Nostalgic Future

     This past week has been both the shortest and the longest week I've had in a long time. I traveled and saw my doctor on Monday, was sick on Tuesday, had school Wednesday and Thursday, and did absolutely nothing all day today. Mix in a new book, a visit to the gym, lots of homework, and even more travelling, and you've got one tired out me. I was planning on posting yesterday, but my computer decided it was going to update just about every program it has last night. So I went to bed early.
     New books. Always a really fun topic. While I was in the city, I bought two new books; The Scorch Trials by James Dashner, and Entice by Carrie Jones. Both of them are parts of series. I also ordered two books last week which I've just heard came in. Closer and Radiance. I started reading The Scorch Trials because I've been waiting forever to finally read it. So far it's brilliant. I'm about halfway through it, and I can't put it down (though clearly I have if only to write this post). It's the second book in The Maze Runner series. I've already cried, yelled at it, and hit myself in the head with it. It's so frustratingly good. Sometimes I wish I was a speed reader so that I could get to the end faster, and figure out what's going on. But if I did that, I would be sad that it had ended so quickly. I mean, even reading at my normal pace I find books end to quickly. But I think that just comes from a love of books and reading.
     So the week is coming to a close, and it's time for me to answer a question. "If life is so short, why do we do so many things we don’t like and like so many things we don’t do?" I think that we do things that we don't like because we always hope and believe that there will be more time later to do the things we want to do. We believe more in the future and a hope in that future than we do in the present. It's kind of like a quote from my favourite novel, Looking for Alaska, by John Green:

"Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia. ... You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you’ll escape it one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present."

     We like things we don't do because they keep our imaginations running, keep us living in the future. We get to keep wondering what it would be like and how it would go, but we are too afraid to actually go out and do it because it would mean facing the truth. Once you do something, you can't change it. Sure, you can alter that memory, or try to forget about, but it still happened. And sometimes, the fear of not knowing how something will turn out stops us from going out and doing it. It stops us from completing our goal.

     That's it for this week. As usual, I have to get work done this weekend, and writing will not help me accomplish that. Nor will reading, but of course I'm going to be doing that. I just can't help it. So enjoy the weekend, and hope to hear from me next week. If not, it means that the dreaded exams will have killed me. DFTBA.