“The fact of storytelling hints at a fundamental human imperfection. Where there is perfection there is no story to tell.” - Ben Okri

Life comes with consequences. I am reminded daily of the difficulties posed by being alive. I recently watched the movie Garden State for the nth time, and there was a scene that struck me. Natalie Portman is in the bathtub (fully clothed pervs) with Zach Braff talking about figuring out oneself and delving into the emotions that we tend to put aside and pocket instead of dealing with. He says, “God, this hurts so bad” to which she responds, “I know it hurts. That’s life. If nothing else, it’s life. It’s real, and sometimes it fucking hurts, but it's sort of all we have.” We live in a society clouded by things like perfection, competition, and motivation that it is sometimes hard (has been at least for me) to see the beauty in it. I think that the movie does a good job acknowledging that aspect of coming to terms with present situation of things – a defining problem in my own life.

In the New York Times article about the high school senior applying and hearing back from colleges, the story does a good job recounting the social problems of modern society: the desire to be the ideal candidate, and the potential problems with seeking perfection. I feel as though as students vying for the attention from schools, from teachers, from parents, from jobs that we lose any sort of individualism we have striven so hard for. The author of the article says that if we are in fact “free to be everything” than it only follows that we are “expected to be everything”, and in the end the “eternal adolescent search for self is going on at the same time as the quest for the perfect resume”. I certainly have seen a taste of this in my own life. This year, more than ever, I have felt the need to find out who I am, and through this class have come closer to that answer though so much more is still left to explore. I find it frustrating that I feel much like Esther – in the essay – when she says that she is “on the verge... like I’m just about to enter into adulthood, to reach some kind of state of independence and peacefulness and enlightenment”. It’s that drawn out process that plagues my day with feelings of an unsettled insignificance.

The Woman Warrior, by Maxine Kingston, alludes to this but takes a different approach. The Chinese culture that the narrator is brought up in “demands that the feelings playing about in one’s guts not be turned into action. Just watch their passing like cherry blossoms” (9). This quote is a reference to her father’s sister who committed suicide over being an embarrassment to her family. There is a set of priorities in that society that everyone must follow, and surrender their lives to that does not allow for emotions to run high, or even contest with daily routine. The only way that the narrator is able to explore herself and test the parameters of her own life is by observation of the outside world. Later in the novel, she compares herself to the swordswoman of Chinese stories. In contrast to the character, she says the only “fighting and killing [she had] seen was not glorious”, but she “had to learn about dying if [she] wanted to become a swordswoman” (52). I interpreted this as her own exploration of becoming someone to be revered: the swordswoman. One must encounter and face their problems head on before they are able to surpass them and grow. Stefan Molyneux, host of Freedomain Radio, talks about this in his video on Perfection. He says that as individuals we are retroactive in maturing whenever we put off our feelings of anxiety and fears of not being perfect, and there is something to learn from becoming a more emotionally aware and stable being.

Empty - Ray LaMontagne
Lyrics Here

Society breeds us to strive for being perfect, and I am just as much a victim of doing so. It has been something that I have been trying to free myself from, but for one reason or another find myself frustrated whenever that perfection is not attained. In this case, as Molyneux states it is “excellence interfering with happiness”, and true happiness will come whenever one can set come to terms with just living for ones own sake.

“As the soil, however rich it may be, cannot be productive without cultivation, so the mind without culture can never produce good fruit.” - Seneca

{first of all, i think this song is hilarious... but it is directly associated with the topic of this discussion. lyrics at the bottom of this post}

Although I have a hard time recognizing the difficulties faced by the student’s in these essays, I have been the outside witness to their situations in many instances, and can empathize in my own way, though different.

Two of the friends that I have made this year have similar stories to those expressed by these authors. (I’ll leave their names out just in case). Both are in architecture with me. One is male, and is openly gay, and the other is female and is Mexican American. To me, meeting new people is always an opportunity to make another relationship, and grow as a person because of what other’s have to offer, and I would never want to discriminate against anyone because of something they believe, or a quality that they were born with.

Take the first, for example. He is an outspoken gay man who is very into fashion and celebrates the life that he lives. Some of his choices I find questionable, but would question anyone who made that choice regardless of orientation. I have had many conversations with him where he has responded to situations like Miquel Ramirez did in his essay in saying “I have always had to deal with outsider status and I have accepted the benefits that come from it, although I’ve always felt tension around it too” (842). I am proud of my friend for standing up for what the way that he leads his life, and when people try and come up to me to gossip about his decisions, I make sure they understand that every person has the right to their own life and desires, and shouldn’t be stripped of those privileges.

