The Sweetest Place on Earth

Thats right, Hershey Park, the land flowing with milk chocolate and money. Every year our swim team goes to work at Hershey park for two weekends for a team fundraiser (to pay for gear and training trips). Well yesterday was my first day working this year at this chocolaty haven of fun and excitement.

Before I get into all the heart warming stories of my time, I need to recognize the real workers for Hershey Park. These people must be the most patient, optimistic people who have ever lived. I could barely last 9 hours, but there are people who go to work at the Super Duper Looper every day. You want to know about a hard job, forget rocket science, try making a living as the Storm Runner Guy.

Like I was saying, I got the wonderful opportunity to work at a peanut butter cup paradise. So let me share just a few key moments of my day. At 9am I was assigned to the thrilling ride: Tiny Tracks. Now Tiny Tracks is a little kid ride (Hershey bars or shorter), where a tot-sized train runs around a track two times through per ride, the whole endeavor lasting about 3 minutes a run going at a break neck speed that I could out-walk. So I show up to this ride, where an employee teaches me how to push the button to make it work, and then the masses came and did what they do best. Within the first hour I heard what would become the all too familiar screams of children being forced to take pictures with the weird smiling Hershey bar trying to put his arm around them, not to mention getting on those scary rides like the dreaded Tiny Tracks. Things were coming along just fine, for the first few hours: the bell on the train was ringing incessantly, parents were trying to fit into a seat in the caboose that an eight year old would be uncomfortable in, and of course the wonderful chorus of screaming voices and tear streaked faces (yes, we're still in the sweetest place on earth). But then 2pm rolls around and the rain came. Now among the cacophony of cocoa lovers and chocolaty rides, was a constant downpour. And with every drop of water, the rain was edging nearer and nearer to my already dampened skin. 6pm finally arrives and I leave this sweetened utopia with soaked clothes and a headache. I now have a 45 minute drive left ahead of me, crammed between the broad shoulders of two other swimmers.

After such a day, I grabbed a hot shower and turned in early for church the next morning. Well, I got to church the next morning and low and behold the sermon topic: Struggling with Grumbling and Complaining. Man, isn't life great.

What do you know

I've only just begun my junior year at college, and I'm already being confronted with interesting ideas. One that I can't seem to get out of my mind was first introduced by a professor of mine. She teaches one of my upper level English classes and was lecturing us on how no one in our generation knows anything. She was saying that the way we are taught has too many holes in its explanation of something for us to actually understand it. Therefore, we are a generation (and a class) who is coasting through life unable to attain the knowledge we need to thrive. Now this claim seems a bit extreme to me. If anything we are intelligent and we are given a system that teaches us we are just lacking a serious drive and motivation. But, like I said, I couldn't get rid of this idea, and as I continued to think about it, I noticed how this idea was recurring in my everyday life.

I've been discovering that my generation has a paradoxical balance of living. Maybe it is true that we don't know anything. I've noticed that people need a lot of prompting to act on most anything, they need help to get things started, they need company in action. Not that I'm trying to say this is wrong or even detrimental. It's a good idea to understand that you need help in something. But here comes the first paradox. People don't actually want help. They somehow work their way into getting help without accepting the fact that they need it or even want it. We live in a society thriving on believed individualism, but in reality, group dynamics and support.

Beyond this, we live in a world where people want to know and share everything (ie facebook, twitter, blogs). Yet I'm quickly finding most people don't say anything. As I listen to people talk for hours or just minutes I find myself wondering what it is they are saying that has to do with something they know or believe or that is even fundamentally part of their person. I don't mean to say that every conversation has to be serious and thoughtful, but people have become experts at shallow sharing; thus the second paradox. It is our nature to seek relationships and to share and understand with others; I think its also human nature to try to avoid embarrassment and uncomfortable situations. So instead of confronting the problem of letting another person know us deeply, we've constructed the facade of openness by inverting ourselves further within.

So, I've got to ask, What do you know?

The Embarkment

I guess I'll start off with a disclaimer so that that some people are disillusioned right off the bat. I want to warn everyone that this will not be the grammatical or even ideological masterpiece that might come from an English major (I have apprehensions about mentioning it at all). This will just be my raw explanation of how I see life and what's going on around me. Here's a place where I can let out my thoughts, visions, and beliefs as I wander around. I guess I'll take a little time here at the beginning to explain what I plan on documenting. What really is this "traveler's unfinished journey?" It's an expedition that has no map, that has no directions or GPS. It's an adventure and I am wandering and stumbling my way through it. Like any adventure there will be great times of struggle and exhilarating moments of emotion. I will have times of serious drive, but mostly times where I am totally lost. Those moments will be the most exciting, they will be when I discover great things about this journey. Cause that's what this life is, a journey that is never finished. So let's begin, let us embark upon this journey of a lifetime.