living.

I've been dying to leave the United States for a while. I love New York City more than I can say, but I think I deserve to experience beauty in other parts of the world.

I also wonder where I'll live someday. I dream of having an apartment in Greenwich Village, perhaps. But where to escape to when city life bombards you?

I've visited Arizona once, to see my godmother. An eccentric, but very insightful and beautiful person. I've had dreams of deserts since; standing in one, admiring the limitless amounts of sand and sky.

She said to me, once; "I always visited people living in these beautiful places, and I thought, well why can't I live somewhere beautiful?"

It's a good point. Those words "why can't I live somewhere beautiful?" have been replaying in my head for weeks now.

Maybe I'm not meant for a desert. Maybe a beach house to escape to. Perhaps a rural area. Perhaps some deserted place, tucked away from modern living, so that I may regroup once in a while.

Who knows, now. I'm still an undergraduate in a dorm with a dual bathroom/kitchen sink, after all.

But when I finish writing this chapter, I'll have to bring myself further along the road I've been paving myself for 20 years. I'm old enough to know that being idle is foolish. I'm young enough to know that I can flit in and out of places, breeze through towns and cities and find something to smile about in every one.

I'd like to have one inexpensive escape location, though. Someday. Even if it's just a place to park my car for an evening, or a place to lay down comfortably while I stargaze.

But I know I'd like to live somewhere beautiful. Everyone should want that. Beauty isn't just a vacation stop. Whether you create it around you or you stumble upon it while you're wandering through a foreign area, embrace it. Try to be present in it as much as possible. And when you feel like you're sad to leave it, always remember that you deserve something beautiful out of life.

I cannot trust this, or any, government.

if they cared about the people, anyone with established power in the world would stop allowing money to be poured into weapons development, and put it towards improving the quality of life people have.

if anyone cared, we'd stop inventing new technologies to take into battle, and we'd start looking at ways to solve world hunger and devastating diseases.

they don't care about us. that's why the world is crumbling beneath our feet.

words.

words have been a long time companion of mine. I understand them, and they understand me, in a sense.

they take what I'm thinking and make it concrete. when I read them back, it's almost like looking into a mirror that shows far beyond my exterior.

every single day, I wish that I understood people as well as words.

I suppose I had a lot of quiet hours to spend alone with my thoughts growing up. I was an only child and I wasn't very outgoing or loud. I daydreamed and thought up stories and poems and bizarre ideas. I had imaginary friends and conjured up these fantastic places for us to visit.

I started formally writing when I was 9, and it's been my favorite retreat from the world since. when I'm somewhere that I can't sing, I write.

I write letters to people who have hurt me. even if they never get the letter, I put it down someplace so they may leave my head and make room for better things to enter.

I am socially awkward and working very hard to change it. it's difficult for me. I have spent more time with myself, retreating into the sanctities of my mind, than I have with another person.

my advantage, though, is that I have grown to be very observant.

the phrase 'always watch the quite ones' is very true. not that we're crazy, just that we aren't vegetables. we don't sit there and shut down. we see things that other people miss while they're talking.

I for one have an excellent memory for little things that others don't catch. I remember dates, times, how people word things, and several other seemingly miniscule details.

my note taking is precise and I don't let it get sloppy.

words have become something I obsess over.

I hate people who refer to them as empty or limiting. I hate people who throw words like 'love' around. what you say sticks to people. it plants itself inside of them and remains there. I think people should be more aware that negative things seem to root themselves even deeper, and every variation of 'sorry' in the world can't uproot them.

this is the barrier, though, I suppose. this is why I can't be socially comfortable. I'm analytical and my only strong point is my writing.

but this is also why my imagination hasn't been smothered by this society yet. I'd prefer to keep that than an overactive social life.

I'm a naturally optimistic person, but I am growing so aggravated with the world and it's inhabitants.
a bunch of careless human beings who do nothing but hurt one another to selfishly profit.
we ruin the earth that has done nothing but give, and we demand more. we ruin each other, step on people to get ahead in a rat race built on lies and more deceit, we isolate anyone we consider different and harm them, and we put lives of others second to things that make profit. we destroy with war and don't stop to think what we're doing. we throw people into mass graves and don't stop to glance into their eyes to try and see what last thought or feeling was frozen on their faces.

sometimes at night I lie awake and cry when I think about all of the pain in the world, and how no matter how hard I try, I can never help everyone I want to.
other times I want to kneel down in a forest and touch the earth and tell it I'm sorry. I'm sorry for what humans have done to it. I'm sorry that we raped it of it's gifts and got angry when it couldn't give any more. I'm sorry that we destroy it for selfish reasons.

people push love and genuine feelings away and then preach about how others should live and let love in. people kill then act like they value life. people walk past someone who's hurt then say that they care. people cheat on someone who would do anything for them then expect life to reward them.

I am sick.
I want to vanish from this corruption.
if there's anybody left who isn't a disingenuous self centered moron, I'd like to meet them.

I find it curious that children seem to see the world far more clearly than us 'educated' adults.

children face death with selflessness courage, acceptance, and with more of a concern for their loved ones than themselves.
they see people, not skin color or other petty outer appearances.
they know how to dream. they aspire to be the most beautiful and innocent things when they grow older.
they want to be an astronaut to see the universe and learn, not to become famous. they want to act to make other's laugh, be doctors and nurses to help people, and bake just because it's fun to get your hands dirty. none of it for the money. the dollar sign is transparent and hardly phases them. they want to become police and firefighters to save people's lives, not for power.

how can you possibly overlook how genuine they are?!

I pour so much energy into every second, minute, hour of my life. I pause before making decisions and I thoroughly plan what I can.
But it's curious to me that in one hundred years from today, my brain will have rotted, my flesh decayed, and my thoughts, actions, words, feelings, all will only be a faded ripple, long since forgotten after pushing others outward.
I like to believe that there's a soul trapped inside of this body, something that will be able to look back at everything I've done with greater understanding and enlightenment.
It's a bit unsettling knowing that all of your work will be remembered for, perhaps, another generation or two that follows you. Unless you achieve this false sense of fame and power, that is, and they decide that some of your actions are worth recording in some form or another.
However, one must bear in mind the effects that the sparks of your life provide.
every action feeds the fire in it's own seemingly microscopic way.

my fear of death is characterized by my fear of ceasing to exist. my comfort in death is knowing that every action creates a ripple in the water, or throws a spark into the fire. although obscured by the rest of the world's developments, they're present.