Why I Won't Be Depressed

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I've recently been playing my oboe in a pit orchestra for the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta  Ruddigore, an experience I've enjoyed although the show's plot line could have been conceived by the Honey Boo Boo Child. Anyone who plays in the pit orchestra of any operetta can tell you that there is a lot of waiting involved in the experience, what with you having to sit and twiddle your thumbs while dialogue between songs plays out. The bassoonist and I as a result used this down-time to read Ned Vizzini's It's Kind of a Funny Story. I'm very proud to say that this book almost made me break out the paper shredder.

     I'll make this frank, to the point--I was semi-depressed a few years ago. I'd loved childhood with a passion, so much so that I confronted all of my anxiety about leaving childhood with feeling terrible anxiety about entering adulthood. Does this make sense? Of course it doesn't, and that's what made this period of my life so frustrating. What it basically boiled down to was me worrying that I would end up being a pot-dealer, or a thief, or a murderer, or a child-molester--something so horrible that simultaneous thoughts both of me committing these crimes and my family's reactions to me committing these crimes were almost unbearable. To make the situation worse, I didn't identify with other middle-schoolers very well, which made two consecutive summers maddening deserts of social activity, social activity that could have distracted me from what what my mother--my impromptu therapist--called "bad thoughts". My summer days were spent in front of a computer, wasting time with slightly humorous websites and such, while nights were spent watching crappy sitcom after crappy sitcom on the television. 

     It was horrible. 

     Craig's life in Funny Story is hands-down much more horrible than mine was. He's not doing well in his excessively-demanding classes, he's upchucking everything that's able to sneak its way down his unwelcoming throat, and it's not getting better. He's letting all of his thoughts interfere with those things in life that he loves. This is something I'm very glad never occurred to me since what I loved most at the time-- school--distracted me well from September through June; my semi-depression wasn't like the deep cloak of darkness that's falling over Craig.

     But then that makes me think, because an element of that anxiety still lives inside of me like a scar (I'm a fervent believer in the fact that mental scars can exist just as much as physical ones). I think that maybe, if I get into the Ivy League schools I so intensely want to attend, I will become depressed. That the demanding classes will be too much for me as the classes at his gifted high school were too much for Craig, and some form of those "bad thoughts" will return to me, causing a complete destruction of potential self-sustainability in my life. Heck, what if it moves in right now, what if I become so bent on destroying myself with my own mind that I actually destroy myself--just randomly, out of nowhere, as nonsensically as the thoughts themselves are constructed. There's just this fear inside of me that I can't seem to eradicate. 

     What if I turn up like Craig, ready to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge?

     But then I think some more, and realize two important things. One of them is that I'm a highly ambitious person, and therefore simply have to face the facts that if I dedicate all that time to depression, I'm not dedicating it to improving my literary or academic skills. I will fall behind, and even if I do waste time in my life, do I really want that time to be wasted in depression? The second, more potent phenomenon is the scar theory--I have to always expect that this semi-depression will be with me since those middle-school years were so much of a funk compared to the rest of my life. And whenever I feel the scar, I'll just have to remember what Craig realized about how in life: that you must accumulate as many verbs as possible, that you should always be thinking less than you're doing. 

     After all, your legacy is not just the things you've thought, but the thoughts you end up doing. 

To Be Young

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Youth is fleeting.

     Let that be the one thing I've learned in these past few months. Looking for Alaska by John Green has taught me the confusion of youth, how we teenagers really don't have a clue about anything. The reason why we appear so clueless, as I have since reasoned, is that we think that there is more to this world than our own feelings. We adolescents think that there is some kind of constant in human existence that puts our own feelings to shame, whose sheer might and  all-knowingness can show us how nonsensical our feelings really are in comparison to the entire world.

    So what do we do? We are young, we are determined in our youth, and we are determined in our ability to take advantage of our youth, so we try and chase after this constant. We try to chase after that universal truth. We chase after it by trying to experience as many different areas of life as possible--whether drugs, relationships, or simply secluded places in our hometown. Our common reasoning for such exploration is that something, somewhere will teach us this truth, will tell us how nonsensical and petty our feelings are in retrospect. Because what teenager wants his emotions to be the only things composing his world? Adolescent emotions are as passionate and fickle as your fat uncle's eating preferences at an all-night dinner buffet, so such a world would be quite the mess indeed. Some will of course object to my thoughts with examples of adolescents acting like they are always in the right, like they know more than every adult on Earth combined. We've all seen or been that stubborn, thick-headed teenager at times, haven't we?

     What the adolescent breed is trying to accomplish with such hardheadedness is even more exploration of the constant mentioned above; by being so stubborn, adolescents are testing whether the constant lies in accepting their own opinions as God-given law. We're bombarded with enough stubborn figures being successful and enlightened--Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Rudy Giuliani,  Gandhi, even Teddy Roosevelt--that we can't help but investigate. The realization soon comes, however, that our brains don't harbor enough maturity to lead such enlightened lives, and we continue to act so stubbornly because of our bitterness concerning this fact.

