Agnosticism

I’ve decided I’m agnostic.

-noun. 1. a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience. -Dictionary.com

“The longer you live, the harder it gets to believe in anything…I can tell you, though, when you’ve been around as long as I have and seen as much as I have, you have to believe there’s some kind of method to all this madness. I don’t know if that’s God, but it’s something.”

            -Christine Warren, The Demon You Know

It’s a method to the madness. Or rather, the chaos to the order. People are afraid of chaos. Street signs, maps, textbooks to keep from forgetting and falling into the Dark Ages again. Order rules. Chaos, the “animal” side, the uncivilized side–that’s the method. It has to be.

I refuse, quite firmly, to believe in a deity. Some say that such beings as the gods are divine; they cannot be understood, yet many of these people spend their lives seeking answers to what they claim cannot be answered. I’m not one to judge. I simply think it is impossible to separate the all-too-human search for answers from the belief in the unknown. Where there’s dark, there will always be that need to light a match.

Rather than spend my days in a church, praying or genuflecting to a being–an entity–I’m not even certain exists, I think I’ll just let it be. If we were meant to know that there is something more, wouldn’t it have been made obvious by now? Would it be right to be tested without giving warning?

A lot of religion is changing how you live. But another part is attempting to change who you are; if you’re gay, if you want to challenge the accepted, if you believe in the use of evil to supplement the accomplishment of good. Some of it, not all, is about defining the lines between what is and what should be, or what shouldn’t be. Why can’t people set their own lines? Experience is the only thing I know of that can really change a person. Consequences.

I love to question. There’s a thrill to be had, when it’s you against the masses and no one can change a thing about it.

“If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind” (John Stuart Mill, On Liberty).

At the same time, I know if you question too hard you end up believing in nothing at all. Some things are taken on faith, and stay that way. You believe you’ll wake up in the morning, and you do. You don’t spend your life thinking you won’t wake up–though it would make people more eager to live better and faster. You don’t expect to lose the baby, or break up with your high school sweetheart.

I’m fairly certain that agnosticism is the easy way out. It’s saying that even if we tried, we couldn’t understand divinity. But it sounds true to me. If there is something so superior, it would not be superior at all if we had the ability to understand it. I wonder, then, if God were real and began killing millions of people, if his followers would still follow him. If he killed the sons and daughters of everyone in the country. If he set off nuclear bombs and started a dictatorship with his hand behind every torture, every beating, if people would still want to follow him. They would say, no, this is not God, because God would not do this. But how would they know what God would or would not do? Perhaps, what they call evil, is merely a different side of the same figure.

Perhaps the reason there are two “superior” beings, one for good and one for evil, is that people want there to be. It’s rejecting that we have a darker side, and that this darker side can’t lead to good. But sometimes ruthlessness wins over compassion, and saves more lives and helps people live better.

So I won’t begin to assume I know what’s what. I’m agnostic, end of story. Well, perhaps it is only the preface, but I’m too sick of thinking to begin reading the first chapter. I know if I start, I won’t stop, so I’ll save my questions for a time when I can find the answers. Maybe later.

Maybe never.

Predestination (&&chocolate!)

It’s too late to be writing. Everything is dark except the computer screen, and frankly, it’s staring to make my head ache. Everyone else is asleep, but I’ve just been reading and I can’t sleep after I read. Other people’s words lend me too many thoughts for a mediocre insomniac to stand oblivion.

So instead I will…question. I like to question. Even better, I like to answer, and sometimes when I write out questions the answers come quietly to the page before I know it.

I’m questioning…I don’t know. Life. Rules. People. Individuals. The time, the place, this computer, these words…

I want to know what it means. I want to know if people were meant to become great. It is, the science textbooks say, the natural order of the world for everything to break down and dissolve. Diamonds are forever? I don’t think so. But we’ve already proven that humans aren’t always harmonious with nature. So are people forever?

There’s something. It’s a notion I can’t quite form into words.

Is it predestination, when a president it elected? I suppose you couldn’t prove it one way or the other. It is ridiculous to assume that everything every person does is already laid out for them. It makes it so easy to excuse throwing away your life, saying, “nothing I do can change it anyway.”

