The Truth About Failure

Growing up in the panhandle of Oklahoma, I found myself surrounded by religion. In my hometown of less than 2,000 people, there were at least 8 churches that I can recall, all Christian.

I never gave it a second thought until I became a teenager and started developing ideas and opinions of my own about the world around me. My observations produced a definite appreciation for religion. So many churches! To me, it meant religion provided people with something so invaluable that not one, two, or even three churches could or should be built to facilitate it.

I attended church, but not because my family told me I should. I started going to an evangelical, self-proclaimed non-denominational church in a nearby town with my best friend and continued doing so throughout high school. I prayed, worshipped, socialized, ate, and even slept there sometimes. My dad died on a Sunday my senior year of high school, and a week later I was in service at my church, sitting on the front row. After his sermon, my pastor said, onstage with his mic still on, "Luke, I've been looking at you this whole time and can't help but feel moved to pray for you." The entire congregation surrounded me and we all wept together.

It is for this reason precisely that I'm drawn to religion.

I've never felt more alive with religion or more at peace with myself, something I've noticed to be common amongst people everywhere. On the other hand, religion has raised more questions in my mind about life than anything else I've yet experienced. My deep appreciation for the divine and desire to understand what it is is what characterizes my occupancy in a world of questions without concrete answers, one dominated by human emotion and driven largely, I believe, by fear. What comes with religion is, to paraphrase the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, an answer to the complex question of life itself and its apparent lack of meaning. When the desire to understand the world converges with the fear of failing to understand it, religion is born. 

Religion embedded a formidable sense of morality in young Luke. Before I came to college and started living on my own, I thought I had a definitive sense of right and wrong. For instance, I knew for certain that murder, hate, and lying were all wrong, and by the same token, I knew without a doubt that compassion, love, and honesty were all right, or "good."

Because of religion, I'm currently at war with myself. I simultaneously revere and despise my morality because it makes me feel so conflicted yet I can't seem to shake it. I've come a long way from classifying things as simply black or white in typical evangelical fashion, but I haven't quite decided for myself how much morality is necessary for the survival and proper function of society and how much is superfluous remnants of ancient superstitions regarding some cosmic sense of judgment.

I haul my morality around with me wherever I go. It wakes up with me in the morning and goes to sleep with me at night. I am married to my in-flux sense of right and wrong. I bring it with me when I go to class, or don't go to class, and it speaks to me about how I should feel about my behavior. It's like my friend's pit bull Molly. She's so damn annoying, and from time to time while riding in the car, she will invariably step on my crouch with her sharp dog talons, but how much can anger can you really hold toward something so cute and innocent and willing to give love without asking anything except the most basic of amenities like food and water in return? All that doesn't keep me from wanting to kick Molly when she inconveniences me.

I refuse to let my morality get in the way of me doing what I want to do, when I want to do it, as long as I don't hurt anybody else. But that last qualifying clause "as long as I don't hurt anybody else" is the kicker. It's because of that clause that I question my behavior at all. I'm so afraid of letting other people down. I'm so afraid of letting myself down and coming up short of whatever mysterious vision I think my life should be. Because, really, should it be anything at all? My human side says yes but my rational side says not necessarily.

College is a wonderful test of faith in oneself and one's own sense of morality. "Should I go to class?" Well, if you want to pass and get one step closer to graduating, then yes. There's nothing good or bad about that answer. It's pretty straightforward in its moral approach to the situation.

I want failure to be something I embrace as equally as I embrace success.

Blind Spots

When I was a kid, I used to secretly wish I was blind or deaf. Due in part to my desire to feel special or unique. It starts as soon as you're old enough to notice there are other things like you--other people. As a baby, everything is about you, but you don't know it. You are completely egocentric minus the ego because you have no awareness of your Self. In pain? Cry. Feeling happy? Laugh. It's all about communication. You don't yet have the brain power to be conscious of how anything relates to you personally, and therefore, no ego exists.