     Eventually, the truth comes to us: that human feeling is all that defines tour world. There is nothing greater, nothing less, and no hope for anything greater either. The problem is that after this revelation, we stop experiencing everything, we stop searching for that truth, we accept that our emotions are all that can ever be, and we become adults.  

      

Frivolously Follow Me this Friday! (Numero Seis)

"Follow Me Friday" is oh-so-wonderfully hosted by Parajunkie's View and Alison Can Read. So what question is inquired today?

Do your reading habits change based on your mood?

Hell to the yeah. When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me, and my reading habits change drastically. The much simpler novels on my bookshelf instantaneously become more attractive, and I  might not even complete them. Although relaxation by cracking open any kind of novel would probably help me calm down, my stress-engulfed mind will probably prioritize the problem at hand over reading. A relaxed mood, on the contrary, makes the more complex reads on my bookshelf seem just dandy. It is during these times that I venture into classic authors as well as longer works by modern authors (such as The World According to Garp by John Irving--a post about that one is in the works, I promise!). 

     Now, let's get funky with this subject; funky meaning philosophical, of course. Moods usually come about because either one sees the events happening to him as similar in nature, or one event is so potent that it overshadows everything else. An unwanted mood can therefore be solved in two ways, the first of which being that if a person has a case of seemingly similar, repeated events, he should attempt to think about how those events are different. Find optimism in some event if you are surrounded by pessimism in most events, for example. The other way by which an unwanted mood can be solved is, if one event is potent enough to overshadow everything else, attempting to think of reasons why that event isn't so potent. Why that event isn't so powerful.

      Because more powerful than any event or series of events is the human mind.

*PS: Please follow by R to the S to the S!  

Dominicans, Scots, and Hipsters

Greetings from the midst of Writerdom, an elite kingdom stationed in between the steep hills of Finalstan and the perilous mountains of JuniorYearia. The weather in this wonderful place is, well, hot, and the neatness of my room isn't so desirable either, so in all truth, my words are becoming the only positive phenomenon about this summer. As it should be, I guess, because I am a writer! Anyways, I hope all of you fine people are having a great time party-hardying with amusement parks and aquatic sports and lawn mowing, and I do hope you have gone to the movies as well. Why, one may ask? Well, I think it is the foremost duty of each and every American to have experienced

Delightfully dramatic, is it not?
     Brave tells the story of medieval Scottish princess Merida, whose adventurous ways are very contrary to the usual habits of a princess. Merida's favorite activities include horseback riding and archery, two activities that are not typical of the typical princess. Actually, they are so contrary to the precedent--the precedent oh-so-annoyingly pressed by Merida's mother--that our main gal starts to want a life away from royalty. Or another drastic change, such as a magical altering of her mother's positive opinion on Merida's wedding (watch the movie to find out how that one works out for her.) 
     We see yet another individual acting against the precedent in

     Not as dramatic, huh? Oh, well...
     Anyway, we see Oscar going against the grain in that while his other male, Dominican counterparts spend most of their time banging girls and talking about banging girls, Oscar is completely dedicated to his life as a writer of Science Fiction. Yes, he wants to bang some girls himself, but he (usually) doesn't let this desire get in the way of his career as a writer. Such a situation makes the young man experience suicide attempts, abductions, and the worsening of his formidable eating disorder. Tough stuff.
     We see yet another example of an individual (supposedly) acting against the precedent in

Yes, I know it's Darren Criss. That's not the point. The point is, in the words of an NYC Fashion Snob, look what he's wearing!
     It's the pure definition of hipster.
     In case you've been living under the Arctic Ocean for the past three years, a hipster is a man or woman who has a distinct hatred for everything "mainstream," what young people are, according to precedents, supposed to like. The precedent is that young people adore any culture that is distinctive to their epoch of entertainment history. Therefore, mainstream music includes Nicki Minaj, mainstream movies Twilight, mainstream books Twilight, and mainstream clothes anything that's not plaid. Their entire dogma is that to live a life in counterculture, to go against the grain, to violate precedents, in itself makes one's life worthwhile. Said dogma encourages the enjoyment of culture that either is not from their epoch in entertainment history or resembles culture from another epoch in entertainment history. However, what I detest about hipsters is that they do not--or most of them do not--act against the precedent for any certain reason. Merida, for example, does not want to be betrothed because it will obligate her to stop being such an outdoorsy type of individual; there would be no more riding horses and archery for hours on end. Oscar goes against precedent because he loves to write so much, and spending more time writing than banging women is a life that he prefers most of the time.
     However, I have found that most hipsters don't even attempt to enjoy anything that has been embraced by pop culture. A single phenomenon that the hipster feels too many people are liking is condemned as unlikable in his mind, which is absolute bogus because, as your mother told you in childhood, one can't know that he doesn't like something if he doesn't try it. Even though I usually prefer music that is not appreciated by pop culture, I have attempted and eventually enjoyed listening to artists like Lady GaGa and Adele.
     And the best part about the Hipster Movement to me is that, as months go on, more and more people are identifying themselves as hipsters. Hipsters are in fact....*gasp* becoming mainstream! But will the thousands of people who have adopted those signature glasses and plaid clothes stop being what is now themselves?