So predestination might not be so hot. But maybe there’s something to it. Like a lot of things about religion, good/evil, etcetera, there always seems to be that bit of truth. What is truth? Science says it is something supported by every piece of evidence. But that means it would take one counterexample to prove it wrong. So in the end, truth wouldn’t be truth at all.

Maybe it’s what feels right even when everything else feels wrong. Or that could be perspective, or intuition–I don’t know.

Back to predestination. I’m thinking there’s something more to it. Not a solid rule, but a whim. When you wake up in the morning, can you say it is predestined? You expect it to happen. You even will it to happen, and your bodily functions make it happen. Then you open your eyes and forget all about wishing to wake up and see the Sun rise one more time. Then perhaps, it is also predestination that you do not wake.

It could be, not prediction, but inevitability. Everyone dies. So when you don’t wake up in the morning, even if you were perfectly healthy the last day, could it be predestination? To be born…there can be no death without life so to be born would be predestined. In order to die, you have to start somewhere.

Inevitable. I do hate the word. It’s so…cagey. I’m a sheep in a pen, a dog on a leash, a human being led to the gallows one tiny step, or one giant leap, at a time.

It’s so reassuring. I read about Einstein in school. Most everyone does. What I liked the best was how he found evidence that the Universe was expanding. (“If you can accept that the Universe is a matter of expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaids is easy” ) And yet, the rest of his life he tried to prove himself wrong.

Perfect example, in my opinion. People in general accept what is “proven.” The individual tries to prove him/herself wrong. It is easier to accept that we are nothing, that we die, if it were to happen to others before us and after us.

But if one person was different…

“Suppose you were the only human left, and the entire world was filled with dragons that thought differently than you, had different loves and hates, dragons who didn’t understand why you loved television or sugar or abstract art. Suppose you were the only one with feelings like yours, and when you talked to the dragons, they couldn’t understand why you were upset or angry or sad. Would the dragons be such a comfort then? Could they cure your loneliness if they didn’t understand anything about you, if they didn’t share anything with you?”

 

It would be so much easier to try and fit in. Easier…except easier doesn’t win Nobel Prizes, eh?

 

Alright. I don’t even know where I’m going anymore. I was just thinking…Final Destination! And I hated those movies as much as I loved them because not only is it guarenteed that everyone dies in the end, but it’s guarenteed everyone dies in the end. That’s the best part both ways. It sucks, but it’s inevitable, so it’s reassuring. It’s even enjoyable. After you get past your horror at watching your favorite character get blown to pieces in a freak accident, you think, “well, at least I knew it was coming.” So the freak accidents aren’t such freaks after all. They will be delighted to hear the news.

 

I do hope I don’t die tonight. Don’t we all? Well, perhaps not all of us…if I were 110 years old and couldn’t use the bathroom without help, and all I could eat was mush, I’d want to die too. It should be legal for some people to die. I hate that even if you don’t want to live, like you’ve made the decision and there’s reasonable cause, you’re not allowed to. Like humanity at large is so terrified of dying that they force their fear into their laws and you have to abide by them.

 

No but really, all this predestination crap is giving me the chills. It’s freezing, in the midwest, where the winters hardly get below 50 degrees Celcius.

 

Erg. -Shiver- I like chocolate and rollar coasters too much to ever want to die.

Faking it

So I’m listening to Kelly Clarkson and earlier I was playing Neopets, in tribute to my underdeveloped frontal lobes or whatever you call them. Apparently my judgement isn’t fully what it should be, so no one can hold me accountable for what I say. (Which, I’ve decided, is the best and the worst part of being a kid. Most no one takes you seriously.)

Mostly the only things I’ve been thinking about lately are…interviews. No! Not interviews. That was a fluke. I’ve never been to Pakistan. I’ve never even been out of the U.S. Why would someone want to ask me questions for a Pakistani blog? Huh. That’s been bothering me lately.

But also, I must point out the occurances that seem to stick out in my mind. Not just one, but many of them.

I have a bad habit of becoming stuck in a mindset. I’ll think, “the world is bland. The world is boring.” And it has nothing to offer me. And then something–several somethings–happen to make me go, Wait. What?