The world was entirely what it was without question. Curiosity existed within your baby mind, but it was curiosity for curiosity's sake. Babies, as far as I know, don't look for meaning in the same way adults look do.

I've often wondered how I would've developed if I had been brought up by wolves, like Mogli in The Jungle Book. Probably rather wolf-like. Would I have turned out just as homosexual as I am today? Would I have been as afraid of commitment as I currently am? Would I still yearn to understand what makes people tick? These questions fascinate me, but the important thing to note is how they highlight my humanity itself. Human nature longs for purpose and understanding, direction and meaning. Those things, I've discovered, come with time, but not always. The same could be said for wolves, but I don't really know much about them, so speaking on their behalf might be unfair.

I've learned that the more time I spend inside my own head, the more easily I fall victim to my mind's illusions. It's a tricky game to play, since I love my thoughts and my thoughts love me. My brain begs to evolve and survive and soak up as much information as possible, so I try. My ego tries. My imagined sense of individuality or personage or selfhood tries its damnedest to grapple with the games that occur naturally within the powerful brain the created it, or... me, or whatever.

One of my favorite movies, The Fountain (starring hunka hunka burnin' man Hugh Jackman and ivory-skinned goddess Rachel Weisz), features a scene in which a Spanish Inquisition Era Catholic priest preaches to imprisoned blasphemers being strung up by their feet. Grizzly as it may be, the scene sticks in my mind because of a line the priest says in his evil, low baritone patriarchal voice: "Our bodies are prisons for our minds." Or something similar to that. I may venture to disagree with his notion of a captive audience (see what I did there), but quite honestly, he's right, in my opinion. What gives us our sense of identity? Where do our morals come from? How do we explain our ability to feel pain, anger, sorrow, excitement, panic, peace, fear, joy, or discontentment? The answer is right between our ears. It is the most incredible machine known in existence. It is hardwired for success and survival. Its capabilities stupefy and bewilder, and yet it is something everyone owns. If that doesn't light a fire under your ass, I don't know what will.

But back to babies. By the way, since it's November and Thanksgiving is fast approaching, let us pause for a moment and thank our blessed mothers who bore us. Especially mine, since I was a 10 lb. sack of potatoes who never apologized.

My mom gave me something more important to me than life--youthfulness, which is different in my opinion. She and I talk frequently about how old we're probably going to end up being because neither one of us ever feels old. In our heads, we are still children eagerly crawling around the surface of the planet and smelling the roses for the first time. We are insatiably curious and unmistakably naive, the both of us. I'm a mama's boy to my core for these reasons, if nothing else.

Any doubt we have over our lives comes from our own minds. Until we realize that, the world is somewhat limited and incomplete. Of course, our senses themselves limit our perception of the universe around us, but more importantly, I think, is the power the mind has over those perceptions. Every day I must decide to readjust my eyes and notice something new. If I don't, then the world has become a memory and even more of an illusion than I previously thought. Everything passes away, and to think that something is the same as it was yesterday is incredibly ignorant and incredibly false.

Babies have the answers we seek. Selfish sons of bitches.

Gay Christians

Picture this.  You're sitting in a crowded cafeteria, surrounded by your classmates (or, "colleagues," as your professors would say) enjoying your lunch.  While the program for the first musical of the season is being passed around the table, a few people make a comment or two about how many Bible verses certain cast members used in their bios.  Coincidentally, a trio of self-acknowledged Christians sit directly to your right, all three of whom you would consider your friends, or at the very least, your acquaintances.

You immediately recognize the conflict that might possibly arise, so you take what you think to be a preemptive strike by turning to your staunchly Christian friend who is sitting to your right and saying, "No offense. You know that Christianity is just an easy target here."

Only to have her retort, "So are gay people."

You feel a rush of blood flush your cheeks very briefly.  You are stunned at not so much what she said but how she said it, almost like she was so offended and quietly outraged that she felt the need to degrade a particular demographic which, if you will recall, had no hand in the aforementioned comments made about the Bible verse bios.

