A Drop in the Ocean

            More than once in our lives, we’ve looked at a celebrity, a professional athlete, or a friend thinking “I want her hair” or “If only I could throw a baseball at 95 mph”. We are never satisfied with our life. We always want more.

            David Sedaris creates a compare and contrast essay showing the differences between his own childhood and his partner’s childhood. They lead completely diverse lives; Sedaris living in North Carolina with his family, while Hugh is living a life of instability never knowing what’s going to happen next. They do similar activities, however not to the same extent. Like Sedaris says, “The verbs are the same, but he definitely wins the prize when it comes to nouns and objects.”

            The same thing happens in our normal lives. We want, want, want something, yet, never stopping to think how great our life actually is. We’re not shivering in the cold like the homeless; we aren’t dying of an incurable disease like some patients. We take our life for granted, thinking that failing a quiz is the end of all humanity; however, we don’t have to worry about where our next meal is coming from. We need to become more grateful for what we have, rather than worrying about what we want. You never know how great you have it until you lose it.

Heaven is a Place on Earth

     Expansive and wild, untamable, invincible, defender of the unrefined, buffalo and elk, mother of nature, father of survival, soul of tranquility, Yellowstone National Park is the sanctuary of character, the sanctuary of title, of knowledge, of mystery. It gives birth to Old Faithful Geyser and Yellowstone Lake, extending over 2,219,789 wildlife-inhabited acres, rocky as the mountains. Over two million and two hundred thousand acres of clawing, stampeding, grazing animals, of waterfalls and lakes and hot springs, of mountains and forest, of grass, meadow, pasture and vastness. Things get eaten here, things boil over, explode, graze, forage. The park is home to sixty-seven species of mammals, three hundred and twenty-two species of birds, sixteen species of fish, six species of reptiles, and four species of amphibians – all diversely equipped with beaks, claws, wings, fangs, antlers, hooves and fur – not to mention the pronghorns, moose, and black bears, white-tailed deer, mountain goat, and bighorn sheep, grey wolves and mountain lions that exist only to compound the beauty and perfection of life. There are lynx here, black bears, bobcats, and cattle, there are wolverines, bald eagles, and cutthroat trout. They feed on each other, in the prairie and plains they lay eggs, they scratch and sniff and peruse the enormous land, growling and howling through the long nights until the earth echoes a sweet lullaby.

Thriller

Death is a funny thing. It’s the circle of life. It’s inevitable. As mortal creatures we are obsessed with death. We like to think that maybe there is some fountain of youth out in this massive world just waiting to be unveiled; however in reality, there isn’t. You can’t escape it.

Another funny thing about death is that we think it’s so fascinating. For example, have you ever noticed that in every Disney movie there is someone dying or dead? I thought Disney was a happy place; yet, when you begin to analyze the story of the main character and their life, it’s actually pretty tragic.

We enjoy seeing people die in any circumstance. Bad guy. Boom. Dead. Yippee. Blond chick that has been irritating throughout the whole movie. Dead. Awesome. Dog. Dead. NO!

However, it’s not really the death that fascinates us; it’s the anticipation and the struggle right before the act, the final stand. For example, in The Death of the Moth, Woolf stares at this moth that is confined in this window pane. She watches as it resists death, the legs twitching desperately trying to stay alive. In the end, it’s too much. Death had taken over the moth.

We have a twisted wish for death. It’s different, mesmerizing, intriguing. It reels us in with the emotional attachment, filling us with joy or sorrow. Filling a void within us that craves for this dark demise.

Man in the Mirror

            A man wheels down the street. He has a physical disability to where he is stuck in a wheel chair for the rest of his life. Would you have guessed he is one of the smartest men on the planet? His name is Stephen Hawking.

            A frail, forty-two year old African American woman takes a seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. She takes a seat in the white section of the bus. A white man told her to move to the back of the bus where she belonged. That day she had had enough. She said no. Would you have guessed she was the mother of the civil rights movement? Her name was Rosa Parks.

            We judge. It’s how we were raised even though you didn’t know it. We singled out the people who we thought we were weird or not quite like us. We create stereotypes also so we can clump the different types of people into groups.

            We read a short story that exposed the negative side of judgment. A black man named Staples was thought to be “a mugger, a rapist, or worse” wherever he went. A woman ran at the sight of him walking down the street. He was thought to be a robber in his own company. He had to watch what he was doing at all times. No one should have to live like this.

            We need to accept everyone. We need to accept their differences. We need to think before we act. We need to observe before we react. We need to think.