A small fulfillment.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that journey I embarked on nearly one month ago; that sometimes seemingly endless journey, has come to its end. I have read David Copperfield in its entirety. And I think it was a good journey, at that. Dickens' plot and characters are really complex, though many of them (the characters) are quite extreme. They are very often angelically good, or devilishly bad, which makes for little personal development. But there are always at least a couple characters who undergo, at the very worst, interesting developments and, at the very best, quite extraordinary ones. All in all, it was a good book, but it was, at times, hopelessly long.

I am the only one who compares oneself to the characters and tries to find which character is the most like oneself in the books one reads? I do it all the time, and its not only enjoyable, but often also profitable. You can truly get to know yourself through reading novels. In order to realistically compare yourself  to someone, you must look inside and try to find who you really are. More often than not, fictional characters personalities are either too good, or too bad for you be able to say, Oh that's me all the way! But in the end everyone truly good lives for and is driven by common motives and ideals, and the same goes everyone truly evil. The only difference, then, is in the magnitude of a person's good and the magnitude of a person' evil. We are all vectors, (sorry, but I really like physics right now) and there are only two possible directions: for good and against good, but there are innumerable magnitudes, in either direction. And that is why you can compare yourself to so many characters; why you can ask yourself, Am I the hero, to a lesser degree? Or the villain, to a lesser degree? Do I really live for others, as I hope I do? Or deep down inside am I doing everything for myself? Questions such as these can be life changing; and they certainly give you a better understanding of who you really are . Novels are so powerful in so many different ways.

Anyway. I am somewhat proud of the fact that I finished it without despairing, and now I will have to find another book to help me pass the time and perk up.

Ugh! I feel like an over-puffed puffy Cheeto that is being nibbled on, junky and overstretched: slowly being pierced by sharp teeth and deteriorating, both outwardly and inwardly. And I think the two are related. While I'm complaining, I might as well tell y'all about my shin. More particularly, my right shin. It is pretty much entirely covered in dark, ugly, and painful bruises. All I can say is that I now know  why soccer players wear shin guards.

I cannot believe Christmas was already over a week ago. It seems so recent and yet, upon further thought, so very many things have both happened and not happened since that wonderful day. I wonder how heaven's equivalent of time will pass, or whether it will pass at all. Oh well, I guess I'll have to get there if I want to find out and I still have a boatload of work to do in that department, so there's not much use in it. Ok, I'm really just thinking out loud now. Don't I have the strangest of minds?

Catch ya later,

-Thomas