Okay, I get it, I get it.  She's mad because she's a straight Christian female at a very liberal college, no less a home to a centralized community of gays than a Joyce Meyer conference is a beehive of activity for charismatic Christians.  She's also mad because she probably feels like she can't voice her honest opinions without fear of being criticized by the cloud of liberal minds that surround her every single day.  How frustrating it must be to finally know what it feels like to be marginalized.

Anyway.  This little incident brings to light a much larger issue that I struggled with all through high school:  How does homosexuality fit into Christianity?  Or does it fit at all?  It's a question I think a lot of Christians feel the need to finally deal with now that being gay is no longer considered "sinful" or "wrong" in the eyes of mainstream culture.

I don't think many people at my school know how much I love God.  Perhaps it's because I don't generally talk about God to people in everyday conversations.  Perhaps it's because I don't tell many people that my best friend and I went to church together for five years in high school without being told to by our parents.  Perhaps it's because I don't quote Bible verses, not that there's anything wrong with that.  Perhaps the simple fact that I'm recognizably gay to most people automatically turns off the God switch in their brains.  ("Oh, he's gay.  He probably has beef with Christianity.")  From my experience, a good number of people understand gays in very simple terms, as either one extreme or the other.  You're either a flaming queer who spouts his or her beliefs just as self-righteously as any Westboro Baptist or a closet case who is too scared to believe in or defend anything.

The truth is, there are gay Christians and there are straight atheists, just like there are gay Republicans and straight Democrats.  What is it about our culture that drives us to force labels on everything and everyone?  Are sweeping generalizations and outdated stereotypes really the only way we have of understanding each other?  I think we'd all agree that the answer to that question is no.

Today in my music history class, we discussed gender roles in Europe's Renaissance period.  Our teacher asked the class where we thought the idea of assigning gender roles to music might have come from.  A stream of answers followed, but the topic itself left more unanswered questions in my mind than anything.  What is gender?  Or, more importantly, why is gender?

In our search for answers to such questions, I think the most important thing to remember amidst the confusion is our humanity.  What makes us human, in my opinion, is not our ability to communicate or feel compassionate, but rather our ability to retain that sense of mutual respect amongst each other, knowing that no one's ideas are any more or less valid than anyone else's.  Deep down, I think we all know we're all eventually going to die and none of this will even matter once we've been sucked back up into the unfathomable and all-encompassing living breath of the Universe.

But who am I to make such assumptions?

All I Can Really Hope To Live For

Do you ever think about the people you affect just by living your life?  Last night I fell asleep thinking about evolution.  I didn't used to believe in it, but that was back in high school when my thinking was heavily steered by what I was being taught in my nondenominational charismatic Christian church.  I have come to terms with believing in evolution simply because after having given it what some would dub "rational thought" and weighing out all the possibilities in my mind, it seems the best possible explanation.  That's not to say, however, that I no longer believe in creationism.  That's one belief I will never be able to give up.  I say "able" instead of "willing" because I feel as though my believing in a higher power's creation of my existence was and is not a personal choice, although some may argue otherwise.

I agree with the sensible and elegant explanations of my physical being offered to me by the theory of evolution as easily as I agree with the notion of extra-terrestrial life elsewhere in the universe.  From my angle, as a good Hindu might say, if the odds of something being true outweigh the superstition or fear of it being true, chances are the most reasonable explanation is accurate and, indeed, true.

That being said, I consider myself three things:  a child, a scientist, and a pacifist.  A child in the sense that everything to me is possible, or rather anything is possible in every sense of the word; a child in the sense of my unbiased acceptance of what I observe and experience as basis and grounds for exploration.  A scientist in a basic sense of the word because everything must be questioned.  And a pacifist in the most basic sense of the word; I don't look for answers in morality, but rather solutions in the cooperation of all things in nature.

