The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it is not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining its own direction, have hither to harm us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.
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It was my turn up to bat, I had to make sure I hit this one deep because if I didn't then the game would've been over and my friends and I would've lost to the cocky 5th graders. I saw the ball coming, fastball on the outside, my favorite. I swing with all my might, hit the baseball over to left field I make it all the way to third and by the time I landed on the bag recess was over. My team scored the last 2 runs and we all laughed and celebrated our victory against the 5th graders. Now it was time to go back inside and learn complex multiplication skills that would have made any other 4th grader want to rip all of their hair out. I mean c'mon, 9 times 6? Impossible. Now it was the afternoon, around the time either my mom or my dad would pick me up, mostly my mom though. I see her pull up in the parking lot and all I can think about is telling her about how excited I was winning that little baseball game that meant so much at the time. She looked at me through the window and smiled. I waved and said goodbye to my friends and I made sure to promise that I would play again tomorrow. I remember my mom being very quiet and just letting me tell this outstanding story about how I beat those stupid 5th graders, and how I almost got a home run. She looked at me and said "that's great mijo (son in Spanish)". I knew something was wrong but I never seemed to care anything about it, after all, I was the all star and had a plate of mac and cheese waiting for me at home. I turned on the TV, it was 5:00 and pokemon was about to start playing. That's when I heard my father yell "Gabrian, come over here, your mother and I need to talk to you." I sat down and wondered what the deal was. My parents stared at each other for awhile and soon enough my mother let out a quiet and tired voice "Mijo, I'm gonna be going away for awhile." This didn't bother me, my mom was always gone, not as much as my dad though, but still I knew that wherever she was going she was going to bring me back a T-shirt or something else cool. "How long are you going to be gone?" I asked. "For awhile." she said. "Will you just shut your fucking mouth and tell him already?" my father asked with a demanding tone. I was shocked, why was dad talking to mom like that? My father let out a curse under his breath and said "Your mother and I are getting a divorce". My blood ran cold. I started to feel the pressure coming to my eyes and soon tears started to blur my vision leaving only a silhouette of my parents. Soon enough my mother and father started yelling at each other and my father was picking things up and throwing them. Then there was me, locking myself in the bathroom crying as I kept hearing my mother crying and my father saying all sorts of mean things to her calling her a bitch and all sorts of other curses. Things weren't the same when my mother left. People started to ignore me at school. Everyone knew now that my mother left for her girlfriend and moved away. "Your mom is a faggot." "Your mom is going to burn in hell with you for liking girls and not boys." These where always the things kids would say to me that would often get me into fights. Even if I didn't understand why my mother liked girls instead of guys, I knew that she wasn't going to burn in hell and she wasn't all of those names. My counselor pulled me out of class one day and sat me down in a comfortable chair and started asking me all of these questions. "Is everything going OK at home?" "yes." "Is there anything you want to talk about?" "no." "Just know we are always here for you Gabriel". That's not my name. My father signed me up to see a therapist, he thought that maybe I could let out all of my frustration and finally come to peace about what happened. My therapist was a nice man. I always liked talking to him, he made me feel like I wasn't alone. He started asking me questions like the counselors at school did, but this time they seemed to let out a lot of things I was thinking at the time. "If I wasn't alive none of this would have never happened. It's all my fault that mom and dad are mad at each other." I lock myself in my room and cry every night wishing I could see my mom and started wondering if she was really going to burn in hell like my father and those kids would tell me in school. I don't know what kind of 8 year old wants to die so badly and prays to God that he will come down and take my soul while I am sound asleep so I can escape all of things happening to me. 10 years pass now. I live in Vancouver now with my mother and two exceedingly fat dogs. I have a lot of friends and I do well in school (arguably). I have a job, I have my own car, and I have teachers who all consider me to be their friend and check up to see how I'm doing. One thing I've learned about love and loss is that you can't really have one without the other. When my mother left, I was completely devastated. But look at where I am now, I have an amazing life, there are so many things I've learned from losing someone close to me like even when things aren't going your way, time will eventually make everything better.
"Old men declare war but it is the youth that must fight and die" - Herbert C. Hoover One afternoon I was watching a documentary about the Vietnam war that happened in the 60's. I love to watch documentaries, especially about wars, my favorites being the civil war and the Vietnam war. Even though I like to learn about all of this conflict and think it is highly interesting, I still have a strong grasp of reality knowing that war is not something to take lightly and it affects the hearts of not only the soldiers but the families it consumes. And even though most of the US soldiers were drafted into the military, there was a big percentage of young men who were only 18. 18 I'm 17 years old, and I couldn't possibly imagine going oversees, leaving everything I left behind to fight a war that had I had no idea what it was even about. But I like to imagine myself in the shoes of a young man at the time, what horrors they witnessed and all the horrible acts they had to carry out on young men, women, and sometimes even children. I remember during one of the documentaries, a veteran who was only 19 at the time had to go on a search and destroy mission to locate and clean the war supplies the enemy stored in a village up by the hills. When he arrived, he was greeted with horrified faces from the local farmers. They soon found the hidden weapons and ammo under floorboards or piles of hay. The order was given "clean it up boys". The veteran then states how the soldiers, our soldiers, starting burning the houses and shooting the farmers. Shocked and horrified, all he could do was stand still and watch as a mother cradled her son, both burning alive and screaming in pain. Just imagine, imagine closing your eyes every night and only being able to hear the screams and feel the intense heat blow against your face keeping you from sleeping soundly ever again. The arrogance of old and powerful men corrupt the hearts of the youth and make them commit unspeakable acts against humanity, and for what? Nothing. War is horrible. War is pointless. The reason why I research war tragedies as much as I do is because I am looking for an answer that justifies why we fight. Even to this day and age, with all of the knowledge we possess and with the potential to save everyone from poverty, we still seek destruction against our brother.
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AuthorHighly intelligent ape with access to an internet connection Archives
October 2016
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