Life Lessons with Lawrence: #1

"Is it good or bad to just run into a fire for someone in a fire?" 

-Both, it's good because you can save someone, but bad I guess because you could get hurt.  

"But what if the fire burns you too? Why do you run into the fire?"

-After he said this my mouth parted slightly as if I were going to say something in reply, but my eyes could only stare as he distractedly focused his attention back to the ruler he was using to make a bridge- completely unaware of the lesson he had just taught me. He was talking about firemen of course, when he asked me if it was good or bad to just run into a fire, but I let the lesson sink into me on a philosophical level. 

Why do we run into fire for others when the chances of getting hurt ourselves is so clearly high? Maybe this isn't the right question. It's good we run into fire for others despite the possibility of getting hurt, it shows the intense compassion humans hold. Maybe, a better question is what happens when we run into a fire to save someone?

There a few scenarios that come to mind. The first being the most optimistic: we save that someone. The second less so: we save that someone while burning ourselves. And finally, the third and least optimistic of the three: we don't save that someone and we get burned. All are possible and probable scenarios given your situation. 

I think it's part of the human condition to help those in need, but when we put our own life in danger and do not succeed, who helps you then? 

If you didn't know, Lawrence is a mentally handicapped student I've had the pleasure to get to know this year in 6th period art. His lessons are simple and timeless. I hope have the opportunity of hearing more. 

First Chapters

I got a book a few days ago that I've been looking forward to reading. Though I had much excitement towards the book I kept putting off starting it. It's tough to buckle down and get started. Tonight I decided I would no longer put it off. I've barely even read the first page and a half when I had to stop. A thought just came to me:

 First chapters. They're pretty important right? It seems like hold great importance. But what if they suck?

 I keep going back to the first chapter of my novel and rereading and rewriting. Nothing seems right, nothing seems good enough to be the first chapter. This whole idea has me really caught up-caught up like those vines in Harry Potter in which you keep struggling and the vines pull you in tighter and tangle you more. The only way to get out of them is to completely relax, or with sunlight. So maybe I just need to relax, because first chapters only seem important and my first chapter only seems unfillfilling to me.  I do ponder though, what could be my sunlight to this? 

The more I think about it the more I come to the conclusion that first chapters aren't crucial nor detrimental. They just matter in the sense of how the most common routines matter- they just set ground level for the rest of the day that can't be predicted. In all of my reading, I can only recall one book to which I actually remember the first chapter to, probably because it said "The clock struck thirteen." Which is a rather uncommon way to begin a book. 

 I appreciate first chapters more now than ever. Getting started is hard. I think people see that though, so they keep reading after the first chapter. 

When Daily Becomes Weekly

The thing about writers isn't the wonderful image created in our minds, everyone had that image. It's that we so desperately want to translate the picture into words so that other people are able to see what we see in our heads. You could picture a tree in your head, an average tree, and spend years describing it's every detail so that someone else could imagine this tree too, but your work would never be complete, you're too much of a perfectionist for that. You'll never be quite convinced that the other person is seeing what your seeing. It's too easy to obsess over an image in your mind. Whether it be one you want to share or one you want to see yourself as. Every time you imagine it, it's a little different than the last- making it impossible to ever be able to relate the one image to anyone else unless they are in you head at that exact moment. Which unfortunately, isn't possible at the moment. I struggle to put the organized chaos in my head into coherent writing and I never quite feel statisfied when I finish.

 Lately, I've been using this as an excuse to why I haven't gotten anything posted for a while. When did the daily become the weekly? I knew the hardest part of this blog would be keeping an even pace, but I'm happy to be able to say I still want to keep this blog going. 

The Teenage Years

My Spanish teacher was talking about the "teen years" today in class. We read an article in our textbooks that was about children beginning at ages eight to ten, working to fill their families needs. My teacher told us about how the "teenage years" are really, just fictional. They don't exist. In wealthy countries, like America, kids have some made up time between being a child and an adult, to transition at their own pace. He began to end his lecture with "as a high school teacher, and seeing all the different types of teenagers..." he doesn't know how to treat you guys. Does he treat us like kids? Or does he treat us an adult? "It's up to you, you guys have to choose." He concluded. 