The Greatest Diadem

(And why this text is white, I have no idea. Muchas gracias, Blogger.)
These days, I've taken the time to finally realize that there's air in my lungs and a beat in my heart, and that is half of my life right there. Because with that, I can accomplish so much-living through my Advanced Placement Chemistry Exam (I'm now making plans to ceremoniously burn my review book), dealing with people just as stubborn as I am, even perform my All-State oboe solo tomorrow in front of Mr. Judge. Yes, D-Day has come, my friends.

          But oddly, I'm not nearly as nervous as I thought I would be; this poem may be a contributing factor to that phenomenon: 

The sky is low, the clouds are mean,     

A travelling flake of snow

Across a barn or through a rut 

Debates if it will go.  

A narrow wind complains all day     

How some one treated him;

Nature, like us, is sometimes caught     

Without her diadem.

You see, I had a recital last Wednesday night for said oboe solo. Said recital included playing Concerto for Oboe by R. Vaughan Williams in front of people very close to my life. Twenty five people very close to my life. One could naturally guess I was about to flip a shit, but strangely, all thought of scurrying out of the auditorium dissipated once I began reading from a book in my hand, and the words of Miss Dickinson filled the nooks and crannies of space.

          Nature is never perfect, although it does its job perfectly. The phenomenon will consistently complain, debate on whether it should complete its organically assigned task, and show a wide range of emotions throughout its travelling. Nevertheless, nature completes the task perfectly. It needed to shift through imperfections to reach it, but here is perfection. And the next flake travels down. 

Hey, copyright people, I don't own this picture. From http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2KRr4x/:1lj+LQQ6e:ItP4!$AE/www.streetartutopia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/street_art_paint_war_berlin.jpeg/

In Memoriam

At this very moment, one hundred years ago, hundreds of people were dying as Titanic sank to its grave. In memoriam, I type this out:

Sometimes I have passed the time,

And sometimes I have thought,

If they truly break away again,

Nothing have I wrought.

But life is a passing iudgement,

A nonchalant turn of the eye,

And when souls are breaking in withered shards,

the king will simply sigh.

And life goes on with a song of silence,

And thought a stream of desire,

for even when Earth is but a humble celibate,

sole is my quagmire.  

The Imperfect Project Glass

I'm sure a great deal of you have read George Orwell's masterwork, 1984. The novel does an amazing job of scaring the shit out of each one of its readers, whether with a totalitarian government, rampant censorship, or the idea of no privacy. One can specifically remember that said state of privacy is predominantly achieved  through use of the ever-present telescreen, a device that tracks your every action. Our main character, Winston Smith, lives with the constant fear that the police will abduct him after his telescreen senses a rebellious action. Tracks your every action...makes a lack of privacy...well, why doesn't everyone take a look at this.

And I wonder who finds this to be utterly frightening. I see the world as a place of individual existences fragmented by some sense of greater community. When we are lonely or in need of aid is when we reach out to that larger community, but most problems are predominantly solved within the mental realm of oneself-when was the last time you needed help deciding which bathroom stall to use, or even simpler, when to move your head this way or that? At the beginning of evolution, the rudimentary primates we once were fought alone for the existence of their respective selves, and had the sole responsibility of making decisions in the interest of their survival. A wrong decision made the difference between life or death. Were those primates able to automatically ask a gps system where food was located? Did the eventual location of edible grass mean an ecstatic, facebook status?

          No.

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          Previously, I've had absolutely no problem with the Facebook, GPS, Twitter, Drawsomething, Temple Run, Facetime, or whatever services that bless our computers and iPhones. This is because, although these phenomena do encourage a lapse in individual thinking, they are for the most part not as convenient as our own craniums. This new "Project Glass" is the exact opposite-more convenient than our brains. Its creators must reason that there can't be a problem when it will just make all of humanity more efficient. People will have more time to accomplish beneficial tasks such as community service just because more trivial tasks will take less time. 

            No.

          Efficiency may increase, but the possibility of technology failing us has too many consequences. If you're convinced that such failure is an impossibility, just think of how the Titanic was an unsinkable, "ship of dreams." Ask the thousands of individuals who perished, and they won't tell you it was so dreamy.

          No doubt is there that the technology insinuated by this video will deform us into beings incapable of complex reasoning. Great ideas are customarily found while searching for something else, but if one finds something else first, that great idea will never have its time in the sun. Should technology fail us, no one will be capable of devising some way to deal with the massive hole in human function. 

          Comparatively, Orwell's dystopia might be desirable. 

The Top Ten of 2011...Totally!