Last night I thought about one particular day in my high school biology class when we were discussing evolution.  At the time, I agreed with my teacher, as did the rest of our tiny five- or six-person class, so no real tension arose, and the discussion became less of a discussion and more of a group support session about how none of us believed in evolution, commandeered by our teacher.  The funny thing is, I remember listening to her reasonings behind her beliefs, processing them, and agreeing with them just as easily as I could listen to and process the reasonings of an adamant evolutionist today.  So I think to myself, "What has changed?"

The complex answer to that question, I'm finding, comes from a much less complex understanding of what it means to be human, or even further, what it means to exist.  No surprise these fun little musings sprung up in my mind around 2 a.m., I should guess.  Anyway, just roll with me here, if you feel so inclined.  If not, please feel no personal obligation to continue reading this blog post.

I read an article online this morning about a young woman's most profound spiritual experience.  Actually, I shouldn't say it was her "most profound" because I don't know if she's had any experiences she considers more profound since writing the article.  Anyway, it was about 300 words recounting a trip she made to South America where she encountered a deep sense of self-worth just from being out in the open spaces of a rocky region in the mountains.  One line stuck out in particular to me, and it went something like this (I'm loosely paraphrasing):  What I realized about unity, about being part of a whole, is that my life is a journey in living within the illusion of life but never accepting it.  Wow, I thought.  How can such a simple statement affect me so deeply?  I felt taken aback for a brief moment as I ate my breakfast omelette and sipped my orange juice.  The line set up shop in my mind as I contemplated it and prepared to explore what it had to offer me.

So frequently have I found that life's most elusive mysteries, questions like "What's the meaning of life?" or "How do I find happiness?" resound powerfully within us because our mind's don't quite know how to answer them yet we desperately desire an answer anyway.  To me, that speaks volumes about what's important to us as creatures, as objects in our own rights.  Who we are is defined by the questions we ask.  Every person I've ever met has wondered what their purpose is.  Why is that?  Some would say that it's an illusion of our own consciousness, that our minds have evolved to a level of intelligence where it's possible to facilitate meaning to everything, including our own lives, even when there may be none.  Others might say it's because there truly is a purpose, or reason, to everything.

I agree with both views.

The very fact that this random girl's article affected me so deeply tells me two things:  first, that her words "mean" something to me, for whatever reasons, and second, that I have the ability to recognize that meaning and assign in a place in my life, or my plan of actions waiting to be performed, to put it blandly.  Furthermore, the fact that I'm writing this very blog post in order to share this newfound knowledge is proof to me that meaning is inherently infectious.  When a child learns something new, what do they do?  They tell everyone ALL about it.  Kids really can talk for days.  When I was a kid and my parents got divorced, I used to sit in the back seat of my mom's car when she came to pick me up for a visit and babble, babble, babble about all the things I felt she should be updated on in my 8-year-old life.  Our egos are marvelous machines.  But let's be honest.  As extensions of our physical bodies, it should come as no surprise to us that our own general states of self-awareness have the power to figuratively and quite literally shape the world around us.  Our egos are responsible for every shade of meaning we will ever perceive in our lives.

It's my belief that humanity is in a current state of transition from our soon-to-be brutish past of competition, capitalism, and neighborly envy to a more (uh oh I'm gonna use this word) enlightened state of greater awareness of, respect for, and practical cooperation with each other.  This is the true beginning of the Information Age, a cultural crossroads in which knowledge is no longer safeguarded by higher authorities in an attempt to maintain power but instead shared freely among individuals who seek to further their own understanding of the world around them.  Along with this era comes the inevitable defiance of the ego, or as I like to refer to it, the struggling memory of our former selves.  As purpose for the ego diminishes, society flourishes and evolution naturally takes over.