But is it up to us? Do we really get the choice, or are we constantly told what to choose? Coming back from winter break this year, the first couple of days back in school I felt like I was being incredulously treated as a child, especially when compared to during winter break when I felt an extreme sense of independence. Naturally, as the days passed in school, I assimilated my feelings of independence back into the robotic following of rules in school. But, all it took was one three day weekend of being young and dumb to feel that independence again. Turning the train back to the original tracks of this thought, the teenage years suck. You don't belong to a cookie cutter group, people tell you what to do like your a child, yet hold you to adult expectations. Life isn't supposed to be about winning or losing, but if it was, you would lose. There's no winning when you're in the teenager years. All you can really do is act however you deem for for yourself, and say your "still a kid" or "nearly an adult" whenever it benefits your argument to get some leverage in the world. 

English Actually Taught Me Something Today

Ouch. I know, that's a bit harsh, and a hyperbole but it does hold truth.

In English we are often assigned homework that will go unchecked because we are AP students and Juniors so the teacher shouldn't have to check. As the laziest AP student and writer I know, I don't typically do the homework in entirety, or at all. (Sorry) However, tomorrow things are actually due, so I'm doing them! This is definitely a double edged sword. I know I'm not putting in the effort as a student, but I also feel my teacher isn't putting in effort either. 

We are learning about modernism and postmodernism characteristics (or at least we were last week when this was assigned) and upon typing out those characterists I came across this under both modernism and postmodernism characteristics: "Less confidence the work of art is unique, coupled with a sense that culture endlessly duplicates and copies itself" and "Loss of confidence in the Renaissance notion that a great work of art is immortal and ensures immortality for its author" 

 I mean immediately after I read that I just thought: "holy crap, writers are extremely selfish" and after turning over those words in my head for a while I kept thinking "wow being selfish makes me feel good". 

I still can't even put this concept into my head and give you some intellectual explanation of how I feel about it. It's just there, a fact. I like the concepts Selfishness is good sometimes. I'd even go as far as to say healthy at times. Immortality and duplications. Have you heard of the saying that you die two times? Once when you heart stops beating and again when your name is said for the last time. What if your name was never said for the last time? Death is only our middle. After that, well, that depends on you. (I'm definitely not making any allusions to heaven or hell).

Everytime I go see a movie that's main line is a romantic plot I get so frustrated. I am so utterly tired of such similiar plots. I want new, different, fresh! But where does that come from? Our minds are only capable of what we think they are capable of. But we do only know what we know and don't know. That made sense to me. Did you get that? Anywho, everything's a duplicate of something else and I'm still trying to figure out how to break that. 

Jumps and Leaps

I've been thinking lately and have come to a conclusion: there is a large difference between jumping and leaping. Jumping has a much harder connotation on it than leaping. "Don't just jump to conclusions." Whereas leaping has such a graceful feel to it. "It was a leap of faith." In life you have to jump and leap a lot to overcome obstacles and keep moving forward, but should you leap more than you jump, or jump more than you leap? Although leap sounds graceful, it also sounds timid. Why touch anything with only half your heart? Jump into it and immerse yourself in it, see what happens. On the other hand jumping is quite a commitment, you land with to feet. When you leap, you only have one foot forward and the other safely behind you so that you can't fall. Could it be dangerous to jump? When faced with a decision of applying myself to something, or applying myself to a relationship, I wonder do I jump or do I leap? And I also ponder, what have I already jumped or leaped into?

On second thought

I realize that in my last post I left you with "Sincerely, Imanie". The last thing I want is for this to be received as a diary beginning every with "Dear Diary". That feels so impersonal. This is much more casual, as it should, using "you" so off handedly as if we were old friends. I don't even know who "you" are. I feel like I'm talking to everyone, no one, and myself at the same time. It actually renders me feeling rather alone. Alone in the sense or an owner talking to their beloved pet, pouring their soul and thought into ear of the animal and the pet calmly and silently listening as if they were just continuously letting the information soak into their skin. I don't really talk to my actual pets like that. But I'm sure some people do. Although I am sincere about all the words I bleed, I do not wish to make this a diary.  It's an account of daily thoughts of anything.