2011 has been a large year indeed. When this year began, I was still but a burgeoning blogger with only three followers. At its culmination, however, I have ascended in the blogosphere and now own a moderately popular weblog with 89 wonderful, beautiful followers, a Twitter page, a Goodreads page, a Stumbleupon page, a Digg page, and more posts than ever before. How excellent, indeed! In order to celebrate what a wondrous year it has been, I have decided to partake in The Broke and the Bookish's Top Ten Tuesday this week, the subject of which is quite celebratory in nature. Therefore...

Top Ten (But I'll Just Do Five, Thanks) Favorite Books of 2011

1. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

A modern classic in every meaning of the phrase, Mockingjay renewed my faith in YA literature. Before I devoured this book, I was thoroughly convinced that all YA lit concerned were vampires and lost love and suicide and bullying and being yourself, all in a most bland manner. But Mockingjay has an innovative theme presented in an even more innovative manner. Kudos to Ms. Collins!

Read my post about this book, "To Kill a Mockingjay"

2. Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

Seldom do I read stories that have anything to do with the athletic world, but this was a worthy exception. Unbroken truly provides a groundbreaking insight into the essence of resilience, and the sometimes cruel effects it inflicts on its bearers.

Read my posts about this book, "How to Succeed (Period)" and  "Zamperini on 'The Edge of Glory'"

3. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Yes, everyone on Earth has read this one, but that doesn't make the fact that it's an excellent novel any less true. Stieg Larsson has a strict doctrine of giving us a startling gale of true reality when other sources of entertainment (namely, television programs) do anything but. Said piece also helped me survive every one of my finals, which is a gargantuan accomplishment in itself.

Read my post about this book, "The Post of Not-So-Sweet Revenge"

4. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Another book that taught me something new about the literary world. This time, it was that prose and poetry can, in some cases, be the same thing entirely. The meter of Zusak's words and the poignancy of his narrative still haunt me to this day, not to mention grant me the ever-useful ability to say "Asshole" in German

Read my post about this book, "On a Day of Death-9/11/01"

5. The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck

Everyone who knows me also knows how much of a sucker I am for Mr. Steinbeck; he never fails to impress, and this supreme piece of literature is no exception. Here is an author who deserves your time, no matter how many minutes you may spend pondering the true meaning of his words. A Paradise Lost of modern America.

Read my post about this book, "Obama, Be a Ghostbuster!"

And now, a bit of philosophy to wash this celebration down: life is a journey. We've all been told this, yes? All discovered this by some means? Well, a journey always has landmarks, these landmarks usually being the the most memorable parts of one section of this journey, or maybe the entire journey itself. Whether memorable in positive manner (like the books mentioned in this post), or a negative one, memories of these past landmarks can aid in making landmarks found in the future much more familiar to oneself, and therefore much easier to work with as your life's journey continues.

The Circle of Life

Today was a horror.
     Apart from the fact that I was forced to begin the school day only moments after observing the scene of an immensely traumatic car accident, something else occurred which really put a perspective on life and its notorious span.
     As some of you may know already, I am an avid oboe-player. The holidays during these times are always a time when musicians of all ages are called upon to use their abilities in the name of those less fortunate. My friend felt such a duty knighted upon herself, and I, attempting to perform at least one nice action during this frantic season, agreed to aid her. Playing oboe at a nursing home with two other musicians alongside. Sounds wonderful, yes?
     Well, not exactly.

Photo from http://www.tjjournal.com/2009/01/18/the-
curious-case-of-benjamin-button-ready-to-post/

      I happened to play holiday tunes for the psych ward at a hospital last year, and after that (when the patients insisted on shaking my hand and demonstrated very diverse reactions to my music), it was to my assumption that I could find any setting could be found comfortable if effort is inserted. How wrong.
     Nothing prepared me for what met my eyes-a plethora of sickly individuals whose only lifelines were the nurses talking to them in sweet, Child-like voices. With each step there was more sheltering exposed, more evidence that said place was simply, and painfully, a waiting room. The moans here and there, the IV fluid abundant as grass, the lolling heads hardly mobile in their wheelchairs....life came to this? You live, you influence, and this is what you become? A child again?
    Last year, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald (yes, ladies and gents, the story whose movie adaptation included our oh-so-hunky friend, Brad Pitt) descended upon me in English class. How fascinating it was to read about the young taken care of by the old, and the older being taken by the younger. The circle is an essential aspect of the human experience, what with it being the most logical shape since it is truly an eternal cycle. We are born, we are petty in the eyes of those who run the world, we run the world, and we are petty once more-how many times have you dismissed the opinions of the elderly just because it came from an aged mind, a mind that couldn't possibly understand the conflicts of this twenty-first century?
    The people at this nursing home, it was more than a case of being considered petty. They were actually children, and they weren't even given a chance to make opinions because it seemed like all problems of the outside world were taboo. Now, am I saying that this is a horrible phenomenon for some immensely unstable individuals? No. But am I saying there may be a better way to do this than the aforementioned system? Yes. And for once, I'm not going to try and devise one. When it was my turn to play, I found myself unable, screwing up note after note and throbbing uncontrollably with discomfort; by the end, I had to sing each tune because of my fingers' failure. The oppression was insurmountable.
     This is not a call for protest
     This is a call for action.
    Would someone please take some?