But what does that mean?  Basically, to me, it means letting go.  It means fundamentally rejecting what holds oneself back from progress.  Ironically, the "Self" part is exactly what holds one's self back.  The Self, or Ego, demonstrates considerable clout in determining what we think and do.  It's responsible for our tendencies to step back, hesitate, and of course fear.  It's responsible for some productive and responsible things as well, like self-evaluation and conflict resolution, because, as my Wellness professor put it when referring to the common practice of Body Mass Indexing, if it weren't useful, we wouldn't still use it.  I think, as this surge in technology and modern medicine moves forward, many people, myself included, begin to seek answers that science can't yet provide.  And yet, our egos seem to hold us back by reminding us of our own imperfections.

Humans have evolved, or adapted, if you prefer, an awareness of the ego, an understanding of the glue that keeps our "selves" (moral sentiments, emotions, convictions, insecurities, pride, self-worth) together, as well as a slightly less foggy understanding of how that glue works.  Our brains are clever.  Clever enough to trick actually themselves into believing whatever they want, choose, or need to believe, so I am inspired by anyone who really "gets" this concept.  The rise of a greater awareness of all of this makes this a stage in our collective history unlike anything previously written down in textbooks or scribbled onto the memory of our minds.

Whether or not someone agrees with or believes in evolution or creationism or hedonism or omelette-ism means nothing to me.  Evolution is simply a word that means "moving forward."  I don't really know what the exact etymology of the word is but you get where I'm coming from, right?  Look around you and you'll notice that life doesn't stand still; it moves forward, always, in an unending rhythm of symmetrical harmony.  For whatever reasons, this is what it is and how it is.  There's no denying it.  So why fight it?  Why argue over whether or not evolution is right or whether it's wrong?  Why stand around debating the semantics which we ourselves created?  Even though it's my nature to do so, I don't like to assume.  I can assume, though, based on twenty-one fresh years of childlike observation, that anyone who is like me, aka human, will be able and willing to connect in some way to what I'm saying, care about it, build off of it, hopefully help it grow, and let it benefit the both of us.  That's the type of behavior I believe will change the world.  It's all I can really hope to live for.

Meet My Therapist

Consistency has never been my friend.  Initiation?  My bff.  Enthusiasm?  We were childhood sweethearts.  Mr. Consistency is to me as gays are to cattle farmers.  We tend to stay away from each other.

It's not that I don't like Mr. Consistency.  If I had things my way, he would be my husband.  I could look in the mirror, wave, and see the giant wedding band he bought me sparkle as it catches light, serving as a reminder of his relentless, unfailing, cyclical love.  But the Universe had something else in mind when it created me.  For whatever reasons, the molecules that coalesced to create Luke Charles North at the moment of my conception happened to lend themselves less toward sturdy, reliable guys like Mr. Consistency and more toward shifty, mysterious rebels like Captain Confidence.

I don't do well with consistency.  It is for this very reason, though, that I feel it's my living duty to dedicate myself to finding it.  (That, and I love a good challenge.)

I'm not even being consistent with the way I'm writing this blog post.  Where am I going with this?  Who knows?  There's not much more to say about my lack of consistency other than it's like any other addiction waiting to be shown who its boss is.

And it's not that I've been too lazy to write a new blog post since April.  I've just been too lazy to get my computer fixed.  So now, sitting at a desktop computer for the first time, I remember the consistency that always rekindles my hope in myself when I sit down to write my feelings.  I'll be doing this til I'm eighty.

Have you ever noticed that your best friends bring out the worst in you?  What I mean is, the people closest to us have a tendency to highlight our imperfections, kind of like a teacher proofreading their student's essay.

Letter after letter, sentence after sentence, paragraph after paragraph, I live my life in hopes of getting a message out to anyone who will read my essay.  But the more I think about it, the more I can't help but wonder why I invest so much energy into writing the book rather than living it.  For every word that goes unspoken, an action is ready to take its place.  Nobody remembers the speech itself that Martin Luther King, Jr. gave at the Lincoln Memorial; they just remember that he GAVE it.  The very act of doing something imbues it with this kind of intangible thread of credibility.  More likely than not, it's because anyone can write a speech, but not everyone can give one.

