A Friendly Environment
Chris' Journal, September 10, 1998
I gonna try with a little help from my friends,
The Beatles
I have always known that I am deeply influenced by my environment. As hard as I try, much of my moods, outlooks, and happiness come from the people I surround myself with. This has been demonstrated to me time and again on this quest.
During a stay in Bloomington, Indiana I found myself flying into better and better moods. Not to say I have not been in good spirits. In fact, I have amazingly been riding a "high" since starting our quest. But when I pulled into the familiar surroundings of my old alma mater (I graduated from Indiana University in 1990) I was flooded with warm memories and smiles.
In Bloomington we stayed with some old friends of ours, Eric Eckhart and Kim Dingess. I have know Kim since as long as I remember (we met around the time Brian and I met back in first grade) and Eric and I have been friends since junior high school. Our friendship really kicked off in high school and we have grown closer and closer ever since. It was great spending time with them and catching up on each others lives. There is definite comfort and security in being around people who you have known for so long, who have seen you at your best and worst, and still choose to associate themselves with you!
In staying with them I also found myself feeding areas of my brain and passions that I haven't used much in the past few years. Kim is a doctoral student at IU in anthropology, an area I minored in while in college. Her studies of primates is a field I once considered for myself many moons ago and I find her stories and tales very interesting and enlightening. Slowly the dust on that shelf of my mind was blown away and my longing for field studies and trips into the sub-tropic was aroused.
With Eric I found my creativity sparked and kindled. Eric, while a successful businessman for a paper supply company, is also a gifted musician. He writes and plays and records his own music in an amazing display of talent. One night while in Bloomington he preformed some of his latest songs for us from his upcoming self-made CD album Up The Falls. And as the music flowed through the room I couldn't help but feel like picking up pen and paper or brush and pallet and returning to my days of studio art (Fine Arts being one of my majors in college).
The visit made me think about how important environment can be in nurturing a person's own successes. While success may be internally conceived and created, being around close friends and a friendly environment can lend a big hand of assistance in getting there. In Bloomington not only did I have friends to bounce ideas off of and tell dreams to, but I also had inspiration to learn about past passions and pursue creative ventures. I had the love and support from close friends to use my talents and abilities and follow my own path, be that what it may.
I learned that weekend that its important to look hard at our environments, the people we surround ourselves with, and add that into the melting pot of figuring out this thing called life. And maybe we could all get by with a little help from our friends.
© Chris Moeller, 1998
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