The other friend that I have was my desk partner last semester, and we have become really good friends. I, and others, often tease her when she mixes Spanish and English words together in the same sentences with the correct pronunciations of words. Stupid things even about what she chooses to eat. At times she gets frustrated with me because she thinks I mock her by trying to learn how to say these things correctly, but the multi-cultural quality that some possess is something that I truly wish that I had, although I am sure it comes with a price. At our desks one day last semester, another student was talking to the kid sitting next to me openly about how he believed every “Mexican was a wetback”. Not only did I feel completely uncomfortable having people around me saying something like that, I made sure to ask my friend (who was Mexican) how she felt about his comment. Her reaction was surprising, “I am used to it”. Like Ramirez’ again she has always felt that her “place in this country [has] often been questioned, and her access to the culture and language has always been tentative” (842).
{a group of my close friends around Christmas time: Asian, White, Mexican, African American, Muslim, Catholic, Baptist}

To me, the ultimate ignorance in humanity is denying others of what they believe, and taking away their independence and individuality. We, no matter what race, are all discriminated against, but that does not justify the reproduction of such actions. We all have our pasts, and experiences that shape us, just as Anthony Luckett claims the difficulty of “thinking outside of the past because… history is documented in who [we are] as persons” (863). His entry stood out to me the most because I would have never imagined the societal difficulties posed by being Asian-African American. The poem in the beginning of his article says people “asked me to write about why choosing or choosing not to choose sides is relevant in my life” (860). I believe the choices that dictate our lives should not be based upon ethnicity, orientation, or sex, but rather how to celebrate life and capitalize on the offers it poses.

American society has matured in understanding what makes this nation so beautiful is the diversity of culture and the people within its parameters. I delight in knowing that I get to experience what others can show me about the cultures that they were brought up in, and we now progress as our own individuals, malleable and incessantly changing.


[Talking:]
Is that India.Arie? What happened to her hair? Ha ha ha ha ha
Dat dad a dat da [4x] Dad a ooh

[Verse 1]
Little girl with the press and curl
Age eight I got a Jheri curl
Thirteen I got a relaxer
I was a source of so much laughter
At fifteen when it all broke off
Eighteen and went all natural
February two thousand and two
I went and did
What I had to do
Because it was time to change my life
To become the women that I am inside
Ninety-seven dreadlock all gone
I looked in the mirror
For the first time and saw that HEY....

[Chorus]
I am not my hair
I am not this skin
I am not your expectations no no
I am not my hair
I ma not this skin
I am a soul that lives within

[Talking:]
What'd she do to her hair? I don't know it look crazy
I like it. I might do that.
Umm I wouldn't go that far. I know .. ha ha ha ha

[Verse 2]
Good hair means curls and waves
Bad hair means you look like a slave
At the turn of the century
Its time for us to redefine who we be
You can shave it off
Like a South African beauty
Or get in on lock
Like Bob Marley
You can rock it straight
Like Oprah Winfrey
If its not what's on your head
Its what's underneath and say HEY....

[Chorus]

[Bridge]
(Whoa, whoa, whoa)
Does the way I wear my hair make me a better person?
(Whoa, whoa, whoa)
Does the way I wear my hair make me a better friend? Oooh
(Whoa, whoa, whoa)
Does the way I wear my hair determine my integrity?
(Whoa, whoa, whoa)
I am expressing my creativity..
(Whoa, whoa, whoa)

[Verse 3]
Breast Cancer and Chemotherapy
Took away her crown and glory
She promised God if she was to survive
She would enjoy everyday of her life ooh
On national television
Her diamond eyes are sparkling
Bald headed like a full moon shining
Singing out to the whole wide world like HEY...

[Chorus 2x]

[Ad lib]
If I wanna shave it close
Or if I wanna rock locks
That don't take a bit away
From the soul that I got
Dat da da dat da [4x]
If I wanna where it braided
All down my back
I don't see what wrong with that
Dat da da dat da [4x]

[Talking:]
Is that India.Arie?
Ooh look she cut her hair!
I like that, its kinda PHAT
I don't know if I could do it.
But it looks sharp, it looks nice on her
She got a nice shaped head
She got an apple head
I know right?
It's perfect.

