Things You've Never Thought

            As a teenager and a person, I know how much one can think. I can only imagine the number of thoughts that cross our mind in a second. We think so much, so frequently, we can’t keep track of everything we’ve ever thought. Even if you write down everything you think you are thinking, you miss a lot. However this fact of the universe is peculiar as who we are is directly proportional to the thoughts we’ve thought and the happenings we’ve experience.  The bizarre thing is that we can never know exactly what we are thinking during every single moment of the day. Thus, we can never exactly know who we are. There is only one reason that every single person is different from another; no two people can ever think the exact same things.

            There are a lot of different types of thoughts that our minds form. We contemplate just about everything in between the existence of god to whether our neighbor thinks we’re a noisy household. Thoughts are very judgmental things. With thoughts, one tends to critic oneself and all of one’s surroundings. This means we judge and examine everything from our pimply faces to Miley Cyrus’s new haircut. We give our opinions on things we shouldn’t have an opinion on in the first place. Through the currently famous book “The Secret”, many of us have found that to get what you want out of life, you must control your thoughts. This is easy to say but hard to do. Initially it seems like a good idea. However, every yin must have its yang.
            There are many things we think unconsciously. These thoughts make us who we are. If we were to control and shape our every thought, would we ever be able to be our selves? Our minds think such weird, complex thoughts. If we changed those thoughts into thoughts of the happy, driven person we want to be, will be ever be ourselves? Is controlling our thoughts like performing plastic surgery to our brains?

            There are many things that you’ve never thought of, that I have. There are many things I’ve never thought of, that you have. You and your mother will never have ever thought the exact same things. However, the thoughts of you and your brother may have more common thoughts. Your thoughts and your dog’s thoughts will be less common than you and your brother’s. You and your friends will most likely a majority of your thoughts in common. However, the thoughts of two organisms can never be the same.  By never, I mean never as in never, ever. I’m not Justin Bieber; sometimes the saying ‘Never Say Never’ is utterly false.

            Have you realized that a book is just a long, complicated thought of the author? The things you’ve got to memorize for your next history test are just the thoughts of somebody who lived not so long ago. The idea of beauty and the things that are considered ‘facts’ are just thoughts. Everything the human kind thinks or has thought it knows, is just the compilation of all the thoughts that a human has ever thought to pursue. Therefore, education is just a long thought process. If a person acted upon every thought a brain has ever thought, human kind would have so much more knowledge.
            The thing is that thoughts create everything and anything we’ve every known. However, in today’s world, instead of thinking one is simply told to memorize another’s thoughts. That is a horrible, horrible form of education. We should have the right to think and question everything and anything around us. Our freedom of thought is almost non-existent at one point. In school, they say they’ll teach us everything we’ll ever need to know. That’s a lie. Sure, teachers teach us of the French people’s fight to freedom, they teach us why the sky is blue, how a rainbow is formed, and why stars twinkle. However, they never teach us the single most important lesson that we need in life: how to think. That however, isn’t exactly an entirely true statement. They teach us to think in a certain way. They teach us that you have to add in order to multiply. They teach us how to think and then problem solve. However, they never encourage us to question what we supposedly learn or memorize. They never tell us why a certain type of person is ‘beautiful’ while another is ‘ugly’. They don’t tell us how a person’s beauty level is decided. They don’t teach us to disagree with something that is already stated true. They encourage questions, but discourage the search for answers. For example, if I ask why ‘red’ is called ‘red’ and not ‘blue’, ‘orange’, or ‘filiw’, I will not get an answer. If is ask what color the sky is the answer will be blue, but that’s a lie. The sky can be many different colors during many different time frames. However, we teach our children to accept answers that are unacceptable. Why?

            If thoughts are the reason we are who we are, and questions are thoughts, and if we are not taught to form either creative or correct questions, does that mean we’ve become people we aren’t supposed to be? Does that mean that we’ve already been tricked into doing plastic surgery in our minds? It’s a known ‘fact’ that the mind is the one place in which we have complete freedom. Is that a lie, because our minds are already so much influenced by other minds that they can never truly be free? These are questions I cannot answer. These are questions I may never be able to answer. These are questions I was taught not to answer.

            Times are changing though. In classrooms today, it’s more about thinking and less about mugging up. My parents were told to write and write and write the same words of a language in order to be fluent in it. Today, I am told to understand the roots of words in order to learn a language. It’s more about understanding everything around and about you, instead of memorizing the thoughts of people that are probably currently dead. Therefore, I can rightly state that human kind is indeed advancing.

            Sometimes I wish I were born later in time. I would have more opportunities to become myself. There would be a more correct, moral form of education. I would be able to think my own thoughts more fluently than I currently am. All in all, it’s hard to think thoughts that you really think. It’s hard to become yourself when everybody else is telling you not to. However, you must. You must because as Oscar Wilde once said, “Be yourself; everybody else is already taken”. Therefore, you must work your hardest to be yourself. As easy as that sounds, it never is. 

