Realizations

Hello there! :) Recently, I've come into some realizations about life, myself, the world, etc. I've spent a lot of time working on some stories, and also, thinking. I've pretty much discovered a plan in life as well. That's always nice!

Just last week, I finished The Catcher in The Rye. I'd like to discuss that.

Normally, it's a book read in an American literature course which I will take this upcoming school year. However, apparently my school (as have many others, I've heard) has banned the book. I took that as an incintive to read it myself.

I love Holden Caulfield. He's probably my favorite fictional American character at the moment. His view on the world is so true, so depressing, and yet, so very much like my own. I adore the symbolistic writing use of J.D. Salinger. His writing has led me to the realization of just how important, albeit a bit antagonizing, written symbols are. I'll keep that in mind as I begin The Great Gatsby in a little while.

Writers are the most underestimated people in this world. Anything to do with the media, was written by a writer. I think it's quite horrible how writers aren't given as much credit as they should.

While I'm on the topic of writing, I've come to another realization (What can I say? Realizations are finding me). People call other people a wide variety of names everyday. People call other people "weird" all the time. But when you stop to think about it, the society we all live in is quite weird.

Then again, the concept of normal is just an average. Normal does indeed exist, but it's just an average. 

It's been a while since I have written one of these and I've been thinking a lot about a few things. One of my favorite celebrities at the moment is Darren Criss, and I've taken some of his ideas and put a few spins on them.

There are plenty of close minded people in the world, but there are also many, many, open minded people. There are in fact more open minded people in the world than there has ever been. It's now acceptable for people to do things in today's society than would have ever been possible in any society. Yes, there is still a plethora of idiocy that plagues the world, but more and more knowledge is being circulated every day.

One hundred years ago to this day, in 1912, the idea of any sort of cellular device, namely an iPhone or Android, would seem incomprehensible. To turn that around, 1912 was the year the Titanic sunk. People before 1912 thought that a great ship such as the Titanic would never sink. The world has come a long way since 1912, indeed.

Humanity faces many problems now--our supply of fossil fuels is disappearing, diseases that are complex and produce horrifying results are being found, and the world is becoming more and more populated day by day. We have so many great things, though. We have beautiful works of creativity, we have amazing results of intelligence, and we have incredible ideas as to how to solve our problems.

The world has lost many geniuses; Albert Einstein, William Shakespeare, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart are no longer with us. There are plenty more geniuses that we no longer have as well, such as Vincent Van Gogh, Edgar Allen Poe, and Carl Sagan. There are however, plenty of people now who could be considered geniuses. There's Stephen Hawking, Steve Wozniak, Stephen Fry, and Steven Moffat. There's also many people I personally consider geniuses such as JK Rowling, Johnny Depp, and I'd even consider Darren Criss to be a genius too.

The one thing all geniuses seem to have in common is the urge to find, create, or produce something. That something could be a piece of music, a story, a mathematical theory, or even a philosophical theory. There are even a few different dictionary definitions for the word genius.

1) unusual mental ability, 2) a natural talent, 3) exceptional creative ability, 4) someone who is dazzlingly skilled in any field, 5) someone who has exceptional intellectual ability and originality

I believe every person I named above fell into at least one of those definitions. In the end though, genius is just a label.

That brings me to a good point. Labels. Any time someone calls you anything you dislike, or like, for that matter, it's only a label. Treat it as an actual adhesive label; you can simply peel it off if you want.

Today in my English class, I had a quite depressing thought. There have been billions of people who have died over the years. Most of them won't ever be remembered, many of them didn't even reach their dreams. A good number of them probably had miserable lives. This is why it is so amazing for us to live in the society we do today. We don't all have equal opportunities to be famous or remembered once we perish, but it's a good deal more equal than it used to be. So please, do what you like to do, you never know when it could pay off that you were one of the few people who liked something.