Should Parents Censor What Their Kids Read?

Meditations of a Teenage Philosopher has always been a place where I can, frankly, do whatever the hell I want and see what people think of it. This is an experiment whose outcome I hope will be satisfactory. The following is an argument about censorship; if parents should censor what their children read, to be specific. After reading any (or all) of this argument, tell me...what do you think?

* * *  



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Parents can try to protect their children in numerous ways. Some will insure that their child wears enough clothing to fight the cold, others will cut their child’s meat to fight the possibility of choking, others will leash their child to fight kidnappers, and others will control what their child reads to fight…what? What are they fighting? Bad stuff? Reality?  I would love to ask those parents if they realize that their children are in fact part of reality; that they, all too soon, will play its harsh game. And in order to play a game, to win a game, it helps to know the playing board as early as possible. Therefore, parents should not censor what their children read based on content they find offensive both because that offensive content is often times commonplace in the world and because said content can be thoroughly explained in literature, a convenient phenomenon considering that most parents feel uncomfortable talking about it. Furthermore, children who have been given the thorough explanation by literature will prove much more able to attain success in an utterly uncensored world compared to those who have not. 

To explore this national dilemma, let us focus on a piece of literature that is frequently on the “front lines”, so to speak-The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. According to the American Library Association, it is the third most banned book in the country.  This piece contains a freshman named Charlie struggling with the dilemma of passivity vs. passion –should he remain a wallflower and simply examine peoples’ lives from a distance, or actually live himself?  It also contains teenage pregnancy, profanity, heterosexual intercourse, homosexual intercourse, rape, drug abuse, domestic violence, suicide, and child molestation.  Cue the complaints board. 

In October 2009 at Roanoke, Virginia’s William Boyd High School, Perks passed from the hands of an English teacher to the son of John Davis. Davis saw his son reading the book voraciously and immediately examined it, only to find what he called quote-on-quote “offensive content.” He remarked how teens reading about those “offensive” activities portrayed in the book would, by nature, perform the “offensive” activities themselves.  Mr. Davis therefore took issue with the principal, who had the school board place it under review. Just last February, a similar situation happened in Clarkstown, New York when a group of parents petitioned the district to ban Chbosky’s book. Parents Aldo and Patti Devivo compiled a list of phrases they found offensive, including “One day CB got so drunk he tried to f- the host’s dog” and “what the f- Jesus.” Upon the latter, Aldo stated, “As a Christian, do we really need to take the Lord’s name in vain like that?” Well, yes, we do, Aldo, because most people (including some adolescents) are not as “Christian” as you are. They will use the Lord’s name in vain quite frequently. In fact, about half the people I am in daily contact with do so. Another parent stated how “The words in there are so disgusting. The ‘f’ word. Private organ parts. Sounds pornographic-not for English class.” Well, guess what? Not everyone has the clean mouth you do. Plus, you have a penis and your wife has a vagina; neither of those facts change while your child is in school.

Then there is Patti, who cried, “Why does the classroom really have to put a book with this kind of material in their hands?”

Well, I have an answer for you, Patti -because that “material” is reality. As previously stated, profanity is rampant in modern society. However, that is just the mildest. By their nineteenth birthday, 70% of American males and females have had sexual intercourse. There are 4 million homosexual people and 3 million child molestation victims in America. Each year, 750,000 American girls aged 15-19 get pregnant and 30,000 people commit suicide. The same can be said for other issues many parents find offensive, such as binge drinking or sexism-they are highly usual in this world.  Mr. Davis, it brings me great melancholy to tell you that most minors, including your daughter, discover these issues by observation or word of mouth, not books-how could they not with the issues’ prevalence? Many discoveries even take place at the elementary school level. I know that I, for example, first heard about “s-e-x” in the fourth grade. Thus, you can’t blame a novel if your daughter decides to get laid at a local motel.   

But the problem is that when minors discover these issues, at no matter what age, they do not receive sound understandings of them. Witnessing someone at their high school giving a mommy-rub or hearing about “s-e-x” at the fourth-grade lunch table doesn’t let them see the ridicule she faces while pregnant, or the carnal experience “s-e-x” entails. In most minor’s lives, parents are the only people we can trust to accurately describe these issues; yet, can many parents accurately describe the feelings associated with teenage pregnancy, or would they ever describe a sexual experience to their child? I do not think so. This is a need that reading can fill superbly. A minor reading about the pregnancy of Charlie’s teenage sister, how she wept uncontrollably, made Charlie drive her to the abortion clinic in secret, and lived every second under the fear of her parent’s discovery, will give them a much deeper understanding of the teenage pregnancy issue. A narrative of how Charlie lost his virginity would give them a deeper understanding of “s-e-x” as well.

