Recently, I graduated from Southern Utah University with a Bachelor of Arts in English, with an emphasis on creative writing. Now if you're like just about any other non-English major who made it through college, you're probably wondering what I'm going to do with that degree. Well, for one, I am going to write. Poetry has been my focus for the last several years and while I realize it is not the most lucrative form of writing out there, I also plan to get a job as an editor, or perhaps in advertising and the like.

English degrees can get you just about any job that doesn't require a technical skill, as long as you know how to sell it to potential employers. The biggest benefits is the focus on analytical thinking. Some people come up with one solution and when it fails they scratch their heads. Me and my fellow English majors will come up with a dozen possible solutions and if none of those work then we begin making variations, or revisions, on our attempts. This, of course, isn't to say you can't get that same level of understanding from History or Philosophy degrees. But I think it's time you're honest with yourself.

In this short time I have been free from school, I have now started the accursed planning of the future. Where to work, where to live and how to move. But I try to keep myself motivated and if not motivated, I distract myself with something productive. Yesterday I wrote a new poem, it has been a while, and I started thinking about all the ways it can fit into this lessons of figuring out what you really want. I don't plan on moving more than two times in the near future after all. Keep in mind that this isn't just a rough draft, it's a first draft. I am well aware it could use some work.

Soul Mates

Of the many Greek creation myths,
one states that Zeus first created humans
with two heads, four arms, four legs,
but said nothing of genitalia.

Fearing the potential of these binary beings,
the king of Olympus and ruler of the skies
sundered each set in twain, dooming them
to an eternity of searching the land
for that which made them whole again.

Modern romantics interpret this as the origin
of the term “soul mate”, while others easily
use the same argument to justify that opposites attract.

However, like any ancient myth,
its origins are unknown and rivaled
by other contradicting fables. The most common
story claims that Zeus created men from mud
for the sole purpose of tormenting them,
either out of boredom by virtue of godhood,
or just as an easy means to gain their worship.
Greek gods, after all, have a long history
of caring little for the lives of mortals.

Then it was Prometheus, one of the few titans
allowed to remain among the pantheon of Olympians,
who felt sorrow as he watched the tortured mud men
destroyed and recreated by a sadistic king of kings.
So he stole a portion of the flames from Mt. Olympus,
the symbol of the gods’ power and source of inspiration,
and he bestowed it upon the besmirched bipeds
so that they might gain awareness and agency.

But when Zeus discovered the potential chaos
that Prometheus had brought about,
that the thunder god’s creations no longer feared
the darkness, the unknown, or even the wrath of gods.
When they gathered together to form societies
and the pantheon’s grasp on their lives was shattered,
brave Prometheus did not cower nor cover
from the impending punishment soon to be
cast down from the highest self-proclaimed authority,
the same which had decided the fates of his fellow titans.

But the punishment that Zeus had prepared for Prometheus,
the light giver and true creator of humanity,
would be far worse than being cast
into the endless underworld of Tartarus to be tortured
with his kindred titans, the precursors of the new gods.

Prometheus was bound to a boulder
by unbreakable chains, naked and exposed
to the scorching sun drawn by Apollo’s eternal chariot.
When there was light, the flesh was torn from bone
as carrion birds feasted upon his innards,
and as an immortal titan incapable of falling
to the most vitriolic violence, each night
his wounds would heal and the pain would fade,
only for the process to begin again at sunrise.
But each time this torture was repeated,
so too was Prometheus reminded of his gift.
A precursor to the muses, his flame fed
the kindling of the newly formed mortal minds,
turning abstraction into reality and creating
the capacity to express reality as abstraction.

If that tortured titan could witness from his chains
all that has spawned from the gift he stole for mankind,
he would watch those birds approach each sunrise
and beam with pride for humanity and defiance for the gods.

For although the myth of Prometheus may seem bleak,
and Zeus nothing more than an uncaring god of malice
and spite, recall the first myth so hailed by believers
of “soul-mates”, and wonder why one would bother
to wander the world searching for lost appendages,
with whom there would be so much in common
it would be a wonder if conversation occurred,
when instead you can seek out a blazing flame,
heat felt across a sea of glowing embers,
a fire that burns with passions akin to your own,
but with enough room beneath the hearth
that your fires are able to intermingle
and ignite new radiating passions, filling hearts and minds.

Now that may have been the longest poem I have ever written, but I hope you see where I am going with this. Originally the poem started out as sort of a romantic idea, as so many of my poems do, but then I realized that the fire, the inspiration that Prometheus brought down from Mt. Olympus could be anything, it didn't have to represent human bonding, that's what Cupid and Aphrodite are for.

Soon I will be following the call of my own light. I'll be moving back to Salt Lake City for a short while to work and hopefully get back into doing stand-up comedy, as a large portion of the heat comes from that idea. Once I have a career path settled, I'll start looking for jobs out of state so I can get the hell out of here. I have even been strongly considering the possibility of going to graduate school to get my Master's degree; if only to continue treading water while I wait for my life to fall into place.

So follow your light. Focus in on that thing in your head that starts to heat up your passions and make a plan for it. Obviously, you won't be able to get everything you want right away, but if you have some semblance of a plan to follow it will be all the more easy to feed the fire.