Altered Happiness

As I scroll through my camera roll, I stumble upon a photo of me smiling…

I’m…

**GASP**

Happy?!?!

Yes yes, our childhood is remembered by us as “the good old times.” We’re laughing on the playground with our friends; we have chocolate all over our mouths from when we actually ate unhealthy foods and

**ANOTHER GASP**

didn’t feel the need to suck in our stomachs afterwards.

The very cliché statement of “a picture is worth 1000 words” is indeed true, as it offers our brains a path to the past, almost like time travel, where we can reminiscent the moments we miss so dearly. The moments where only our happiness is what mattered.

True happiness… have we totally forgotten about that? Let me talk about one example of an app that has taken over part of this concept by pictures: Instagram. However, they’re not just any pictures; rather, they’re edited ones. From a specific filter, to lighting, to whatever technology one can use to fix their “facial imperfections,” photos have been changed for the worse. It’s like adding a filter literally adds a filter into the picture, hiding its critical elements and modifying the entire meaning behind what it was originally intended for.

Why do we feel the need to cover every single one of our imperfections, or at least, what we think are imperfections? What Sontag insists is indeed correct: “Industrial societies turn their citizens into image-junkies; it is the most irresistible form of mental pollution.”

 We have evolved into a society where if there’s a pimple on our face in a picture, then the whole world will go mad. Yeah, I know changing a picture up a bit won’t totally make you forget what happened when it was taken, but it does indeed conceal originality and what makes us human.

So, as I scroll down my camera roll, the pictures continue to get faker and faker. It’s unfortunate that I can differ between each year I have been alive because of how each year, we can manipulate these images more and more. I look back and laugh at when I was a kid, when the nonsense we care about today didn’t matter to me. When I was singing my heart out and didn’t care who my mom sent the video to. When I didn’t even have Instagram or Snapchat to refer to.

Ahh, yes… the good old days. If only these days could’ve prevailed.

Izzy for VP ;)

I am in a constant battle between myself and my own doubt.

I think everyone is smarter than me, so if someone ever tries to prove me wrong, I believe them.

I think everyone is better than me, so when I’m playing soccer and someone screams “ball,” “Izzy pass to me,” “mark her,” I freak out and automatically try to listen, because they obviously know what they’re doing and I just don’t.

I think everyone else knows what’s best, so I constantly ask for others’ opinions. This past week I had to make an NHS video as to why I would be a good vice president, and I ended up making SIX different videos based on what my peers’ opinions were, just to choose the first… the one that I wanted.

The thing is, every single time I have doubt and someone tries to prove me wrong, I’m actually the one that’s right. Or when someone tells me to “pass the ball” or whatever, I had something way better in mind that could have brought us a goal, but that split second of doubt caused me to rethink my actions.

This past week, a girl was sobbing on my soccer team; yet, no one else even noticed or bothered to care, and some of the girls were even talking trash about her. I stepped up, and even though I was supposed to be somewhere right after practice, I stayed to talk to her and tried to help deal with what she was going through, but what she said at the end is what made me truly realize that I would make a hella amazing vice president… when she said, “I would vote for you if I could, because I’ve never seen anyone that’s cared more.”  

This week has honestly been a struggle, as I’ve been trying to decide what to run for, how to make a video, how to campaign; but it has also taught me something: to listen to my OWN heart, my OWN mind, and whatever I THINK is best.

DON’T DOUBT YOURSELF. That’s the best advice I can give you. Go with what your heart is telling you…. listen to your gut, because if you don’t, you’ll constantly be fighting your mind.

Everyone has doubt, and it’s because we strive for perfection every single day, hoping to magically obtain this concept and dodge all mistakes; I hate to break it to ya, but that’s just impossible. So even if I lose this vp thing, yeah it would suck, but I will know that I tried my very best—it’s not me who would make a bad vp at all, everyone else is just going to have to deal with the unfortunate loss, because they will be missing out on an outstanding leader.

So it turns out that the “technologies that undo [our] capacities to think” are actually our fellow peers and the people who surround us--stop doubting yourself, there’s no need. Doubt will only bring you down in the world. It will mentally change your ability to think for yourself. Just do what you want to do, and I promise that you won’t regret it.

Call me Izzy

We all have a designated name assigned to ourselves right from when we were born. We had no choice as to what we would be called for the rest of our lives, we simply had to comply to whatever our parents desired to identify us with. I mean, I guess that’s what still happens, right? We listen to our parents’ commands because it’s just a natural, humanistic thing to do.

This is extremely similar to the whole “substitution of words” scenario. I honestly couldn’t tell you who came up with “words” in the first place, but what I can indeed say is that our ancestors didn’t just piece together random letters and BAM—words. There absolutely was significance to eat word, phrase, and sentence they conjured up.