I have a few close friends. Most of them, being teenagers and rather angry at various issues with the school and authority in general, mostly only believe that people are wasteful. They are destructive, and hateful. Sometimes I cant help but agree. Who wouldn’t? You see the evidence…

But this is a lot like magic and love and religion in the way that keeping the faith with people takes a lot of effort. The moments that surprise me, when my parents give me an unexpected gift, when my brother hugs me (what’s this??), even when I read a book and it’s like listening to the soul make music. It changes my mind.

I don’t want to talk right now. My mind is overloaded with information. I just found out my mother is afraid of owls…but then, she’s afraid of rats, and snakes, and scorpions, and just about everything that moves. And I found out I, apparently, will be the first person in my family with a Ph.D., though I didn’t know it until today when I was so politely informed of the decision…

This headache is killing me. It makes thinking about the generosity of the human race difficult.

So people aren’t kind, right? They aren’t benevolent, or cruel, or joyous. We’re black. No, not like that. Black as in, we have everything in us. Every shade. It’s a mix, a cocktail. Some with more of one color than another.

If so, should psycho serial killers or alcoholics be blamed? If some people are merely born with a weak will, or with a violent nature, can they be blamed? How would we know they weren’t faking it?

Ugh.

One more thing. I’ve been thinking a lot about why I write. No one else does. No one else knows I write. They think I’m talking to my friends on MSN, or emailing or homework. And I won’t tell them, either. They don’t know I write.

So I’ve been thinking, if I don’t want to share what I write, why do I do it? It makes me…vulnerable. An anonymous nobody on the Internet, who no one will ever meet or care about. It’s all so disconnected, it seems.

I think it’s because I don’t want to write with my brain any longer. In school, they teach you how to write essays and research and that’s all well and good. But I’ve long complained about the lack of creativity. I think, even without knowing it, this is what I did about it. I wrote.

This isn’t an essay. It isn’t historical, or some bit of obscure news. I’ve always assumed I’m going to write when I’m older, but I don’t mean being a journalist or a nonfiction author. I don’t want to write with my head.

I think I’m trying to learn how to write with my heart.

But I don’t know how. Not in sentences that make sense. Not in phrases that have meaning beyond theory, beyond speculation. I don’t know how to write with my heart and it’s killing me trying, now that I know what I’m trying to accomplish here.

-Head meets table-

I need asprin and sleep.

Against (100 Words)

Ok, this was downright fun to write. It probably doesn’t even sound like it relates to the topic, Against, but that’s because I had to cut and cut and cut until my cutter button rebelled. Dreams of revenge are quite sweet

Here’s my…ah, entry:

I won’t be afraid. The familiar faces around me are meaningless. I will not tolerate being one of them.

My legs shake. People glance at me, frowning. They’re listening to the speaker giving a suave aggregation of his notorious school career.

“They’re my friends,” he says, smiling. Cameras flash. “I love each person graduating today.”

 Rage nullifies my fear. Suddenly, I’m standing. I’m reaching down, grabbing the microphone.

“He doesn’t love any girl who won’t step out of her pants for him.” The pain eases. He’s standing stock still, in embarrassment. Cameras are flashing away and I’m smiling. I’m smiling.

