Week 4: A Sailor's Finest Ship

I have to admit that I've been rather blessed in life. Not only am I a Caucasian, Anglo-Saxon male, but I’m also a part of the 1% of the world that gets an opportunity to attend college. I can’t, by any stretch of the imagination, claim that life has been easy for me, but at the same time I realize that, simply by the status of my birth, I don't need to work as hard as others to achieve the same ends.

It’s easy to forget this fact, and sometimes, when I feel lost among a sea of incomprehensible information or crushed under a barrage of tests and papers, the simple existence of a village in the deep recesses of Vietnam seems increasingly appealing.

Luckily, it’s at times like these that I can turn to my greatest blessing of all: my support group. I have teachers and counselors who (I hope) are concerned with my well-being, a family who loves and supports me, and, perhaps best of all, a tightly-knit collection of friends with whom I truly believe I can discuss anything.

Yes, my friends from high school and I still hang out when we can, and all my college friends are loads of fun to be around, but within that larger category are perhaps three or four individuals whom I feel a spiritual (as well as intellectual) connection with. When we talk, it’s as though our brainwaves are in perfect harmony, and it’s not uncommon to find ourselves effortlessly shifting from mindless banter to the deeper questions of life, the universe, and everything.

In all honesty, I’m not even completely sure how we all became such close companions. I like to think that we all knew each other long ago, and it just took until now to meet. But whatever the explanation, I’m definitely glad to have them in my life – for those times I feel alone in the world, want a shoulder to cry on, or just need to be told an answer I already know to a question I’m too afraid to ask.

On that note, I’d like to give a big shout out to my buddy, Palvin! You matter a great deal to me, my friend, and I’m honored to be sharing in the experience of Ignatius Loyola with you.