Youthful Life: X

"Our society is much more interested in information than wonder, in noise rather than silence...And I feel that we need a lot more wonder and a lot more silence in our lives" Fred Rogers What a time to be alive. Those words have been truer than in this current sociopolitical moment. Feels like we're on two juxtaposed timelines. One where folx are continuing to go about their lives as if nothing has changed, and another that is nearly eschatological and dystopian. Everything is normal and simultaneously it's not. What the actual hell is going on? How we both know but also not really know. Maybe it's because the threat that we're facing as a collective populous is not quite visible in the ways that we traditionally consider dangerous. In fact, it's microscopic, subtle, and obscure. It's at once nowhere to be seen and absolutely everywhere. How do we escape the thing that's all around us and beyond our control. Control. There's that word...

The 20s are all about looking past appearances. There is something so deeply humbling about understanding that every single person you come into contact with knows something that you don't know. There is so much more to people that what we get to see. Outward appearances often fool us into made up stories we have for everyone we see. If we never learn more about people then we are forever stuck with the tales we woven about them in the looms of our minds. Things may look good on the outside but a mascot, a jelly-filled donut, or a piñata - what's important is on the inside. Beauty IS skin deep, but it's what behind the beauty that holds the real power. Watch out for the Trojan Horse. What do I mean by beauty not being skin deep? I mean that we judge everything and everyone based on what they look like. When you wrap a gift, the paper you wrap it with, the technique you use, and how it all comes out matter. We eat with our eyes, and also process everything else with ...

Being  a teenager is all about expecting the unexpected. Teenagedom means that anything and everything can happen to you. You're not immune, you're not superman (One Direction might lead you to believe otherwise), and you're just as vulnerable as anyone else. It's a scary realization to come to but it's the truth. It's always crazy to think about anything going wrong, but sometimes it does. The thing is, you're a teenager and you're capable of doing amazing things like making the best out of any situation, and don't ever forget it. While we're at it, let's just get me generally hospitalized. You're probably wondering what's up with this sort of downer of a blog post, well the truth is I might be a huge mess. I had a little accident and the repercussions were bigger than what I had originally expected. Here's the story. Remember my birthday last week (BTW's I'll blog about the day of later this week) - well it was going ...

Being a teenager is all about looking back. It's always funny when older people ask how old you are and say "you're too young to have gone through anything." Listen here geezer, you may be older than Methusaleh, ancient like the mummy in Tomb of the Dragon Emperor and not as good looking as the "Originals" in the Vampire Diaries, but you don't know my life. It's been a long school year, that's for sure but it's finally over. Now you have to deal with the aftermath. One of the things that gets blurred in college is the concept of friendship. People think that saying "hey, how are you" in passing equals some sort of friendship. Face the facts, that's nothing more than a mere acquaintance. Someone you barely know anything about, but more than enough to not call them a strangers. If you literally never say more than a few words to this person like asking how they're doing (especially because you truly could care less) or jus...

Being a teenager is all about hanging out in that little mind-boggling thing called reality. I don't know about you but there are many times where I just zone out and think "is this real life" (David After Dentist style). Usually when I'm in the shower, or after watching an endearing movie or TV show (as in all of them). I get sucked in and find it hard to escape the story that I just mentally partook in. Now that we've all returned from Thanksgiving Break, college is back on and it's been a shock to system (Static Shock). Classes are ending, finals are around the corner and it's all back to reality. Let me bring you up to speed on the whirlwind that is my life right now. Saturday afternoon, I get in the car with my second oldest brother, Eugene, and all of a sudden we've crossed the Ohio River, and we're at the CVG (Greater Cincinnati Airport). I close my eyes for like two seconds on the car ride, past Kings Island (our amusement park), Kenwoo...