Youthful Life: X

" Moving on is not closure. It's not neat, and it's not about turning the page. It is about moving on, but it doesn't mean that you've left something behind." Thomas Gibson Let go. Let go of things out of your control. Let go of people who don't want to hold on to you. Let go of people who you know you should let go of. Let go. Closure is often something we are deprived of. Things rarely have a clear ending. The world is messy. We get left behind. Relationships fizzle, fall out, or fade. Closure gives us peace. Closure is definitive. Closure is final. It gives us that ultimate release to sever all ties, clean house, and move on. Closure can be hard even when we do get it, or better yet, or ensure it for ourselves. Sometimes we avoid closure because we know how decisive it is, and some part of us has hope that things will change or get better. The harsh reality is, patterns continue unless they are changed, cycles remain cyclical unless they are bro...

" America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds  herself to be false to the future." Frederick Douglass The American Dream is dead. Rather it never existed. Maybe it did, but even then it was not made for everyone to be able to attain it. What's a dream if its within reach for everyone? No it was, is, and always will be reserved for a select few. And to those who don't fit the selection criteria but somehow, against all odds (*read systemic and interpersonal barriers) make it  - the narratives are co-opted to reify the propaganda that the dream is only deferred not denied. This country doesn't want us all the make it. Our society isn't built for everyone to thrive. Our perspective needs people to trounce upon, to use, to throw away as disposable. We need people to other. We need them to be different. We need there to be a distinction between us and them. That is what we are founded on - blood, the ideals of the rich white-ma...

Truth - No two people are the same. While that may be an infallible truth, we are more alike than we sometimes like to acknowledge. In another sense, there are just many things that make us unique as there are things that make us similar. We're exceptional but not the exceptions. We're complicatedly simple and also simply complicated. We're special and we're not special. "You can't help getting older, but you don't have to get old" George Burns The rhetoric targeted at the millennial continually seems to get worse and worse each year, or maybe I'm just more cognizant of all the stereotypes others put on us, and the ones I was part of creating for myself. Millennials are hailed as the generation of narcissism, superficiality, social media, entitlement, idealism, and restlessness among other things. My issue with those stereotypes is not that they're necessarily wrong, but rather that they are remarkably limiting and leave little to no ro...

Truth - Reality is relative. The ways that we experience the world vary greatly. It is a testament to people being given the same knowledge or facts, and coming up with different conclusions. Absolute truth may not be quite so absolute. In the wake of a truly dramatic campaign season, the different realities we exist in has once again diverged. The divide from person to person seems to grow. Some are relishing in this brave new world, and others are struck with mortal fear. What thing that holds to be true is that no matter what or who we are, our lived experiences are valid. This is our Dys(U)topia.   "Perhaps the greatest utopia would be if we could all realize that no utopia is possible; no place to run, no place to hide, just take care of business here and now." Jack Carroll Hope and peril . Dreams and nightmares. Awe and terror. This is the tale of two Americas and the multiplicity of realities in between. The day after an election is nothing but an almagation of a ...

Truth - Knowledge is power. What we choose to do with that power though makes all the difference. Knowledge can be used to the benefit of others. It can be a tool utilized for liberation just as easily at it be a used to oppress. Knowledge can provide choice, agency, and control in the same ways that it can limit, obscure, and dictate. Knowledge does not come with an inherent values judgment. Those who bear it's weight must decide what to do with it. This is knowledge. "Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family." Kofi Annan Do you ever feel like you just know too much? It sounds like the plot of a 1920's crime ring that you have just unwittingly uncovered, and you're set to be "taken care of" because you gained some knowledge you weren't supposed to have. There is this unspoken burden that comes with knowledge. You have to do something with it otherwise it is truly mea...

The 20s are all about becoming the real you. I used to think it was ridiculous when people would say that they needed time to find themselves, now I I think it may quite possibly be the most important thing we get to do in this life. Everything else either works or doesn't dependent on whether or not we get to be our full selves. I say get because it's an immense privilege and one every single human DESERVES to be yourself. The reality is, as for now, not everyone and honestly very few people ever get to wholeheartedly be themselves. It's sad, scary, and truly disappointing. We should get to be, at least in this sense of the word, ourselves in the most authentic ways possible. Join me on a miniature path to liberation. I am a feminist. There I said it. I know what you're thinking, I'm betraying my own gender and sex (first of all there are not interchangeable or the same; neither are a binary but sex has to do with what you were assigned biologically at birth w...