Friends Are Not Forever

Since elementary school, I've had a 'best friend'.  First, it was the girl who gave me a napkin to wipe my tears on the first day of kindergarten. Then, the one who LOVED to lecture me about American culture (Bratz, and how Barbie was SO not cool). She was followed by the animal lover, and then the neat freak. All of these folks, were my best friends. We talked about Hannah Montana, Curious George, and the Jonas Brothers. We all loved Miley Cyrus. We were all going to marry one of the JoBros (Nick was mine.) We made up dances to Rihanna songs. Chris Brown was still singing 'Forever' and hadn't beat anybody up yet. All of us loved school, some of us loved homework. We went home tired and happy, fulfilling a whole day learning and playing tether ball. A day was a life time. Everybody was friends. Boys had cooties. Long hair was cool. You HAD to know the lyrics to every single high school musical song (well the first one, the others weren't out yet). NOBODY wore dresses, those were for sissies. Goodbyes and hugs were exchanged on a daily basis. We had been friends since Kindergarten, we were going to be friends forever.  On the day of our 5th grade graduation, we all promised we'd keep in touch and be 'BFFs FOREVER'.

I think it's obvious that is not what happened. After that day, we'd call each other rather frequently. We'd still attend each other's birthday parties. We'd still make sure we knew all of the lyrics to the new Miley song. Hannah Montana was still our religion. Then, we all started at different middle schools. That's when all that 'forever and ever' stuff went down the drain. We began to make new friends, and become slightly new people. No longer were we longing for each other's company. Our phone calls got shorter and shorter, until they finally stopped. Hannah Montana was still a big part of our lives, but not THAT big. No more birthday parties. Nick Jonas, however, was still appealing. We all had our own lives now, we'd gone our separate ways. Personally, I didn't mind. Middle school was great. I had new friends, and new classes. I had different teachers for different classes. I had a locker. Lily finally found out Miley's secret. I loved life. I didn't really long for my elementary school days.

Then, at the the end of middle school all the crying and "BFFs FOREVER AND EVER" took place. Yes, again. However, this time I really meant it. I had had the same best friend for 3 years. The only difference between the elementary departure and the middle school one was that I was moving to a different country. Taylor Swift replaced Miley Cyrus (Fearless hadn't come out yet). Glee was the new Hannah Montana. The Jonas Brother were still big, Justin Bieber's 'One Time' had just come out. Everybody had a facebook, and skype was the new hype. All the pinky promises about Facebooking everyday were made. All the not-so crocodile tears shed. All the 'OMG I cant believe U R Gonna Go' and 'Im gonna miss you sooooooooooo much" texts sent. I finally left that sunny, April morning with blotchy skin and red rimmed eyes, most likely to never return. For the next few weeks, it went as promised. I facebooked and skyped with everyone, and told them all everything about everything.

We still seemed liked the best of friends.

Then eventually the Facebook messages got shorter and the inside jokes slowly began to fade into a distant past. They began to like Justin Bieber and I, the Beatles. One Direction became their Jonas Brother, while I discovered Coldplay, Oasis, and The Killers. I still loved Taylor Swift (till today, y'all). It soon became uncomfortable to even message a 'Hi' to my so called best-friends. (Except one. That one, I still talk to today and I think she's the only exception.)  I couldn't do more than 'like' a picture. That's about the time I began to realize something; nothing lasts forever. It can't. It's not possible for ANYTHING to last forever. Everything must end whether we like it or not. That is an epiphany that has helped me through the last few years. Also, I began to feel that Facebook created a distance instead of a connection. If Facebook hadn't been there, my friendships would fade away without the cutting nostalgia that takes place with every new picture uploaded.

Nothing lasts forever, especially in the field of friendship. Some friendships may endure time and succeed, but most won't. It's not a comforting thought, but we have to live with it. Honestly, at times, I find this fact of life rather refreshing. Today, I'm having a bit of a hard time unravelling my thoughts into words, but I'm just saying that when we said 'BFFs FOREVER', we weren't really kidding. Not then anyway. Our words truly held meaning at that moment, they just began to fade with time. We indeed were best friends forever, in our own little 10-year old infinity. Yet, that infinity finished and other, bigger ones came along. We all got over it all right.

Sometimes, I try to imagine what my 10-year old self would say to this (as in me being Facebook 'friends' instead of real friends with my ex-bffs ). This doesn't really work out too well, as it's hard for me to imagine myself in a different situation than the one I am in now. The thing about the friendships above is that there wasn't really a distinct beginning or end. I don't remember the exact moment I became best of friends with the people, whose statues I currently skim through on Facbeook. The ones who love make-up and are more typically-teenagery than I. Yet, I don't remember the moment where our supposedly perfect friendship sunk into the depressing sea of acquaintance-hood.  I know, though, that it had happened. I also know it maybe happening right now, and I'm sure of the fact it will happen again.

All in all, forever is a lie we tell ourselves to stay happy. But again, aren't most of us lying about the cause of our happiness anyhow?

( I would like to thank the JoBros and Miley Cyrus for beginning many of my childhood friendships. You too, Hillary Duff, even if I forgot to mention you. )