 

~~~~~

It’s because of recently attending my brother’s HS graduation. I disliked the valedictorian of his class, and entertained various vengeful situations during the ceremony. Shame, shame. I know.

 

Eh, the mystery continues.

Oh, crap, have I fallen into it. Maybe it’s horomones but I just bawled my eyes out for three hours over the season finales of House and Grey’s Anatomy. So I discreetly wipe my eyes and retreat to my room like a good little clone and then I read my comments and I start bawling all over again. Cripes, is it possible to get pregnant without having sex or the whole implantation thing? Because it happened to my (female, obviously) dog. At least, it’s sort of a mystery when it happened considering our other (male) dog doesn’t have that certain capability any longer.

Jeez. What am I talking about? I can’t seem to get my thoughts together lately. I think it’s because we’re out of school now, for eight (count um–8!) weeks. The entire year I was looking forward to this break but now that it’s come I’m feeling more than a bit lost. The only things I’ve done so far are watch movies, bawl over season finales, and play Cleopatra (with cheats) on the computer. Ugh. I have no life, I’ve realized, outside of school.

It’s left me more than a bit disoriented.

I shouldn’t complain, but I intend to anyway. Being in school so long takes up so much time that you have to dig into that requisite alone time in order to maintain a life in the world beyond classes and homework. And sometimes homework replaced the relaxing time, too, but I won’t mention that.

I could go on forever about how much it sucks to go to school for 8 hours and sleep for 9 (erm, 6…) but then I remember how, theoretically, other people have it worse than me. Sigh. I just can’t win.

So instead of complaining, I’m going to…reminisce!

There are only two things that really stuck out for me in the past couple days. No, make that three. I’m including the season finales and the comments that turned me into mushy whip-cream pudding. Those are important.

First, there’s the presidential race. Now, I’m not going to stick my opinions in because I figure everyone else and his mother has already done enough of that for the next fifty elections. But it’s sort of funny what I heard someone say about it. It went something like, “And we’re stuck with a guy who’s got too much experience, one with too little experience, and another candidate with the wrong KIND of experience.”

Heh. Not going to be looking at that one too closely. It wasn’t funny until I read it the second time and realized all the possible innuendoes…and then I read it again and it turns out it isn’t funny at all.

So the third thing was when I was thinking about magic…in an abstract, subconscious way. It was actually when I was eating shortcake and getting bored because the cake made me angry for trying to choke me and I refused to finish it. It was too dry anyway.

I remember reading a book, and for the life of me I can’t remember its name, about how magic, if it were real, wouldn’t be what we think. A lot of things are like that, but this more than anything. It wouldn’t be some special, unique power people wake up with one day. It wouldn’t be a sudden revelation on TV, about how “others” have been living in our midst all this time. It wouldn’t “happen.” It would just “be.”

What I mean is, if there were such a thing as magic, it would have always been here and always will be. Like a part of the world, but a part that has always eluded the most brilliant scientists. What caused the Big Bang? What causes that first, miraculous spark when a baby is born? Why does this chaos we live in; why does it work?

I like to imagine, when I’m bored like I was in that moment, a world where people wielded powers such as telekinesis and mind communication and pyrokinetics and then it hit me how outstandingly absurd the whole situation is. If it hasn’t happened before, why would it happen now? But then you read novels sometimes, and the author makes it seem so real you feel the same tug in your heart that they did when the book was being written. And you realize, they want to believe in it too.

For some people, some of the smartest and wittiest of them all, magic is a lot like religion and love. You can tell them, every moment of every day, over and over, that it does not exist but the true believers are the ones who hold onto it even when every bit of logic is heading the opposite direction.

Unfortunately, I can’t do that. I’m not a blind follower, despite how my parents and my friends (sometimes) want me to be. I can’t believe that one day the world will discover magic and everything will be exciting and people will be brave and heroic like the heroes from the comic books we adore…because we want to feel that there’s something more out there. Because we want to know that this isn’t it, that life isn’t just this day. We won’t always wake up and stumble through living like it’s something to get over with and put behind us. That’s why there are people who believe in religions without a shred of evidence, who go to sleep every night knowing tomorrow will be different. Even if that day, and all the days before, were exactly the same.

