As summer draws to a close, it is natural for me to become a little more reflective. In a sense, being in a contemplative mood is not entirely out of ordinary: Having being immersed in the academic lifestyle, my internal clock that evaluates the passage of time seems to align itself more to academic years than calendar years. A new fall, with new classes, new students, new ideas, and new promises, heralds the end of the summer mindset; a mindset is relatively more self-indulgent, clutter-free, and more occupied with one's own agenda. Thus, the turning of the seasons lends itself to reviews, resolutions, and recollections. To introspection.

Soon, the student crowd will return to the café, and finding a table in the bustle will be more of a challenge. Parking will once again be a hassle when one succumbs to the lure of another hour in bed. The "regular" crowd changes, as does the tenor on campus. The difference highlights a fundamental tension in my being: The preference for solitary - maybe even reclusive - time, versus a need to feel loved, cared for, and to be a part of a larger macrocosm. Introversion versus extroversion. Hermit versus socialite.

Where am I headed? My sense of calling and purpose has faded, but yet I still feel a twinge deep within the soul. Can I live my life in its suppression? God knows.

Another tension springs to mind: One sees the world as a beautiful place, filled with people that ultimately stop to help those in need, people who are able to laugh at themselves while accepting the magic of diversity and uniqueness, people who return wallets they pick up on the streets, and people who are connected by out greater sense of humanity. Another sees the world as harsh, life as brutish and short, filled with dog-eat-dog competition and self-interested drive. In this world, others rejoice when you stumble, because they can get ahead; the pie is fixed and everyone wants a larger piece; there's no place for those that are different, or weak, or meek. The ditch is littered with victims, with ostracized misfits, with racist jokes and social stratification.

A final contrast, this time on a more personal level: Do I want to be a person that lives life with an absolute trust, as a bulwark of patience and calm, or should I engage myself, seek practicality and responsibility, take charge of my future? It's easy to kick back and expect a Higher Power to work it all out. And yet it can be so hard, since the old adage that God helps those who help themselves seems to ring true. Wait and watch, or work - it seems hard to decide.

What do I expect in the coming year? It is hard to tell. I certainly hope for some things, the selfsame things I silently pray for when a meteorite streaks across the night sky. But should I place hope on an uncertain timeline? Or should I exercise patience - that fruit that is so elusive and yet necessary - in the ordering of my affairs? Again, the answers seem not to lie on a dichotomous choice, but on a continuum that isn't even cardinal. Much as I wish for it not to be so, life shows itself to be highly nonlinear, and I am trapped in its spiralling complexity.