The truest, most effective messages don't live on through printed words or eye-catching Facebook statuses.  What we remember comes from what stands the test of time!  What's here today may be gone tomorrow if it doesn't serve a purpose to anyone.  For instance, why do people use the same trite phrases like "What goes around comes around" or "Actions speak louder than words" when trying to understand life?  Or even "Only time will tell"?  If those phrases weren't true, people wouldn't say them.

I say all that to say this:  When all you wanna do is dance, you better stop worrying about what the outcome will be and just fucking dance because you never know when you're gonna get pushed off the dance floor.  Didn't Lady Gaga write a song about that?

The Computer Lab

Over Spring Break, my laptop crashed. Yes it was my fault, but during that time, someone also stole my bike, which was not my fault. It put me in quite the pickle, though it was more like a gherkin than an actual pickle, tasting it for the first time and realizing it's actually a pretty pleasant experience.

I've been using the various computers around campus in the library and the computer lab, so now, as I type, I am in the company of other young people. And I must say... I like it. A couple nights ago, I was walking across campus and felt an unexpected and overwhelming sense of loneliness. Of course, once I felt it, I chased it out of my head like a bad dream and proceeded to walk to the computer lab, where my college counterparts were busily typing and chatting, working on last-minute essays, putting together procrastinated presentations, and cruising Facebook. And since this whole computer lab/library thing has become somewhat of a nightly ritual at the end of this semester, I found myself yet again in the same environment, this time working on an essay for English, a short manifesto assignment called "This I Believe." I titled it What Ties Us All Together.

Maybe the title spawned from my One Love spirit or just the simple fact that I had been unwittingly surrounding myself with people more frequently than usual over the past month. Either way, I felt inclined to talk about my love of humanity, so in essence, I briefly wrote about what I think makes humanity one big family. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy just typing about it, the voice in my head reading it out loud like a soft whir.

None of us are ever truly alone. If we feel that way, it's because our minds have tricked us into believing it. Yet, technology has brought us closer together and at the same time driven us apart. Ironically, social media has altered the way we connect with one another so dramatically that we forget how closely connected we actually are. It's easy to get lost in the endless status updates and picture posts. It's easy to feel alienated when you're not part of the "activities" happening onscreen before your tired eyes. A whole crowd of people could be "online" but no one talks to one another. Instead, we sit in silence, interacting with one another through Likes and Comments instead of one-on-one communication.

Think about all the contacts in your cell phone. When was the last time you spoke to one-tenth of them? I forget on a daily basis that my family is just a phone call, or for the most part, a twenty minute car ride, away. Where does loneliness fit into this equation? When I really think about it, it doesn't make sense. Why would I ever feel lonely when I: A.) live on a campus filled with people my age, including many of my friends, B.) have the means to instantaneously connect with virtually any of my friends or family anytime, or C.) am rarely within five feet of the nearest human being?

Sometimes, a mind can seem like a bundle of contradictions.

Frustrated Mother Syndrome

"My mom told me that, if I jumped off a bridge, she wouldn't care."

That's how my friend responded when I asked how his forced spur-of-the-moment weekend visitation with his ultra-conservative parents in California went.

By her logic, sending her gay son to straight camp is the ultimate act of love.

But... I thought that if you love someone, you let them make their own decisions. I thought that love was about giving, not getting. Helping, not hurting. Listening, not shouting. Remember that phrase--"If you truly love someone, you'll let them go"?

Everyone has his or her own parameters of what defines this word, but I think society has perverted the meaning of it. And by society, I mean the collective unit--the general population living under the same sky, breathing the same air, and receiving the same messages from major advertisement companies.