"We may have different religions, different languages, different colored skin, but we all belong to one human race" - Kofi Annan

Last week we started to read Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye. I had a lot of problems with the stylistic choices that Morrison made through her novel, but this week delving deeper into the text looking for clues and hints about underlying themes I find it very creative. One of the main things that I took notice of was her use of colors as descriptions and letting the connotation of such adjectives fend for themselves: being loosely interpreted by any reader. Obviously the title of the book hints at this (BLUEST), but I feel that there is a lot more to this motif alluding
to the omnipresent focus on skin color and racism within the novel.

The two girls, Frieda and Claudia are constantly battling the propaganda they see of “synthetic yellow bangs suspended over marble-blue eyes” (191), and are at odds with how they will never fit the mold of the dominating belief of white beauty. In Bump’s essay he says that it is “this basic shame… [that is] key to racism and many other behaviors” (X334). This shame he derives from the color of skin. The society that Morrison details in her book does not offer alternatives for social rank prescribed by skin color. Black women are in a position where everybody in the world can give them orders. “White women said, ‘Do this.’ White children said, ‘Give me that.’ White men said, ‘Come here.’ Black men said, ‘Lay down.”(139). I like to think, maybe too naively at times, that we live in a progressive world that entertains racial boundaries by celebrating them rather than putting them down, but am faced with opposition on occasion.

In the last quote, black women are inferior subjects from every source imaginable… even within their own race of ‘minorities’. Here is where I find the issue of racism to be a particular matter of concern that I would not have considered until recently. In The Bluest Eye, there is tension between Maureen Peal and the girls for something that they refer to as the Thing. Even though she is black just like them, they find something to hate. Again Bump responds to this in saying the “ultimate secret… may be our seeming helplessness in the grip of emotions generated by our tendency to judge ourselves and others by appearance” (334). Is it the competitive drive within human nature that allows us to feel bad things to members of people who are even closely, and definably in our same situation?

At my high school, I witnessed a lot of racial discrimination. Austin High does not have an ethnic group that accounts for more than 50% of its population. I think that the percentages are more like this: White 40%, Hispanic 40%, African American and Asian 20%. My sophomore year I saw first hand the power of racial diversity and its counterparts. My soccer team had several Spanish-only speaking players that would make jokes and insult those of us who did not speak the language in Spanish. For me, that was the moment that I was turned off by Spanish, and learning the language altogether even though I had never tried.

This year, some of the closest friends that I have met are of Hispanic decent, and have shown me the beauty of the language, and it has made me want to learn the language. I know this is incredibly hypocritical, but I have to ask myself: why does the FACE of diversity have to account for so much of what it can hold. In other words, if I had met these friends 8 years ago, I may have taken Spanish, but I judged and was mislead in my thinking because of my own pride. This is a key example of what Bump asserts when he says “in human beings emotion is more basic and more pervasive than reason” (331).

Granted, if we were blind many of the beauties of the world would go unattended, and I am sure human nature would find another way to discriminate, but I challenge myself now to focus on the feeling of the “deep purples” , the “cool yellows”, the “streaks of green” (115), the “calm blues” (115) of all the colors that are within us.


In the video, try and just listen to the song first, and then watch it… does your reaction change when seeing whose voice is who? Are certain things justified?

"Social Tyranny... leaves fewer means of escape, penetrates much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaves the soul" - John Stuart Mill

In my TC-Morality and Politics this semester, we have surveyed different cultures throughout history, and their view of determining the parameters for what society of the time deems morally acceptable. Most recently we have been reading John Stuart Mills, a radical liberal politician who wrote in England mid 1800. The whole premise for which he writes is the idea that citizens should have every right to their freedoms, and the best way to preserve a nation is to assert laws that provide protection from harm from others. One of the corollaries we discussed was the ‘tyranny of the majority’, or the concept that beyond governmental concerns, it is the chastisement of the individuals within said societies that are the most painful. The conversations then led to applying Mills’ ideas to modern society where the question was posed: In modern America, what (if any) are the social tyrannies that we face?

Throughout the discussion the primarily debated theme was of finding a tyranny that is applicable to America as a whole. For me, you cannot deem a society inept of moral dilemma, its just not possible, and to say that since there is not one major overriding despotism means we don’t have injustice is wrong. It is a hard thing to pinpoint though. Try asking a person whether they believe American’s have a problem with racism... they will probably say no. Discrimination of sexual orientation…. A hesitant but probable no. Gender? Eh not so much either. Religion? Hell, that is the freedom upon which our country was founded.