Fast forward to the real, adult world-those minors, as adults, will both be in contact with people from all walks of life and endure many experiences. Whether a lover, business partner, or sibling, those people may be dealing with or have dealt with such offensive issues, such offensive content. The adults may have to deal with the content themselves. Now, adults who never understood more than a stolen whisper about it, whose parents insisted the content’s nonexistence, would not know how to properly deal with neither the people or that direct, offensive situation in their own life. Meanwhile, adults whose parents at least acknowledged the content by letting them read related literature would have a better idea of what those people are enduring, or what the adults must endure themselves. This will allow them to have more pleasant bonds with those people. This will allow them to have more pleasant, personal experiences when facing these situations. And from the aforementioned strong basis, those adults can build a life where success in any goal they desire is attained.

What can you do about this conflict? How about going to the library to read The Perks of Being a Wallflower. To read literature that will give you an inside look unto the offensive content of humanity. If your parents have an issue, feel free to tell them that reality, a reality you will soon inherit, exists no matter what.

So really....what's going on in that noggin of yours?

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*The bibliography for this post is accessible here.

      

Help Occupy Wall Street

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Read Shelfari review here.

I know someone who was a hippie. Make love, not war...all that jazz. And to tell you the indisputable truth, that front-page picture of such a massive group rallying together for reform (and a hell of a lot of partying, as it seems) instantaneously made me think of her. Her generation's protesting of the Vietnam War...that was similar to this, right? People harboring collective anger about a supposed conflict and expressing it. From the 1960s to the 2010s, a distinct and imperative parallel therefore exists.
     The 1960s are also the time in which The Help, Kathryn Stockett's wildly popular novel, is set. In a dramatically racist Jackson, Mississippi, Skeeter, an aspiring writer, conceives the idea of interviewing black maids to discover how they feel about serving white housewives. However, such maids are afraid to even be seen with Skeeter as they consider lynchings, beatings, and arrests that have befell other local coloreds who crossed "the line". Everyone knows deep within their soul that change is truly necessitated, but shouldn't one's life, and those of one's family, be considered first? Walk in Aibileen, a fearless maid who risks the nothing she has to lose. Aibilieen's writing professes the emotions elicited when a child you're paid to take care of calls you "Mama", when you must simply watch the neglect a parent can inflict on that child, their own child. Aibileen only begins to release her secrets because the benevolent grandson of a sweet, elderly friend of hers is beat to blindness by a few racists. At this time, the woman prioritized a change in the way Jacksonians lived over her personal well being. Soon, other maids hop on the bandwagon and begin releasing their stories to the world, but this only occurs after a profound realization in each of their lives as well. Said realization occurs when Yule May, a maid who is desperate to put her twin boys through college, must go off to jail because her employer, antagonist Ms. Hilly Holbrook, unjustly accuses the woman of stealing a ring. Hilly, however, doesn't care to reveal that the ring she stole, a dusty ring left under the sofa, is one that she doesn't care for at all. Racism is the sole fuel to her malignant action.  

Occupy Wall Street protesters singing.
(from www.time.com)

     What I would like you to focus on here is the profound event that mobilizes actions towards change. No maid of Jackson Mississippi would have given a thought to talking with Miss Skeeter if they didn't experience their moment. The moment where a person states,  Something is wrong here. It really needs to be fixed, and because it really needs to, not trying to fix it would be just as wrong. The other maids see Yule May's situation and know that no matter how much pain it may cause in the future, not doing anything about the racism in Jackson, Mississippi is as malignant as racism itself.    
     Nowadays, a movement has been taking the nation by storm, a movement that threatens to never release this USA from its grasp. What am I talking about? Occupy Wall Street, of course. People around the country see a great wrong in Wall Street corruption, the massive job famine, and anything that causes "getting by" to be immensely difficult. And just like the aforementioned black maids, they each had a moment of revelation, a moment when they acknowledged such wrongs and stated that not fixing them was a wrong in itself. Without such a moment, these individuals would be equal parts silent and desperate in attempting to secure an occupation for themselves, making this wondrous influx of youth expressionism nonexistent.

Occupy Wall Street protesters running from tear gas.
(from www.time.com)

     And the ultimate effect a moment of revelation can have-the real change? For the maids of Jackson, Mississippi, it is a breakdown of segregation, especially on the domestic front. Hilly Holbrook is dethroned from public eminence and doesn't even think about persuading her fellow housewives to perform racist actions anymore. Her Home Health Sanitation Initiative, a bill that requires all white households to maintain a separate bathroom for colored help because of supposed, African American diseases, is accordingly repealed...but then there's the Occupy Wall Street protesters. Goals of the protests, the protesters' way of correcting such financial problems, are beginning to emerge, but until they are absolute, no one can validly predict the ultimate effect.
      One thing, though, is absolute-however long the conflicts exist, these enraged citizens will continue to act. For what are they but human?

