i found this

i am preparing to move (!) and was going through some old papers and photos today, purging and cleaning. i came across something that i wrote and printed eight years ago, while still living with my parents. i wrote this at a very interesting time in my life, when i was right on the cusp of a lot of change.  think it says a lot about me, growth, change, and also what a terrible writer i was (and likely still am - hi me in 8 more years! i bet you're cringing at this writing!). anyway, i'm going to type it here so that i have a digital record of it. also a sidenote: i remember distinctly after i printed this, i accidentally left it sitting on the kitchen table and my dad found it and read it and i was MORTIFIED. here's what i wrote:

Most things in life, you don't notice until they are gone or have changed, and this is true with the passage of time. It is as if one day you look over your shoulder and your life has passed without you being aware of it, how every year on your birthday, people ask you if you feel and different and you respond "no" with a shrug, but then when you actually reflect on the past, you realize how different you are compared to how you once were. You have to remember to look around once in a while, or life will happen without you noticing, or worse, life will pass you by altogether. It is necessary, therefore, to reassess yourself form time to time, not externally, but from within. You must think about the beliefs you hold and how they affect the binding decisions and promises you make, and may or may not keep. This fact is so true, that it is often taken for granted and therefore overlooked, and thus is the irony of human existence. 


When I was four years old, I came to the conclusion that people in general care about others; that in most situations, the average person would help out their fellow human, even if the reward is not great. This belief carried through with me until even now, when I realize that even if perhaps this is not true, I can't simply let it go. I can't give up home that people are generally good, even if on the surface some seem to have no regard for anyone but themselves, and perhaps their offspring, although I am finding more and more often that even this isn't true. It is absurd, but factual that there are people in this world who have no regard for even their own children, the supposed product of their love for another human being. However, even in the face of this dire uncertainty, I find myself clinging to the desperate hope that people are, by nature, generally good. It is necessary to define "good", even if for no other reason than to justify my belief. My belief that people are generally good simply means that human beings have some innate capacity for compassion, honesty and respect even if these same people will rape, murder, and torment their fellow humans given the right amount of provocation. This definition may seem contradictory to some, but it must be observed that the capacity for compassion, honesty and respect is not the same in all people, and is ecen skewed or distorted in some. There are some people who lack these innate capabilities, but they are the exception to the rule. So suited with my belief in the goodness of people and equipped with just the right amount of naivety, I was ready to take on the world, overcoming obstacles and facing uncertainty, all at the tender age of four.


By ten, I had realized that even though all humans have the innate capacity for "goodness", some were not willing to admit to this capacity, and required the unconditional love and acceptance of those around them. The unfortunate thing is that some people do not have the means by which to acquire this love and acceptance, and therefore spend the majority of their lives masking their innate goodness with a veil of hate and anger. These are the people we hear about on the news, who murder, rape, steal and lie. It isn't that these people can't love, it is that they learned at a very early age that showing love will hurt you and is a sign of weakness to predators. So, it became my personal mission to seek out these people and give them what the needed in order to develop and show compassion for their fellow beings. With this belief, I set out on the mission of a lifetime, equipped with my beliefs and the advantage of ten years of experience in the field called life. 


Now, ten years after I set out on my brave mission, I realize that it is not necessarily foolish to believe that people can be changed with only the right amount of love and acceptance, but that it is naive to think that at the tender age of ten, or even now at the age of twenty I am ready to take on such a daring feat. So now I embark on a new journey, one of learning rather than ambition to change the world, with the hope that by educating myself in the ways of the world, I will in some way provide a sliver of light in the perpetual darkness that is human suffering

Right? I want to write a "where I'm at 8 years later in this journey" update, but I'll do that in the next post because this is long enough.

PS - I corrected a few minor typos, but kept all of the spine-tingling run on sentences and comma splices.

camping was fantastic

see?

i've thought about and written (and then deleted) a number of posts since i returned. which means more coming soon, probably.