What we, my class, were able to ultimately agree upon was that as a whole, today, modern American society has progressed to a point so concerned with being open minded and accepting, that the prejudice therein lies in ignorance. How many times has someone been admonished for saying something politically incorrect? Hundreds, and it happens day-to-day. In Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, the two young girls, Frieda and Claudia, constantly complain about their disposition, and how they are not good enough for high society, but instead of concerning themselves with ways to advance and obtain such a status, they “could find no love in it… but could examine it to see what it was that all the world said was loveable” (21), and in doing so “had one desire: to dismember it” (21). The racial discrimination that Morrison dialogues in her novel is not fundamentally entertained between white and black, but it is the INTRA-societal bias that asserts the greatest authority: blacks on blacks. Although the main characters are young girls, and their adolescent minds contribute to the immaturity of their actions, it says something that the only image of Claudia’s sister that she can summon of her being “ruined” is imagining “Frieda, big and fat, her thin legs swollen, her face surrounded by layers of rouged skin” (101) which eventually leads to Claudia not being able to “comprehend this unworthiness” (75). Alice Walker’s Am I Blue? has a similar message. She says that “perhaps children have listened to much of the music of oppressed people” that happiness and understand has been torn from their educational maturity (X322).

I have often succumb to the pressures of hate, and the negative influence that it has on the inner self. It is something very dark within me that I am not proud of, and continue to work on what Dr. Martin Luther King refers to as the “majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force” in his I Have a Dream speech. “[Society] can’t walk alone... [Society] cannot turn back” (X326) he says, we must progress as a nation to eliminate social tyrants at the most minute levels in order to really cleanse them from existence. For if we do not, Walker notes how “odd the look of hatred… [gives] the look of a beast” (X323).

"It's the hurt I hide that fuels the fire inside me" - Ray Lamontagne

It is funny to me how applicable our readings have become in this class, due to my obsession with criticizing each piece. Ram Dass’ chapter on Burnout explains precisely the things that I am dealing with. Things like “the deeper wisdom which knows its place and accepts Not Knowing” (207), the “moments when we are not at all sure what our actions have really amounted to” (206), reaching “a deeper sense of who we are, discover[ing] how much more we have” (187) all are topics of conversations that I have been having with my peers over the last week.

For architecture students, this part of the semester is always the most dreaded and grueling. Our final project, a seven week long design project, has been assigned and every new class we are expected to further on our iterations in hopes that we find enlightenment from a piece of chipboard that we randomly cut out the night before. To make things worse, we lack any positive feedback or congratulatory nods for our efforts. The nature of the program is to make you more comfortable with being vulnerable and stand by your ideas, however, the task is very weighted. In the past day, I have had two conversations that have ‘hit home’ regarding WHO I AM, and what I am meant to do.

Last night, my friend Chelsea and I sat down and started venting about the program – as usual. These conversations are always cyclical in nature, and seem to come to the same conclusion: the schooling that we have opted to take part in is only part of the process, and things will get better. In essence, we have lost what Dass refers to as the Witness who “functions steadily in the present, moment to moment, observing how focused we are in the future while only appearing to be active in the here and now” (190). Maybe we are too young to find any greater meaning out of what we are doing, and this is part of the journey to be enjoyed, but it is very hard for me to find contentment without knowing what is ahead of me. As for the other conversation, it was this morning with another friend, Kelsey. I was expressing my most recent qualms in how uninspired I have become, and how I lack any enthusiasm. She told me that in her perception, I am probably the happiest person she knows, and am surrounded by friends all the time, and didn’t understand how that could result in any depressed state of mind. That was when I realized what has been going on: my eternal desire to be around people is only a method for pushing away the larger concerns at hand. I constantly depend on my relationships with others to satiate the missing, and unanswered questions in my life, “the inner conflict between head and heart awakened” (188) through talking to her.

This July will mark the two year anniversary of my father’s death, and I am still feeling the repercussions of the event. I know that I have mentioned this before, but I do not think that I have been completely honest in how my life was affected, and realize that in order to grow from my experiences, I have to acknowledge their presence, and I do so today knowing that what is done is done.