On a Day of Death, 9/11/01

From www.time.com

One can say each phenomenon that occurred on September 11, 2001 had something to do with pride. Pride in one's religion, pride in one's cause, pride in one's abilities, pride in one's country. But the aforementioned statement gives us a paradox, does it not? Pride in one's religion, cause, and abilities all contributed to al-Qaeda committing such malevolent actions, but these prides additionally helped Americans survive the aftermath. Whether one was an innocent, Islamic American suddenly the victim of hate crimes or an acquaintance of another soul who went down with the towers, pride was the antidote to America's poison.      So where does it belong in the spectrum of emotions? A blessing? A sin?
     Markus Zusak's The Book Thief is narrated by Death, a voice who during this Second World War has much to say about the different qualities of human pride. In telling how young Liesel Meminger's newfound ability to read helps a bomb-shelter full of Germans and a fist-fighting Jew among others, Death depicts many characters whose lives are forever altered by pride. Liesel's foster brother, Hans, goes to war because of his strong belief in Hitler's message. Rudy, Liesel's best friend and lover, is forced to wallow in dung because of his resistance against a Hitler Youth leader (so glad our dean doesn't threaten us with that one.)  When Jews are being marched through Liesel's town, Hans Hubermann, Liesel's foster father, has enough pride in himself to help another struggling individual survive another heartbreaking hour, which gives birth to gargantuan consequences, of course.
     Death at times states that in the grand scheme of things, pride is really futile. Humans should take it upon themselves to insure their longest possible life instead of risking everything for what they believe is right. Hans would be better off without the scars of war he will surely receive, Rudy without the odor of Staten Island, and Hans Hubermann without the eventual recruitment into the LSE (a military division that retrieves corpses from bombsites.) Yet Death also states his admiration for Liesel and her resilience; through bomb threats, drafts, numerous deaths, near poverty, and the witnessing of true horrors, she remains alive to perish many years after WWII after an indisputably lived life. And how does Liesel survive Nazi Germany?
     Pride.
     Whether in her family, her friends, her words, or most imperatively herself, she maintains pride throughout her span of being-she believes that life must course through her so that actions for a  phenomenon worthy to her, a phenomenon much larger than herself, can be performed. So Death indeed honors the proud...
     Just so long as their pride is used to escape him.
     And what better way to let pride cause human survival than use it in activities that will save lives? Take pride in a cause that terrorists fail to comprehend-promoting human survival.

Finals, Hurrah!

So in light of the fact that these wonderful examinations have been occupying most every teenage life recently, I thought that I would post almost a commentary on the American education system. Unlike a good amount of teenagers (and apparently some adults as well), I do believe that school is imperative and that it should absolutely exist, but that does not cause one centimeter of my mind to belief in the phenomenon's perfection. Venture on into the following depths of literature only if you dare...

           I had always wondered why mature congressmen acted like fervent Kardashians on that hallmark night. One side of the room clapping immediately caused the other to remain astutely in their seats and stare at their opponents with distasteful smirks. The night when I saw this precedent proved utterly wrong was also a night plagued by hours of studying; my wonderful science teacher refused to actually teach that week, so I was left to apprehend the material independently. Yet this studying was put on hold when George Stephanopoulos, studious and grinning as ever, appeared on our television to begin the night’s political festivities. It was my civic duty to know what was occurring throughout the United States, so I took a seat on the couch as Mr. Obama spoke. A few immensely hallmark points were stated, some of which spawned mostly positive responses from both parties in the politically-mixed audience…and then came a circus.

With "Innovation", he's the man with the magic touch

            “The first step to winning the future is encouraging American innovation.”

            Pandemonium. Ecstatic applause. Smiles on the faces of individuals across the spectrum-left, right, and somewhere in between. The two nations within America united for at least one moment before breaking into civil war again the proceeding day.

Yes, it is absolutely an excellent idea and all that jazz…but the real question is how we put this notion into action. Obama’s plan included encouraging the nation to “reward good teachers and stop making excuses for bad ones”, establishing the “Race to the Top” program to encourage independent reforms within schools, and implementing a new “tuition tax credit” to help more students attain higher education. Yet the president’s focus here is improving the means for an exhausted education system, not changing how students are actually educated. That, in my opinion, is the true key to igniting American innovation. And we can improve the methods by which students are taught through the integration of one simple word into our education system -“discussion.”

Discussion can be used as a learning tool anywhere
from preschool to summer camp..

