in a tree, say, I can scent its leafy breath or estimate its board feet of lumber, I can draw its fruits or boil tea on its branches, and the tree stays tree. But the second I become aware of myself at any of these activities-looking over my shoulder, as it were-the tree vanishes, uprooted from the spot and flung out of sight as if it had never grown. And time, which had flowed down into the tree bearing new revelations like floating leaves at every moment, ceases. It dams, stills, stagnates."

Self-consciousness, as Dillard puts it, plagues us all. It's if we were listening to a story of sorrow where Appreciation, being the protagonist, is constantly oppressed and beaten down by our own self-consciousness. It has taken me a while to acknowledge my appreciation (appreciation for life and land) as well as allow it's weary bones to rest and recuperate. As time has progressed, as my relationship with Christ grew, as I experienced the majesty that our planet, our history as a people, has to offer, my appreciation for everything life has to show us has risen and grown far stronger than my own self-consciousness will ever be. It's epiphanies like this that make me thank God for being alive and able to experience this world every day.