I feel that the most applicable part of Dass’ burnout discussion for me is when he talks about how “in the presence of the suffering of others and their insistent needs, we observe the mind’s fear and defensiveness” (188). In previous entries, I have mentioned the relationship that my father and I had, albeit not so close; though I do much revere him as one of the best men I have come to know. At the time that he was diagnosed with his ailment, the fear and defensiveness took over me. Immediately I detached myself from the situation at all costs, and being immature did not want to deal with even my own father’s problems. In the days left in that summer whenever my father was allowed to return to my house after surgery, I closed myself off from society and the life on the ground floor, subjecting myself to the living room upstairs. I spent endless hours avoiding conversation with a man who I knew was suffering, and for reasons unknown, I resented. Whenever I got my hardship license, it was my familial duty to drive my dad to and from doctor’s appointments, and eventually to work when needed. I gripped the steering wheel tightly and clenched my jaw shut during those rides. I never really have expressed these feelings to many people before and have tried to put them past me without recognizing them, but it is time to stop living that lie. Everyday I regret not capitalizing on those silent hours and not learning from my father. These insecurities are what drive me to do so much better in the life that I lead today. I had not even allowed myself the opportunity to help, but shied away in fear: fear from seeing my father’s virility stripped away from him, and becoming susceptible to the unwarranted dangers of the world that I felt immune to.

I preach about this all the time, but I truly feel that internal changes are being made. Although I have so many reservations about the person who I am today, I am trying to enjoy it and be honest with myself. The world in which we life, and live in general is not easy. I do my best to help others by sharing myself, and I thoroughly enjoy when others’ allow me that from them.

Who Are You?

I have spent the last twenty years of my life trying to figure out who I am in the world and the purpose for my existence. I don’t think that I am going to be able to define myself in terms that others will completely understand today, but for the first time, I do believe I have found coherence in my being. I, Benjamin Stelly, am a product of the stimuli found within the world around me. In particular, I find the intimate, personal connections with those around me the predominate source of who I am.

The video I put together is a compilation of short video clips and pictures of individuals who have influenced me the most over the last year. Each person has a designated group they belong to (i.e. family, high school friends, theater friends, and architecture friends) and a specified color: red, green, blue, and grey, respectively). The intent was to not only demonstrate how these people independently interpreted the question of “Who is Ben, or What does it mean to be Ben”, but also to provide a visual representation of the spherical influences of these assigned groups.

The first thing that I had each person do was complete the sentence “Ben is…” as concisely as possible. This limitation of brevity was placed to ensure that the word, or words, chosen fully articulated the essence of who I was in their eyes. Just to make it clear, this project was not for others to define who I was for me, but simply acknowledged that community and interpersonal relationships have been key determinants of my own self-actualization, as displayed in my goal and passion papers. Once I filmed each person, I asked them to paint a piece of the canvas in the color I designated for them. In a way I hoped that the creativity of the task allowed a freer explanation of the same question. For those who found deciding on a word difficult, painting was very simple, while others felt exactly the opposite. The last thing I had each person do was say the words “I am Ben” in order to explicitly state the intent of the piece: the people around me directly affect who I am, and each is a stroke and color of the larger painting. I am very pleased with how the final product turned out. These people who I have come to know mean more to me than the menial term of friend; they truly are a part of me.

I became intrigued by the concept of making this video for two reasons. First, in Brian Banks’ ethics paper (P3), he opened discussing how the different personalities around us are like pieces of a mosaic, and the beauty lies within the tolerance and acceptance of the different colored tiles coming together to form a work of art. My aim was to take a variation of this by implementing definitive guidelines: specified colors (although the final painting, however structured, is not comparable to a mosaic). The second source of inspiration I found was in a theory that I have been writing about since my senior year of high school. I wrote both my senior spring semester thesis and my college entrance exam essays on the quote by Louis McMaster Bujold who said, “My home is not a place, it is people”. I find these words just as, if not more, appropriate today as they were one year ago.

Twenty Years - Augustana
In the past year there have been more moments of joy, sadness, anger, and confusion (to only name a few) than ever before. However, I have never been so content with the way that I lead my own life to this day. I have learned time and again the importance of relationships whether they be familial or friendly, for these are the people who know me best, and the shared compassion determines the kind of life that we are able to pursue. I started the semester in my Voltaire’s Coffee having prepared reading Happiness: a History, a book that detailed the progressive nature of different cultures and their view regarding fulfillment and success. I left the discussion with a newfound sense of respect for others and a heightened awareness for personal maturation and individuality. We as individuals are given the gift of life, so fragile and precarious but full of hope and intrigue. The way that we chose to capitalize on this opportunity is - to me - our most definable trait.