            Instead of teachers simply telling students that concepts are unquestionably true, students should actually discover that the validity of these concepts by way of talking about them with other classmates. Science tells us that only 10% of our mind’s knowledge is learned in a conscious manner- by way of reading, writing, watching videos, others repeating concepts to us, or us repeating concepts to ourselves. These techniques that contribute to conscious learning are utilized in most schools nationwide. Chances are, my mind will not ultimately retain those biology facts that I verbally drilled into my head. The other 90% of knowledge  is taught to us unconsciously-through any interaction with others or sensual interaction with the world around us. One of my kindergarten science experiments included leaving a cup of apple juice near a window to see if it would eventually disappear.  The fact that some apple juice indeed disappeared acted as proof of evaporation in my mind, and I still belief in evaporation to this day. My remembering of the actual experiment shows just how pungent the action of proving concepts true (or “interactive learning”) is in the human mind. However, students need to see proof of the concepts they are taught in more classes then science if they are to better remember these concepts and readily apply them in adulthood. The way to accomplish this is discussion. One person bringing up a real situation that disproves a concept spurs on other students in the classroom to verbally discern how the concept actually is present in the suggested incident. All students in the classroom can also try to ultimately prove the concept wrong. In the latter case, the teacher would have students complete an interactive project that proves the invalidity of the concept, a project that would be later entered in some sort of contest so that students gain a sense of pride in their work. Both of these scenarios require sufficient knowledge of those concepts that would normally be present on today’s examinations; students would either understand the concepts enough to prove them wrong, or possess the memory of how they were proved right in a session of interactive learning. Additionally, all of the aforementioned discussions require a questioning spirit that is simultaneously needed for innovation to transpire. Are you hearing this, Mr. Obama?

            Now, I am aware that those students who are immensely quiet in school could gain absolutely nothing from the reformed education system. This population can be separated into two parties based on one principle: if fear or complete indifference to educational matters is the cause of their muteness. The first group can be easily dealt with by a reformed grading system. Instead of assessing what students know through examinations, teachers would discover the extent of their knowledge by seeing if the students use that knowledge in class discussions. Homework would exist for the sole purpose of introducing students to the concepts that will be used in class, but its completion would not heavily contribute to the student’s final grade. This is because the completion of homework would be a mandatory prerequisite to participate in class discussion each day, and since teachers grade students based on their participation in class discussions, incomplete homework would still contribute to a failing grade. Quiet students that care about school would ultimately be forced to “come out of their shells” and therefore become much better equipped for life in the real world.

Quiet slackers, on the other hand, would be sent to an alternative school in which they learn required material in astonishing depth at the hands of private tutors. Each student would spend the entire school day with a tutor who does not permit him to speak, question, or abstractly interact with the information. The required content would just be presented and explained to each slacker by adults with the emotional ranges of machinery.  A quiz on the content covered the day before would be given at the beginning of each educational session, and the school day would only end when the student has both received a perfect score on his quiz and learned all concepts scheduled for that particular day. Monthly finals that test the content students learned throughout all prior months of school would be given too.  The school year for each respective student would be however long it takes for that student to receive perfect scores on both his monthly finals and a cumulative examination. The aforementioned method of teaching would, of course, render the alternative students unable to remember the concepts and facts necessary for success in the real world. Spawning from this inability would be the same decreased amount of overall success these students would attain as a result of the modern education system. Enthusiasm will always be the keys to the kingdom of achievement.  To embed this ideal into their minds, all of these alternative students would be forced to spend one week every other month in the regular schools so that any progress they make can be rewarded. If a student performs well and applies himself to regular classes, he would be permitted to participate in the customary schooling system; all others who still slack would return to the uncreative hell. The horrors of the alternative schooling system would additionally encourage slackers to apply themselves so that they can participate in regular schooling, a much more enjoyable option.

Students enrolled in regular schools would also not be permitted to participate in the alternative education system since being interactively educated is most advantageous to them. I know of many extremely gifted individuals who do not perform to their highest capabilities because of sheer laziness-I was on the bus once and heard a fellow of mine explaining how he was “really smart, but just [didn’t] care.” In this system, all who can succeed would be forced to do so, making the combined potential of American peoples as a whole be realized. They would have no have a choice to but to “care”, and educational powerhouses worldwide would fall at the hands of pure, American drive.  Jobs in education would also be preserved since private tutors in alternative school and discussion-moderators in regular schools create an exorbitant amount of available positions. .

Much government funding is palpably necessitated to make the reformed education system work, but Washington will simply have to grow a pair and deal with it if they desire so much “innovation”. My World History teacher has told me how Florence, Italy was one of the most artistically active cities of the Renaissance. Why was this the case, you might ask? The fact that the house of Medici, Florence’s ruling family, affluently supported excellent artists such as Michelangelo did not hurt.  Fareed Zakaria says that “the fastest-growing economies are all busy using government policies to establish commanding leads in one industry after another.” Well, education is an industry that constructs the American future.



*NOTE The following sources were used for this essay:

 

Obama, Barack H. "2011 State of the Union Address." Speech. 2011 State of the Union Address. 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500, Washington, DC. 16 June 2011. Huffpost Politics. The Huffington Post, 25 Jan. 2011. Web. 15 June 2011.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/25/obama-state-of-the-union-_1_n_813478.html.

 

Stephanie. "THE MEDICI FAMILY." Yukon Education Student Network. Yukon Education Student Network. Web. 16 June 2011. http://www.yesnet.yk.ca/schools/projects/renaissance/medici.html.

 

Zakaria, Fareed. "Innovate Better." TIME 13 June 2011: 30-32. Print.