But also, I can’t just dismiss the idea. Like String Theory, magic is one of those things people–and me, I admit–hold onto so tight no bit of cold fact will ever dissuade them from it. Maybe, though, there is such a thing as magic, and we’ve yet to find it. Perhaps there is some filter in the brain that blocks us from it, some hierarchy, some superiority that could eventually be reached by the human race.

I don’t believe that. I like to think that living, if not life, is not about the miracles we wish would happen but the miracles that happen over and over.

Birth. From that first, vital, desperate sucking in of oxygen and the loss of the first innocence in that long line of them, to the last. When you die, what would you see? Would you finally, after all those years, realize that there is no magic to living? Or would you realize that it is a spell that keeps the world turning as it should, that we haven’t all been annihilated by our insecurities and trecheries by now?

I wonder if magic isn’t will. If losing your will means losing your magic; some gorgeous, invisible force that lights up a persons eyes. When they die, those eyes glaze over and they don’t seem to see, despite they are the same eyes the person possessed when he or she lived.

Or maybe, it is subconscious. Maybe it is what keeps us walking when our soles have worn through and our feet are scratched and we leave bloody marks where we’ve passed. Maybe that’s magic.

If so, we aren’t missing out on much. It’s a sad, dark thing to believe that we’ve been living with magic all our lives and no one ever realizes it from that first breath to that last. Truthfully, it’s so much more convenient to go along with the “we haven’t discovered it yet” or the, “there is no such thing as magic” theories. To think, that people live all their lives waiting for something magical to happen…only to learn that the magic is neither as explosive or life-changing as they want.

No, it’s much easier not to think about it. And though I’m beginning to run out of examples, maybe magic is that hope that tells them yes, their magic, their miracles and changes exist.

Perhaps then, the absence of magic is more powerful than the reality of it.

After all, hope it what keeps unhappy people going. Hope and subconscious, the need to survive. If that is magic, without the fireworks and the pretty lights, it is undoubtedly the most powerful force in the Universe. Invisible, but the pull is so great that not even the slacker can escape…a human Black Hole, if you will.

This is all theory. Of course. It’s not something that will ever be measured. But then, there are things, emotions, reactions, that will never be explained. Not with logic, or statistics. This is not something that can be weighed. It can’t be written down into a formula, for some scientist halfway across the world to replicate. The Scientific Method is very much in the dark when it comes to the things that wish to remain in the dark.

Ah, it feels good to know those mysteries I wonder about will always be there for the next person to ponder over. It’s good to know humans can’t conquer anything. It allows for a certain amount of…satisfaction, with what has already been done, rather than the feeling of failure, that we’ve yet to accomplish so much.

Ha! I knew there was a reason I didn’t read utopian books.

Distraction: 100 Word Story (attempt)

In the front of the classroom is a drone; the buzzing of a thousand killer bees.  I ignore it. Why pay attention? Test tomorrow. I force my eyes to the whiteboard but the squiggly red lines dance continuously like some obscure African ritual. It’s not the sunlight outside that’s so tempting. It’s the clouds. I want to jump in the puddles, though I’m trapped here with learning shoved down my throat. It is such a pleasant distraction. I can’t help but want to touch that rainy sunless sky with fingers far too short to reach so far into the heavens.

Evil? Or, simply, human nature?

I’ve long insisted that evil is not what most people think. Most are willing to believe that anything opposing their own standing and values is evil. Anything that goes against what they think must be wrong because they just can’t understand it.

It’s a tough concept to sort out. I wouldn’t want to have to give a solid definition because I’d fail. Several dictionaries cite it as misfortune; suffering; morally wrong. My question would be, who decides what is wrong and what isn’t? It’s not me, and not them, that’s for sure. Perhaps if humanity could learn to be one unit, unified, there could be a definition. But right now, with the diversity that makes living so interesting, there can’t be.

I’ll suffice to say that evil is when one person’s heaven becomes another person’s hell and the first does nothing to change it.

I can’t quite say that it’s evil to sit back and watch someone writhe in their hell, because the entire subject’s a little shady. People have first the instinct to survive, and then the instinct to do what they feel is “right”. But there’s always that first instinct, so what if the person would lose their life to save another’s? What if there isn’t even that chance, but all the aloof people believe you did wrong to accept life even if there was no chance to save the other?

It’s all very vague. Conceptually, the idea of evil is one we base most of our lives on. Some chase after it, to arrest it, to change it. Some want to become it, for the fear it instills in people even if they would never admit it. Some spend their lives running away from it. A lot like death, I think. A lot like living.

