Choices

Politics! Politics are hard to figure out. Sometimes I find myself having to sit down and think through an issue , attempting to put aside my parents opinions and my teachers opinions, which are normally on opposite sides of the spectrum.

Which is weird, because as a kid, you’re always told that your parents and your teachers are right, then you start to understand politics. And at school my teachers are singing praises to FDR and at home my parents sing praises to Reagan. 

It’s hard to try to overcome this indoctrination on both sides and attempt to form your own opinion.

Mine started in eighth grade, when we read The Giver in Patton’s class. (If you haven’t read it, you should.) She asked us if we would rather live in a completely structured world where every action is governed, like the book, or a world with no laws.

There were two of us that raised our hands for the world with no laws. Two! (Which by the way kind of makes me scared for my freedom.)

After class my two best friends and I argued about it. “But people could kill you!” They said, over and over. 

“Learn how to defend yourself.” Was my reply, which in retrospect seemed naïve that that was my defense. I just knew that I  wanted  the free world more. I couldn’t really come up with an argument.

It probably stems from the fact that I am and extremely independent person, but for me it all comes down to the ability to choose.  I think that you should be able to chose to do anything you want, except when it takes away other peoples choices. 

So yes, that means I’m against abortion, because I think those babies have a right to make choices, yes that means I’m against the death penalty, because they still have choices to make,  and I dislike that the government takes money straight out of our checks, because then we can’t chose to not pay and protest.

"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." Yes I totally did just quote Dumbledore to prove my point. J

Transparent

Last year I was in creative writing, and the best thing we would ever do is sit in a circle and review each other’s work. I remember the first time my work was shared so clearly. My heart pounded as the papers were passed around the room and I secretly watched everyone’s face as they read. Would they hate it? That was the question that went through my mind, not will they love it? I watched in fear as they wrote something in the margins, would it be good commentary or bad? There were specific people I watched carefully, people I respected for being Creators, for making something I could appreciate.

When everyone was finished and put down the pages we started in a circle saying the good things we like about it. I was so afraid it would be like the other sessions that I had participated in, ones where people would say, ‘I really liked your dialogue’ in a really flat, emotionless voice, and the next person would say, ‘I agree with her.’ And no one would think of an original compliment and no one cared to.

It wasn’t like that at all. They said they loved it, they said they liked the way I skipped around the years, they said they liked the present tense and that I wrote like I was a third grader or seventh grader and this and that and so on.

But then came the opinion that mattered to me, this boy that I had known for a year. I had seen him Create things that I couldn’t. I respected him for what he did, what I saw, and I wanted him to respect me.

I won’t tell you what he said, because it doesn’t matter.

I respected him because of what I saw, and later in the year when I was able to work with him, I saw who he was. I heard what words came out of his mouth, and I watched his work ethic. It’s not that he was a bad kid or anything; it’s just that I shouldn’t have given him blind respect. I shouldn’t have said to myself, ‘I need to take his opinion into greater account than the others because I’ve seen what he can do.’

Really, it doesn’t matter what we can see people do. What is more impressive is what we don’t see. The way someone smiles at their friend when they’re having a bad day, it’s the bond that’s forged between best friends, it’s the atmosphere the parents create in their home. Those are the more impressive acts, because they can’t deceive. When someone writes a page or makes a video or acts on stage, they are hiding themselves behind their work, acts you can’t see are transparent and allow you to see the real person.

Make an effort to recognize when someone moves aside to make room for the outcast in the conversation, or when a joke is said just to get that one person to smile,  or a bully insults someone just see them wince,  because it happens all the time, these acts that we can’t see. And we do them, unconsciously, without being aware that we’re showing people who we really are.

How did they think of it?

Caramel  Apples. Let’s just sit and ruminate on Caramel Apples.

Who in the world would even think to dip an apple into caramel? It’s things like this that make me sit and stare into nothing while I contemplate who would do anything like that.

But the fact still stands that they, while thinking about dipping apples into caramel, created something. At the time it was only an idea, that maybe they laughed with their friends about, and then decided to seriously try it.

But creating, the act of creating is something I desperately want to do, which is why you find me in my schools video program,  Ed Hews,  or on my schools newspaper staff, and why I’m attempting to write a book and why I am now starting this blog.

It’s why you can sometimes find me sitting, thinking about the person who created refrigerators, or iPods, and what possessed them and how can I create something that is uniquely my own?

I haven’t figured it out yet.