...I'll be shining all day long, even when the sun is gone

It's been cold here, lately. Cold and dark and I feel like an Eskimo. It's been consistently dreary and dark for about a week, and I can't get a damn thing done because of it. My sleep schedule is shot. I've been waking up at four in the afternoon and going to bed at five in the morning. Lather, rinse, repeat. These last couple days, however, I've gotten up at four in the afternoon, gone to bed at nine in the evening, and woken up again at two in the morning, only to eventually go back to bed around noon to start the horrible process over again.

It's been cold, it's been dark, I've been tired, and I don't know why. I've done nothing for days. But other than chores--which I haven't done--I haven't had anything to do. I wake up too late to get out, I stay up too late to have anything else, and I've basically been on a cycle of music, podcasts, and sleep. And cursing the weather.

I don't mind the cold, really, or the rain. But the dark is unforgivable, and especially so with my horrendous sleep patterns. I've been sleeping the days away as it is, and even when I'm up, there's no day left. The passing of the autumnal equinox is not something of which I approve. I already feel as though I miss out on enough without there just generally being less for me to experience.

I can only hope that the Thanksgiving holiday will pass unnoticed and make way for the gaiety of the Christmas season. I despise winter, but I adore the festivities that it introduces. It is gray and sullen now, but soon my eyes will be awash in red and green twinkles. The come down will be harsh and unforgiving, but hopefully the build up is enough for me to keep afloat. At least until the tragedies that are January and February.

...Today.

~~I haven't done anything for a while. I did eventually make some decorations with my niece, and I did eventually make those speakers. But I've only done two things since then: I got a new ID and I voted.

And we won.

In light of that, I have participated in grand symposiums. One such dissertation was initiated by an enthused Swedish woman named Emma, thrilled by the events that have taken place over the last 24 hours in America, and by association, the world.

I present my response to her unabashed gaiety, and I once again borrow from my favorite philosophers.

The best day to be is today...

Emma, there's a reason martyrdom is such a strong force. After the Bush administration, many things became martyrs: civil freedoms, the ambition for a united and peaceful future, the impression that the United States of America represented the best and brightest that the world has to offer. Whereas history represents martyrs as personalities, the modern generation's martyrs are represented as ideals. And ironically, the same ideals that have become victims now are the very same ideals that built this country and all it stood for.

The ingeniousness of those original ideals being that this country was drafted in the present, but blueprinted to forever be the nation of the future. It has come full circle many times; through the civil war, two world wars, the 1960s, and now the beginning of the 21st century. It's a cycle that the country is destined to repeat forever. We must always be reminded why it is that we came to be. And that is why our nation's greatest strength is a result of our greatest weaknesses. No matter what happens, no matter how hard the fight, no matter how long it takes, right is might. Just as it was in the past, it is now. It is the attacks that have been and will be endured that steels our purpose. What doesn't kill the search makes it stronger. What tries to kill that search makes it invincible.

It is in that way that we can be thankful for the past eight years. It is in that way that we can be thankful for the economic crisis. And it is in that way that we can be thankful for the struggles the world met on and since September 11th. Only with the odds so stacked against us have we been able to realize just how powerful we all are. Only through the sacrifices that have been and are yet to be made--those willing and unwilling--can the true force be realized in the search for what is rightful and good.

Today merely represents the inevitable result of the constant, progressive march towards social equality and equanimity. We are more civilized a people today than the world has ever known. But this is not the apex of our species, and the cycle will continue. As the architects of the United States knew inherently, only by the actions we take now can we predict what is yet to come. And in that respect, today is the only day, and old times make way for the new.