People don’t run after what they’re afraid of. Or so we think, right? Weeell…

Isn’t it that people run after what they fear because they want it so much? Death. Life. Evil. They want it but they fear what the future will be with or without it; what’s in store for them because of it. Isn’t everyone afraid once in a while, when they’re running away from a scary sound or a mugger and the only things they can hear is their footsteps and the pounding of their heart? They’re afraid because this could be it. In five minutes, perhaps you won’t have a heartbeat anymore. You’re afraid of living, but you want it more than anything.

I like to think of life on a scale. Not in numbers, not in words, but in actions and feelings. Where grey-orange is when you almost hate somebody because they hurt you. Where bright blue is when you’re happy, and dark yellow is when you’re pondering life. If so, evil would be black, and good would be white. But isn’t white the absence of all color?

If that’s so, there would be no perfect good. There is no right.

And wouldn’t black–evil–be a combination of every color there is? Perhaps it is that humanity together is evil; the evidence would all be there. There’s the waste, the hatred, the sexism and pure, unadulterated prejudice. And then there’s the better side, where intentions are positive and people can’t bring themselves to pull the trigger.

Perhaps evil is simply human nature, and not anything so shameful as it seems. Simply one person trying to acheive their heaven. When it conflicts, when it changes in a negative way for the rest, that could be bad. Evil. Who knows?

So there’s my definition. Maybe I should start my own dictionary. But then, that’d be somewhat presumptious and I don’t think it’s going to happen anytime soon. I’ll leave the real defining to the experts, and speculate just enough to throw some shadows on those shining, clear borders.

Color Inside the Lines

The biggest difference between middle and high school is restriction. In some ways, it’s easier to get away with trouble in high school because you realize that no one really cares if you’re drinking Dr. Pepper in class or texting during passing period. You realize that the bus drivers could care less that you’re sitting the wrong way in your seat and the only reason you got busted for it before was because they had to say something or get chewed out by the bosses.
But in middle school, you can afford to be different. It’s so much easier to be creative because there isn’t that constant fear of, what if it’s wrong? I’ll get a bad grade and people will think I’m a suck-up, and what if this leads to me not being able to get into the college I want? So you’re not creative, and most of the time, that’s exactly what the teachers are looking for and you get A’s. It’s a lot about knowing when to stretch the boundaries and when not to. In middle school, it doesn’t much matter if you got the B because you tried something new and it didn’t fly. No one looks at middle school. No one cares about middle school. That’s why you’re not rushing to fulfill objective after objective assigned by the district.
It’s all about the tests. Testing, testing, and more–guess what!–testing. Every week it seems like there’s a big test in at least one class; some distant formative supposed to determine if you really get something or if you’ve been screwing around in class. A test can’t care that you just forgot one variable, or you understand a concept but you can’t put it into words. It’s all about whether you remember the basics: in an essay, broad start to specific then the thesis; transition, quote and citation, supporting sentences, repeat twice; transition connecting the two paragraphs, quote…etcetera etcetera.
“You’re supposed to be grown up enough to realize that what you’re learning now is the basis of everything you’ll learn in college.” “What if you don’t go to college?” “Then at least you’ll know this.”
Sound reasonable? Translation: The first fourteen years of your life never mattered. What mattered was when you learned to read and write and everything after that was fluff preparing you to prepare for college. It’s the time when you have the chance to get all the creativity out before you get to high school and learn standard after standard.
Really, we need something fun. And then when a teacher–in this case, my Spanish teacher–assigns something creative like a play in Spanish to perform in front of the class, there’s nothing. You sit there staring blankly at the computer screen (yes, at my school we all have our own laptop provided by the district). There just aren’t any words. And when you finally type something, it’s so bland and flat that even you hate to hear it.
Sigh. I’m such a complainer. But I must protest the lack of wriggle room. If the world is all about what you learn in high school, the world is a very dry and unimaginitive thing indeed. Maybe we really are the communist society, for learning what others deem we must know in order to live rather than what we believe will help us carve out a place for ourselves.
At least, I suppose, I’ll be excellent at taking tests if nothing else for the rest of my life. By the time I graduate, I’ll be a master at filling in the bubbles completely with no marks outside the lines. That’s what we learn in high school and, really, most of the years before. How to color inside the lines.

