Happiness?

All this time, I've been trying to find,
a reason... to wake up in the morning.

For 18 years I've been searching with fear,
that maybe... just maybe it's all worthless.

High and low, far and wide,
I was still unhappy,
I had money, and people,
But I was poor and friendless.

Now I press record,
I get my pitch,
I sing my damn heart out... I make music.

I'm an artist, a fool,
call me what you choose.

But for that moment...
I'm a rock star.

Now that Julia and Winston were apprehended it would be assumed that they would work together to get out of this mess. It has been played out throughout the book as if these two had a serious connection but I believe that this connection will be severed by Julia. She will leave Winston to the ruthlessness of Big Brother and move on with her life, and will blame Winston for attempting to brainwash her with his rebellious ideas.

Pathetic Engineering

Genetic Engineering can highly beneficial for society, but if abused it could tear everything apart. If we obtain the ability to prevent autism, or heart disease, or diabetes, or reduce the risk of someone becoming an alcoholic; then that could only benefit everyone in the long run. But once you start changing hair color and turning your baby into Mr. Potato Head, where does it end? And how long will it take for everyone to be exactly the same?

There is enough competition in the world already. There are enough fights at young children’s sports games between two parents who are living vicariously through their son or daughter. It is only a matter of time before parents are trying to make the “perfect baby.” No one wants their child to be ugly or incapable or left out. So given the chance, people are going to turn their baby into what is socially acceptable. No parent I have talked to that maybe had not originally planned on a baby at a certain time ever has any regret. Any parent with a son or daughter with a mental disability when asked if they wished things were different usually answers with something like, “It’s hard sometimes, but I couldn’t imagine life without Billy.”

Try to imagine a world where every body is the same. Maybe there are some variations, but small ones. Every one is beautiful, smart, and athletic; every one is perfect. All competition would essentially and eventually come to a complete stalemate. And then what is the solution? Start killing each other? I know I hate to lose; everybody hates to lose. Picture this: Yankees verse Red Sox, now nine innings is boring enough, and it’s bottom of the three million two hundred thousand and twenty second, and you can end the game if you simply kill the batter. At what point is people’s natural yearning to win and succeed and be the best going to outweigh their morals? It sure wouldn’t take me very long.

It is certainly a great thought. You don’t have to worry about your child dying before you. You don’t have to worry about getting Alzheimer’s or your loved one getting Alzheimer’s. You can send your son or daughter to school without having to worry if the kids will like them, or if they will be able to find a date for prom. If you don’t want your child to be homosexual, or if you do, you can have it that way. It is like playing a video game and you go into “create a player” mode and you can make the perfect quarter back to play for the Giants and lead your team to the Super Bowl. But this is not a video game, this is life. We watch movies in which they do amazing things that we could never do and with actors and actresses that are beautiful and we dream of having that. And that’s the reason why they are movies and not real life. Because things do not happen like that and things would not work out if we tried to live our lives being perfect and flawless.

I have gone through many, many hardships throughout my life and you always come to a point where you sit and say, “why me?” And you wish that things were different and that you could just have the perfect life. But when I think about it, I would not be half the person I am today if I had not had to overcome so many things. No one would be. If you woke up everyday knowing that you were going to succeed and never had to fight for anything or work hard for anything, then no one would have any ambition or strive for anything more. You would have no need to. I sure wouldn’t work or have hopes for more if I had everything laid out in front of me and I had no reason to get up earlier than someone else, or go to school for longer than someone else.

Our differences are what make us. People always say you will fall in love with someone completely different from you, because they make you complete. But if everyone is the same, then where are you to find love and happiness? Our lives would be completely stripped of any excitement or variation. No one would have any reason to go see movies anymore, because their life would be one. As everyone jocks for position, everyone will fall short, because everyone has the same qualifications, and they’re all beautiful and no one has the upper hand anywhere. The benefits of genetic engineering are endless. But the destruction it could do is almost inevitable and irreversible.