So, my question is, why take away the true definition of each word? Even the slightest change to one can cause an immense effect toward its meaning. For instance, altering the word “stupid” to become “exceptional” would just be absurd (Kakutani 764). Take a look at how Google defines each:

Stupid- having or showing a great lack of intelligence or common sense

Exceptional- unusually good; outstanding

Ummmm WHATTT?! How could we possibly substitute these words when they have no correlation whatsoever to each other?!

Additionally, modifying “Santa Clause” to “Belfana” may satisfy women, but anger men or children who have always grown up to know the name, or even religious folks, since Santa Clause was created in the spirit of St. Nicholas (Kakutani 763).

So, revising words isn’t going to fix prejudice in the world or cease sexism, racism, etc. There are always going to be people that object, and we cannot satisfy everyone’s needs—that would simply be impossible.

 All that we are accomplishing here is taking away the true definition of words and what makes each unique, and when it comes to this extent, we’re destroying how “Plain English” came to be. We are killing our history, letter by letter, and sooner or later we’re gonna need to rewrite the dictionary.

And relating all this back to the whole parents thing—we must follow our ancestors’ creations, whether we like it or not. They provided us with the communication we have today and gave us what makes us different compared to other species. Even though we don’t get to choose our name or how words are defined, we still cannot mess with the nature of it. We must live our lives in the path destined for us, and sooner or later we will receive the reward of naming our own children; we will finally have the power to make our own rules, but until that day, we must comply and live how nature desires us to…. so just don’t mess with it.

Stop Looking Down

Ok, so recently I’ve noticed that people are in it all for themselves. This past week, we chose our soccer captains, and as I looked around, everyone… and I mean EVERY SINGLE PERSON around me voted for themselves. Every. Single. One. I was shocked, but honestly not really… cause this is how our society runs these days.

Why is it that in our minds, we are the center of the universe? We constantly look down to people as our inferiors, as if from birth we enter a competition to be better than the person next to us. 

And not only toward other people, but a variety of other species as well. A homework question assigned to us this week regarding “The Death of a Moth” asked us why the author would talk about something as “insignificant as a moth's death?” Just from this question, it is obvious that moths aren’t considered anywhere near as important as human beings. WHY is this so? WHY do we give ourselves a greater title over this species? Because they’re "so small" (Woolf)? Not like us (which they are, read the piece for more info on that)? Don’t have a direct influence on us? Because if these are what our reasonings have come to, we MUST put them to rest.

Firsts of all, to all of you who think moths don’t benefit us… you’re 100,000% wrong, Moths actually pollinate our plants, hence, give us food. 

My point in providing this information, I want to prove how the things that we may think are insignificant to our lives are actually beneficial; yet, we fail to understand or even try to acknowledge that. Instead, we simply kill animals for our own benefits, cause apparently what they already do is not good enough for us. And now I come upon my second point—relating this back to our interactions with each other. We treat others as dumb or incompetent compared to ourselves, and how we deserve more than them. In reality, no matter how much we may think we know about others, we truly don’t know each one of their life stories, so we cannot automatically place ourselves on a higher hierarchy. We need to care about others just as we do for ourselves and to put them over own basic needs and desires, because in the end, the only thing that matters is the relationships you’ve with others and the impact you’ve created—not that you were the smartest in your class or the most popular kid in school. The only thing these “accomplishments” do is make you feel better about YOURSELF… but it is unfair to take your successes and degrade someone else for it. 

So, to end what I’m trying to say, I’m going to repeat my main point once more—it is ESSENTIAL that we look at others the same way we view ourselves. This way, inferiority and superiority will be nonexistent, and hopefully it will make society become less judgmental, because no one deserves to be looked upon with disapproval.

Going back to the soccer captain phenomenon… to all the people that voted for themselves, I ask you: what truly constituents an extraordinary captain? First, a true captain would definitely not vote for themselves when it comes to it, because if you were truly meant to be a captain, your own vote is "useless" (Woolf), and your teammates are the ultimate decision makers… you know… the people who AREN’T inferior to you and have just as much a chance to become captain.

A Simple Solution

Troy High School: A jungle consisting of only the fastest and slowest—there’s no in between. 

You’re either a sloth or cheetah. Sloths are the ones that walk literally 0.0078 miles per hour, as if they have nowhere to be. They’re the ones who receive plenty of sleep and still aren’t energized to move their feet at a normal pace.

The cheetahs, on the other hand, actually care. They are willing to push the sloths to the ground and even bite in order to get to their next source of knowledge on time. This is why cheetahs are evolutionarily clever and quick witted—their education surrounds their lives, and they are willing to do the worst, even if it means hurting the ones closest to them in their own packs in order to gain advantages regarding their success. Cheetahs are in it to win it, and will do whatever it takes to be victorious.

I have trailed off a bit on my true purpose, though. Please don’t take this the wrong way either, cause I am only “humbly propos[ing] my own thoughts” (Swift 405). So, to all the cheetahs at Troy High: instead of stabbing your closest supporters in the back for your own prosperity, make the sloths your victims. These slow-pokes deserve to be extinct; they are ruining the school’s momentum during passing time.