My name is Benjamin Johnson Stelly. I am nineteen years old. I am love and hate. I am acceptance and repulsion. I am power and weakness. I am friend and enemy. I am dreamer and noncommittal. I am a contradiction. I am a hypocrite. But, above all, I am alive. I know that I will never be the best at any one thing, and that my flaws often times overshadow my talents. The people whom I surround myself with offer just as much insight into the person who I am as I can try to express with words. The intricacies of each personality sew the skin of my being, and their generous offerings of sharing their lives provide motivation for my existence. Each of my friends and family members paint with a different color and with a different brushstroke, but the canvas and the image that they have created is in essence: me.







Word Count: 900 (Approved by Bump)







Twenty Years by Augustana Lyrics:
Well I've been running from something
Twenty years in my car
Down a road that's leading me nowehere
Yeah we drive through the farmland
No one knows where we're from
Could I kiss you and make you a queen?
Or something in between

Do you want to see
The place where I am free?
Cos in my mind I need it
But you're nowhere near to me

Move to new york city
Take your woman by the hand
Leave her there with your things on the doorstep
And there's no way around it
Could this be our last dance?
So fall asleep with the tv darling
I'll be back again

Do you want to see
The place where I was free?
Cos in my mind I've been there
And there's no one here but me

In the morning it'll find you
Let the light shine away
Down a road that's leading me nowhere
And there's no way around it
Could this be our last dance?
Just fall asleep with the tv darling
I'll be back again
I'll be back again

"It wasn't saying goodbye, it was going forward, and going to improve."

One of the difficulties of life that has become apparent in the last couple years is the inability to say goodbye. As human beings, we attach ourselves to others. We root ourselves deeply within others, and at times we have to face the inevitable precariousness of life.

As morose as it sounds, I sometimes try and validate my relationships with others by thinking about how I would feel if they were to die. I say this because death is the ultimate end. It is a time when words become meaningless, and emotions take over. For a long time I tried to deny myself from loving, and I realize now how foolish that was of me. To love is to give yourself over to others, and yes it is vulnerable and it is scary, but the trials of such actions make us who we are as individuals.

I know that I have talked about it before, but over spring break a lot of things hit me and made me reevaluate how I interpret the gift of life. Before senior year, my father passed away, and I feel like I am still going through the emotional grieving process and its repercussions. I had a conversation with one of my closest friends a couple weeks ago about the events that happened that summer, and I can’t help but be overwhelmed by feelings of not doing enough to express my gratitude and love for the man who gave me life. The process has definitely been taxing on me, but has opened my eyes to living as progressively as I can.

With love comes pain. Siddhartha experienced this whenever his son left him. The love of protecting his son ended up hurting him in the end. Vasudeva tells Siddhartha that “[his] son was spared because [he] loved him and wanted to keep him from suffering… but [he] would not be able to take even the slightest part of his destiny upon [himself]” (113). Its funny to me that as mature as I feel in my current state, I am constantly reminded in situations like the one Siddhartha was forced to face how immature and naïve I am to the world. In the last year, however, goodbye’s for some reason have become fairly common.

Last summer was the first time I faced an identity crisis of sorts. I found myself at odds with different groups of friends who both demanded my attention. I realized then that love has boundaries. In order to save yourself from the pain of overexerting your love, like Siddhartha found himself doing when he said that he “preferred the suffering and worries of love over happiness and joy” just so that he could be with the boy (110). We all face the difficulty of loving with bounds, and part of that is understand that we each live for ourselves first and foremost, and it is not justifiable to decide what is right for others.

This summer I hope to move to New York for the chance to finally experience what independence has to offer. It has been hard to tell my close friends that I may not be here for the summer, and things will be different, but at the same time is a necessity that I realize I must do for myself. In doing so I have been able to “see people living for themselves, see them achieve an infinite amount for themselves, see them travel, wage war, suffer and infinite amount, and endure an infinite amount” (121) like Siddhartha comes to terms with after his son leaves.

I hope that the experience is worth my time, and even if it happens to not be what I imagine, I know that it will be an opportunity for growth that I have both wanted and needed. We are all allowed that.