Attitude

Beliefs are not solid. They have no foundations in perfect reality.

No, beliefs are fluid, and questionable, and debatable, and unique. No one will believe the same thing as another person. No one belief can be used to declare another one false. No one belief sits on the top of the hierarchy of ideas.

And no belief is forever set in stone.

The beliefs of the past are now titled 'myths'. The myths of today are titled 'legends'. Where is the line between what is a true belief and what is a myth, a falsified notion that is created to explain the exact same thing that a modern belief does? Is there a line between what is and what is not? Where is it? What does it mean? How do you know it is true?

More importantly, what if you are wrong?

What if your belief is wrong? What if all the doubts that creep into consciousness are, in fact, reality trying to warn you away from childish fantasies?

Why are questions so frightening and taboo when it comes to belief?

Face your fears and they will vanish. Question yourself and become better.

But do not use your own insecurities to attack and belittle another person. Do not fall to the temptation and the arrogant attitude that your belief is better than another. Do not think that your belief automatically makes you a better person. It doesn't.

It makes you a statistic, a stereotype, a scapegoat. It makes you a believer, a denier, and human. It makes you blind, full of sight, and lost. It makes you new, and old, and found.

But it makes you no better than everyone else.

After all, your belief doesn't make you a better person, your attitude does.

Graduation

Graduation is not the final chapter of education and learning, rather the first chapter of the rest of one's life. It salutes graduates into the world around them as people who have fought and striven to become great enough to be allowed a passage directly into life and reality.

Not to say that reality was with held from them during their years of schooling. It fact, it was even more enforced in academic buildings than it will be in the real world. Reality has success and failed attempts; reality has friends and outcasts; reality has tests and experience; reality has pros and cons. And so does school. If one is not 'fashionable', 'popular', or 'just right' in school, they are shunned or looked down upon for being different. Being unique. Being themselves. They are laughed at for being different, when reality laughs at those who are all the same.

But reality does not have grades based on test scores or quizzes or papers. It does not grade on a curve: either one is good enough or one is not. There are no 'baby steps' in reality, for if one does not submerge themselves within the crashing waves of reality and allow life to keep them chained to the 'real life' situations, one will not be able to be good enough for anyone.

However, if one only clings to reality they will also never achieve greatness. Creativity, nonconformity, independence, imagination are all the stepping stones of greatness. Those who can twist reality and fantasy and make all their dreams come true will go far and live happily. To cast away the norm is to be frowned upon in situations involving shallow individuals, but it is also to be praised in life, in 'reality', in truth.

But, as in petty school dramas, there is always some force working against everyone. Time does not slow, does not falter, does not alter its tightly coiled hold on anyone for any reason. One must beat time to the finish, instead of watching it go by out the window. Make something of your life. Be better than anyone around you.

So, congratulations, graduates. Your time starts now.

Nerves

Nervousness, like a cold breeze, shivers its way down one's spine and settles itself along the butterflies in the stomach. It makes one rash, yet somehow calm, for it is known why the nerves have set in and what the reason behind the flipping of one's stomach is.

But nervousness is good, is real, is alive.

It connects the human race to itself. Everyone gets nervous over one thing or another. Everyone has felt the sensation of the world slowing and stopping simply because of the anxiety of what could happen and how that event would change the person one has become, how it will reshape the lives around said person, how it will change the world and the way one perceives it. Everyone knows the feeling, and in that way we are the same. We all worry about our own fate, causing us all to be selfish, and we also all understand when another is struck with nerves and are sympathetic, causing us all to be selfless.

Nervousness is good. And at the same time, terrifying.

Hate

Some say that hatred and spite come only from jealousy. I see no logical truth from these words.

Hatred comes from the lack of feeling towards. It is one side of the line that apathy walks on, it borders love. But that does not mean that line between them is thin, for there is a great divide between love and hate that can be narrowed upon the will of the mind, but nevertheless stays strong and thick as it separates the spectrum of emotion. It can be like a sunflower, whose roots are far from its face, or like a rose, whose beauty is so near to its thorns.

Apathy is safe, but devoid of life, for there is nothing to build upon, nothing to grow, nothing to feel. No opinion, no care,  no want to know, or want to continue. No want. However, once an opinion is formed from apathy, it sparks a fire of emotion to burn within one's mind and heart. Be that fire one that lights the old, abandoned thoughts to peel away so that new, positive feelings can grow. Or be it the fire that sets the flames of hatred to begin to seep into existence and send all other feelings fleeing in the smoke. Once a feeling begins, it will never truly stop, it will only lie, dormant and forgotten, until it is needed again.You never forget your first love. Nor your first hate.

Action causes hatred. Logic causes spite. Conclusion causes ties to be cut. And life causes one to walk forward and never look back upon those who try to drag you down into a distillment of your own hate.

One must be cautious to never allow such feelings to pull their strings and take control of the life one lives. But one must never discredit their feelings, either. To deny one's feelings is to deny oneself. To waiver from instinct is to deter from truth.

Whether it be hate or love.

New Year

Upon the greeting of the new year, another chapter of each of our lives, a new chance and new beginning, breathe. For although we seek to throw our past into the dust and run away from our mistakes, remember that it is by those mistakes that we know how to better ourselves.

Push to be a better man. A greater being. A happier life.

Leave in the past not yourself, but the perception that you cannot change yourself. The idea that fate is set in stone and cannot be washed away, cannot be altered, cannot be made new. For it is a lie.

Breathe for a moment during your celebrations and remember what you were, and whom you have become. Recall yourself burning inside and then rising from the ashes to walk anew. For by my word, your past is your life, your present is your ideal, and your future is changeable.

Have fun.

Dance

The Eternal Dancer moves within every living thing. Its dance pushes and pulls people into motion and into rest. The beat of the music it uses is unique and heard only by the ears who listen for it. It is the whisper in the breeze, the crash of the waves in the ocean, the silence of the night, and the noise of the day. It changes and alters itself to roll with the punches thrown by the hardships of life and the overwhelming power of death. It is a never ending  song to a never ending dance, for with every person who bows out gracefully from the Eternal Dance, another person is born to step into the empty place.

The Eternal Dancer will not wait for any man, but instead will dance freely and wait for those who wish to join it to do so. It waits for people to free themselves and to the waltz of nature and follow the lead of higher powers. Its name and face changes to accommodate all those who dance as though no one is watching. For only an open mind will hear its call.

The Dancer will tango one through love, sway with one through despair, waltz for comfort, and walk with one when the endless dance must play its final song. It will twirl one into the next life, where they can dance forever, with no need of something to guide them. Or to teach them how to dance, for they already know the steps and the beat, they must simply find the will and the want to begin again.

Why not dance through life? We only have one and there is no better time to learn. No better time to make mistakes and be reprimanded for dancing off beat, so that one will not misstep again. Now is the time to learn to be free and enjoy the body one is gifted with, no matter the stature, for each holds a part of the Eternal Dancer, which is calling out to be set free and allowed to dance with the one who knows it best.

Carpe Diem.

Individually Conformed

With every face I pass and every lost expression and dead eyes I find myself staring into as I make my own way through my life, I begin to wonder how so many of us (normal, everyday, conspirators for individuality) have become, in our own, conformed to the world and standards around us. How we have fallen from grace and simply live it up as we wait to hit the inevitable ground. How our pedestals seem weak and frail while standing close to one another, for we have conformed to one another.

After all, how can anyone truly stand out if everyone is unique?