I Believe in Choosing Your Battles

I believe in choosing your battles. When you are in a situation when you know you are not going to win the argument, and it is not worth it; just let it go. This is something that is most commonly found in relationships. And it is most frequently the guy being "wrong" and his lovely partner being "right." There is no sense in having to hear the "I'm not talking to you" speech after an argument that started because you wanted to watch ESPN.

So one day, my girlfriend at the time and I were in the City for the day. Everything was going great; we had tickets to a concert, we had a great lunch, and it was a beautiful day. Now there is this one street with four or five music stores on it, and if you're a musician, you can't resist. Even if you are thousands of dollars in debt and you know you can't buy anything, you have to go look around. Now women will do the same thing with any store, but they're never wrong... DUH. So anyway, I say "hey, can we check out the music stores?" And I get the look that says, "No" but she chooses her battle and says yes. Now an hour later I am still looking around and she politely says, "Can we go now?" And I, like an idiot, respond with something like, "Baby, we've been going in your stores since we got here!" Now, it was very true, but I should not have said it. That blows up into the "all the things I do for you" speech followed by the guilt trip and then the grand finale, "I'M NOT TALKING TO YOU!"

All I had to do was say, "Sure baby." I couldn't afford anything anyway. It was simple and I didn't choose my battles right. This was a very small scale example, but it applies all over; Politics, families, relationships, friends. Learn to choose your battles. Life is hard enough without having to fight every war.

The Importance of the Work

I feel the author of this had many strong points and I agreed with a lot of them. Some things were a little off to me. I definitely like when he talked of how novels were to be discussed in many places but not a court room. A book being banned for its bad language just seems ridiculous, to me atleast. And to say that he was portraying a bad role model for readers is just outrageous. At no point in the book did he portray is bad decisions as good decisions. It was simply a story of a kid going through life and messing up. He certainly showed us many things you should not do and ways you should not act. And also I feel that Holden's cursing and bad habits very much defined him as a character. In my personal opinion, if you read The Catcher in the Rye, and one of the things you got out of it was that smoking is good, and you model your life after Holden's.... You are an idiot.

Red

It's vibrant, loud, expressive and powerful. The color has very strong meaning; everything from passion and love to blood and evil. It holds true to a very broad range of meanings; a very deep color. I don't think anyone is always happy or always sweet. I am most certainly all over the place emotionally. I sometimes find myself red with love and I sometimes find myself red in the face with rage and steaming from the ears with anger. I would like to think of my moods and feelings as different shads of me. Some days I wake up and I am just not in a good mood. That is my blood red shade. My patience for people is minimal, I have a tendency to lash out and I am not a pleasant person to be around. Some days I am in a great mood and nothing can bring me from that. That is much more of a bright, but warm shade. I am very welcoming, open, friendly, and appealing to people. Warmth is so important when it comes to comforting and giving that feeling of security and stability. One of my favorite shades is the soft, gentle, dim shade of passion and love; the shade that is only put on when you are with that one person. It is the shade your heart turns as it begins to race and rush warm blood all over your body just from the sight of that person. It is the color her face turns when I surprise her at work with flowers or tell her she is the most beautiful thing on this earth. You have different shades, different moods, different feelings; different people, different days.

Object Description

It is white, black, and, grey and reads "Breakdown" all the way around. I have had this belt since eighth grade. I stole it our of my brother's closet after he had left for the first time. It is far beyond beat up and disheveled. The glue that holds the front and back together has worn out and it is now peeling in two. It has quite the history. The paint and designs are peeling off leaving a rough brown exterior. The hole that I have always used is stretched and ripping from the silver buckle. Yet I can not leave the house without it. It has that worn in feel that you get from an old pair of shoes or jeans. I have grown so used to having it on that sometimes even if I do not need a belt, I will where it anyway. I feel naked without it. I definitely think it has a lot to do with the fact that it was my brother's. It makes me feel like he's always around I guess. Everyone thinks I'm nuts. My mom tells me all the time I should go buy a new belt because not even a homeless person would wear this one. But until it stops holding my pants up, I will have no reason to stop wearing it around my waist.