Behind this perversion is the commercialization of love. It's nothing new, in terms of mankind's history of existence. I'm simply expounding on some ancient observation made by Plato or someone like him who recognized this phenomenon way before me. Advertising corporations may try to convince you that love is something you can purchase. Religious groups may try to convince you that love is something you can earn. Scientists may also convince you that love is simply a mixture of chemicals in your brain.

If you agree with any of these ideas, I ain't mad atcha.

But if you think about the times in your life when you have felt most loved, you probably felt free, undeserving, and maybe even a little bit spiritual.

I think we'd all agree that love doesn't hold anyone prisoner. That's precisely the paradox presented in the Frustrated Mother Syndrome: A woman who knows her son to be gay but refuses to accept it feels powerless to change him, so she acts out of fear and ignorance (and promotes such fear and ignorance) by administering a punishment and calling it love.

Let me translate:

"I'm sending you to behavioral therapy" means "I think something is fundamentally wrong about you, so much so that you should change it"

And

"I've done all I can do to help you, but if you refuse to change, I won't know what else to do" means "I don't recognize my own insecurities which cause me to feel angry towards you, so I'm going to abandon you in order to ease my own pain"

But a more precise translation might be,

"I blame myself for this quality in you that I loathe, and I'm too afraid to look past it, so I need a period of solitude in order to remember that you are my son and that a mother would give up her life for her child, as well as a moment to gather the strength I need to accept the things I cannot change about you, push past them, and continue loving you no matter what"

At the end of the day, next week, or even ten years from now, what will have actually mattered in your life? Whatever the answer is, THAT is what deserves your energy.

Waging War On Anger

The last thing you want to hear when you're angry is "You need to calm down." I rarely hear that because I'm rarely angry. In place of anger, I feel loneliness. Loneliness is like the bully in elementary school; if you don't address it, it follows you everywhere, forcing you to live under its shadow, but if you face it head on, you begin to understand it and thus grow smart enough to conquer it.

I guess a lot of problems are like that.

When the clouds cluster and cast a shadow on we, the tiny people of Planet Earth, idiosyncrasies modern psychology has dubbed "disorders" begin popping up like premature spring daisies from our hearts and minds. Really, though, it all starts in the mind, in my opinion. From there, the heart follows.

Today I was walking to the cafeteria after my noon class and saw a freshman guy I've seen a thousand times before. I silently noted his handsome features, just like every other time I see him on campus, and continued walking. Then I thought of the guy he's seeing. Then I thought how nice it would be to have a boyfriend.

Then I wondered why I was telling myself a lie like that. I know for a fact it would no sooner increase my livelihood and overall happiness any more than getting a haircut would, which I did last week (and yes, it gave me a little boost). So why do we feel compelled to reach out for comfort and acceptance from others? What makes us so uniquely tied to one another despite how much we may deny the fact?

Then came the shocker.

"What if I took that love I desperately crave and gave it to everyone around me?" I thought to myself. An idea so incredible and simple and beautiful I almost wept from the time it took me to spot freshman guy to walk the fifty steps to the doors of the cafeteria.

It's remarkable how easily our brains can shift their usual modes of operation when we tell them to. When we take conscious control and begin steering them in the right direction, we take control of our lives... our surroundings... our circumstances. We begin to shift from the victim mentality to the victor mentality.

It's almost like refusing to give into temptation. Yeah, yeah, yeah... I want that chocolate bar/new pair of shoes/case of beer, but if I tell myself that there is no longer room for compromise, I won't give in.

I want to wage a war on anger. I want to completely reverse my primal order of self-serving emotions, which as anyone knows is no easy process. The world works in many mysterious ways but also in ways that are embedded in our very own fibers. I am a part of this world, so I must function as an extension of nature. I must give before I receive. I must work in harmony with others. I must view myself as a member of a larger work of art, not an entire self-sustaining galaxy on legs. People inspire me, but it's easy to get lost in inspiration and fail to act on what I've been taught or what I've witnessed. The longer I stand staring at myself in the mirror, the less I remember about what I look like. Because what is knowledge if it goes unused?