Have you ever had a moment where you just wished the earth would suddenly open up from under your feet and swallow you whole?

This post could also be titled "notes for the late night freak out" but why go with the succinct title when I can ramble on without even starting.

Going home is weird, or perhaps I find going home to be weird. On second thought (which I have been doing a lot of lately) I shouldn't say weird, I really mean different and differnt does not necesarily mean bad. It seems an all to common phenomina that nowadays people say weird when they mean different but that even the word different has developed a certain amount of linguistic baggage so that we infer weirdness even when we say different. It has become unclear to me when one word became intrinsically linked to the other and I am also unable to figure out where to split the two ideas.
One small nugget of insight that lasted in my brain from the past sememster was the following. All of the meanings and implication of the word "humane" (as in the proper, honorouble and consciencous treatment of another person) was, for the longest time, simply implied in the word "human." When you spoke with the words "human" or "humanity" you were implying that the notions of "humane" we taken for granted by your choice of words. Now we make a point of using them seperatly....we talk and debate the idea of the "humane treatment of a human being." Why and how did the meaning of "humane" get stripped out of "human"?

I like to think I am the same person I was in Highschool but I'm clearly not. I have grown and matured, defined and redefined my beliefs and attitudes yet there is something about the trip back home, the junction of my life where my new and old worlds cross over that causes me to feel like I'm being crushed between my past and my future. when you feel like you are caught between two worlds, two different lifestyles how do you pick one and how do you assure yourself you've made the right choice?

I think everything we do is justification. Everyone wants to find that religion or lifestyle or philosophy that allows you to live the way you want and sleep easy knowing that you have satisfied yourself and have fit into your little slot and thus found your place in the world. I had an amazing class last semester learning about great philosophers and the epic debates and questioning and the tortured souls they created by struggling, for no other sake than the desire to know something for sure. I also learnt about the value of doing something profoundly useless. I love that phrase, I simply adore the combination those words make, it is the coolest, most completely zen answear to the debate about the function or purpose of what you are doing. It doesn't matter what you are doing because there is value in doing all things even ones that are "profoundly useless." So with this in mind I finially get to the crux about this debate raging in my brain (it has managed to keep me from the soft embrace of my pillow and blanket for nearly an hour now) I accepted and took solice in this notion of doing profoundly useless things but then outside of the world created by my professor this solice provided little coverage when questioned about the raw mechanics of life. I'm supposed to be in school to get a degree to earn money to pay my bills and eat and live independantly and consume etc etc etc. Profoundly useless does not pay any bills yet I am convinced it is important to myself and to the noble pursuit of knowledge. Where is the middle ground? How do I pay the bills and fit into my slot, while still doing something profoundly useless?