Staying with Problems

I came across a quote today that left me feeling just a little bit proud--or at least "in good company."

Perhaps this is why, even when things get difficult, I'm able to keep a generally cheerful, positive attitude:

“It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer .”

~ Albert Einstein

Some say that I've stayed with Todd too long. Perhaps. However, I do feel that in spite of the discomfort, I have gleaned a lot of wisdom (and empathy) that I wouldn't otherwise have. So, that's good.

The Einstein quote made me smile. "I stay with problems longer." It had never occurred to me that I'd gain marital counsel from Albert Einstein.

When we look at academics, it is abundantly true that there is great value to staying with those problems--to keeping plugging away until we understand.

The persistence that leads to a student truly grasping a concept is not the same as being apathetically content with the status quo. It is a resolve that "I will not flee this problem--I will not give up--until I understand the very root of it, so that I can apply the principles to other problems in the future."

That doesn't mean that I will spend the rest of my life reducing fractions or diagramming sentence structure.

"This is my letter to the world, That never wrote to me,-- "

The words of Emily Dickinson echo my sentiments at the moment. This blog has been such a good release. That was the main reason to make it in the first place--to have a place for such release, a journal that cannot be found by those in my household for whom I would feel the need to edit my true thoughts and feelings.

Even though I don't want those who know me personally to read this online diary, I'm finding that I do long for an audience... someone to hear my heart, to read my words, to offer feedback that might help me to clarify the jumbled stuff pouring out of my crippled heart... someone to seek after me when I "disappear" (as I have the tendency to do in real life, and now I have also done so here.)

Yes, I've been hiding, even from this secret place. I've been nowhere. Hiding from hiding. Hands over my eyes, refusing to even peek at the world. Too numb to attempt engagement with a world that "doesn't write to me." Something happened, but it's not really the something that happened that sent me deeper into hiding. That something is closer to being an excuse than a true driving force. What happened?

A friend, not close--but friend nonetheless--
was taken from the world a couple weeks ago.
Suddenly.
They call it an accident, but that doesn't make sense to me.
Even though it's inexplicable, it cries out meaning...
Meaning beyond my understanding is meaning still.
I am so overwhelmed by the immensity of the gorge
between my understanding and all there is.
My words, so insignificant,
Trickle like rogue dribbles from cracks in a hose.

All I can say is:
"This is my letter to the world,
That never wrote to me,-- "
Would you write?
to me?
.