Communism vs. Human Nature

I want something exciting to happen. I know it isn’t such a great thing, but I can’t help but imagine every day driving to school, what if I get in a car accident? I wouldn’t have to go to third period. Yeah, I hate PE that much. It’s for those in track and just about nobody else. Kill me now.

So then I have a project I’m working on–officially, of course. Seems like nothing worthwhile I ever do is not for a grade, but teachers always have the best ideas for projects. It’s called the Generation project, and I had to research Pakistan in the 1970’s. So I got to learn about the Bangladesh Liberation War and the Indo-Pakistan War.

A lot of history seems to revolve around communism. Truthfully, I’m a bit uncertain about it myself. In the beginning I believed completely that it was a horrible thing, as most people probably do. But then you get to actually reading about it and you realize how conformist you’ve been, following what other people say. A lot of things are like that. You hate Star Trek until you watch a couple shows and realize it ain’t half bad. You hate Ambercrombie preps because of the stereotypes you see on TV, but then you meet a few “preps” and find out they’re just a bit more privileged than you are.

I think communism is a lot like that. People hate it and make fun of it without knowing why they should hate it at all. And really, I don’t dislike the idea. It sounds so equal, so righteous to be able to say that everyone in a country is completely equal, with the same things and the same values as their neighbors. No one is starving, no one has money to waste. Balance. Communism is about balance.

But the thing is, people aren’t. People aren’t made for balance, not in their lives, not in their values or wages or freedoms. The ideal is great, but it takes away individuality. If everyone was equal, we wouldn’t be able to think for ourselves. We’d be clones, no one would stick out, and no one would ever be remembered after they died. They’d pass and that’d be it. Done. No gravestone, or at least, a name on the gravestone that sounds so foreign no one reading it even pauses.

People aren’t made like that. While a country might start out the perfect communist state, it doesn’t last long. Someone takes advantage. I read an article online about a woman who grew up in a communist state.

“Everyone was jealous of each other – tried to figure out who had more, how they got it, and if we could get it too…Under the red banner, I knew hunger, I knew pain, and what I experienced most of all – was fear. A deep, breath-taking fear that crushed your voice inside your ribs. You didn’t look up, you didn’t ask Why, you just obeyed” (Elisa, Subversive Writer, subversivewriter.wordpress.com).

And suddenly all that talk of having the same as everyone else, of everyone having an equal chance doesn’t seem so wonderful. No poverty, no wealth. No satisfaction with what you have. Reflecting back on it now, I don’t get why I thought it would work to begin with. People are so different and ambitious that taking away the chance to be more would backfire eventually.

Then again, I don’t know much. The only thing I can do is look at what other people have done and make my own (likely inaccurate) assumptions. Growing up in a free country where you have no fear of war, where you’re protected by family and law, and everything is handed to you for the first 18 years of your life, you don’t get to see much of what used to be. I know, theoretically, that there are places where dozens of children die every day of starvation and that there are some places where genocides are still occurring but it just doesn’t make sense to me. Growing up away from all the prejudices and the fear, I just don’t get it. Not really.

Sometimes I wish I grew up with fear. Sometimes I wish I knew what it was like, so I could be the one teaching others that what they have isn’t what everyone else has. I don’t like not knowing, but perhaps knowing would be worse. Do people simply adapt as they grow up, and true pain to them is the equivalent of a needle-prick to me, but feels the same for us both?

I want to know. Not know, as in reading history books and spending my life in school learning. I want to know like, I want to go and find out myself even though I realize I’m ruined for life. I’ll never be able to go through what other people go through and not remember how good I used to have it.

So I don’t understand communism at all. Even though I wrote that paper on it. Even though I read all about it on Wikipedia, I don’t get what it was actually like. I could write a book on what it’s like growing up in a free country where the only thing you’re held accountable for is your actions. I could go on and on about that but that’s about all I could do. It’s all I know.

I’m probably looking to far into this. I have a bad habit of taking what’s happened and overexaggerating the analysis. Tsk, tsk it’s all those days spent poring over English essays and texts trying to make sense of words not even a bookworm like yours truly has ever come across.

I’ll just go find something simple and uncomplicated to do then. But now that I think about it, nothing is simple and uncomplicated. It’s all started somewhere…

I really need to stop that.