Lie to them, cheat them, cook them for dinner, push them down the stairs…. Who cares? It would only do good for Troy High in the end.

For example, the school will become a more fast-paced one. Without the sloths, cheetahs can speed to classes before the second bell even rings, since the annoying species won’t be in the way anymore. No more having to push these obnoxiously slow animals to get to your destination—they will be exterminated from the property of Troy High. The halls will be clearer, lunchrooms emptier, bathrooms cleaner, and more. The school will simply be a better place for all who desire to actually earn an education by arriving to class on time.

Doesn’t matter how the duty is done, as long as you cheetahs get what you want then life is accomplished.

So let’s turn Troy High from a jungle of madness to a place where only the best survives…

 So I “humbly” suggest that we destroy the sloths (Swift 405)!

Green Paper Rules All

Anxiety, anxiety, and…. well…. more anxiety—that’s what we fill our lives with. As high schoolers, we are in a constant state of worry and stress that never leaves our shoulders no matter how hard we try to push it off; it weighs us down and crushes any bit of happiness we have left to offer.

But, we cannot blame anyone for this problem other than ourselves. The real question is: WHY must we do this? WHY do we let the stress take over our lives? WHY is it capable of controlling our every move and emotion? 

I hate to break it to you, but the answer is money. I know that’s the response you don’t want to hear, but it’s 100% true. Just think about it for a hot sec:

Why must we get A’s in all five or six of our AP classes? –to get into college

Why do we need to get 5’s on all of our AP exams? –college credit

Why college? –our future careers

Why a job? –money

It all comes down to money. Yes, our constant stress is directly related to the green paper in our pockets; it’s crazy what our values have come down to. We’re afraid of being stuck inside our nightmares of “cold comfort” and want to secure a life of riches and the pleasurable comfort of our own homes. In our minds, we “cannot get on well in the world without money (Hazlitt).” 

But what about love? Joy? Family? Friends? Celebrations? Have these wonderful things in life been crushed by the concept of riches as well?

We MUST stop and relax. Stop stressing about your SAT, cause that’s not what life was created for. Yes, set goals for yourself, but just be the best you can possibly be, and don’t worry about something you couldn’t fully succeed in, because that’s simply just a part of life. You know what else is a characteristic of life, though, that you may haven’t experienced in a while—true exhilaration. Real satisfaction. Actual enjoyment….

Just be happy, cause you only have one life to live, and there aren’t any second chances. You want to be able to look back and say that you've truly lived, so don’t let those little green paper pocket thingies ruin that for you.

Tick Tock

In class, we have been speaking of how our society is wasteful regarding food. However, there is one thing that we waste more than food:

our time.

Time is the most valuable resource that we human beings own. We may not realize it, but it is. Think about it—how many times have you had a good 6 hours of homework but decided to instead, just sit down in front of the tv and watch Grey’s Anatomy (or whatever show you may prefer, that’s just the one that always keeps ME busy). We tell ourselves that it’s just going to be a ten-minute break, but how many times have these “ten-minute breaks” turned into hours… same here.

And it doesn’t solely come down to procrastination, but wasting our time can also be viewed through the opposite viewpoint-- we spend too much time on school, work, or things that just stress us out. We tend to focus on our own personal futures and totally disregard the people closest to us. How many times have we said to one another, “I’m too busy to talk right now” or “I’m sorry I just have so much homework”-- I admit, I’m also guilty.

Even though this isn’t a quote from what we’ve done this week, I think Jon Katz’s concept here really represents what I’m trying to say:

“I think if I’ve learned anything about friendship, it’s to hang in, stay connected, fight for them, and let them fight for you. Don’t walk away, don’t be distracted, don’t be too busy or tired, don’t take them for granted. Friends are part of the glue that holds life and faith together. Powerful stuff.”

No matter how much school work I may have, the people surrounding me honestly keep me sane. I seriously need them to wake up every morning, and if I didn’t have them, I would be stuck talking to my ap textbooks 24/7. I can’t think of the possibility where they aren’t in my life; they are in fact the “glue” keeping my existence together.

This also brings forth the concept of self-reliance. Lars Eighner states that he thinks of “scavenging as a modern form of self-reliance” (Eighner 429). 

I don’t know how much I can enforce the fact that I heavily disagree with this statement. Apparently, he thinks that he is able to survive all BY HIMSELF through the food he secures BY HIMSELF---- umm, yeah NO. He literally goes on about how he takes advantage of college students through a large portion of his essay. So obviously, he definitely could NOT survive all “by himself”… there’s absolutely no way that would be possible.

So back to my point—we CANNOT rely on ourselves to live. Every single human being needs people around them to simply function. In order to be successful, we need motivation and people who care about our well-being. So, let’s not ditch the people who just want to be in our presence for homework that we can finish later, because I can assure you, if we can make time for our Netflix shows, we can also make time for the people closest to us. 

The days might go by slow, but the years go by fast-- so let’s not waste any of our precious time… let’s make the best out of it.