This I believe...

         I've always wondered. What are the limitations for human growth? What does the future hold? What occurs during the consequence of life? I have even questioned if anyone else even exists--if I'm the sole "living" member in this phantasm of events and personas. And to be honest, I have yet to know; I will probably never find out. For me, the world is dismal and desolate and pointless. I don't live the worst life. I don't live the best life. I live one in between all the rest--the life of a person as unimportant to the world as the next person. My life is a bedlam within the oblivious confines of a closet. A closet that serves as both a bulwark against anything I dislike, and a prison for the entirety that is "me". I find myself having to change often. Day by day, I must reach into the closet, and pull out clothes that aren't me in order to please society. And to please me. To be honest, I don't really like myself. I'm sure that by this point, though, my personal slander is sounding really aggravating, so I'll move on to the main point. The belief that drives me forward, that keeps me going, that helps me write this very essay, is my belief in 'stories'.

         Let me explain. It is silent. The moon glows dimly, above. You are surrounded by a clandestine darkness, which constantly shifts and forms new and strange shapes and amalgamations, which all threaten to gobble any frail human being up with a flick of their tongues. Behemoths, all of them. In time, there is reverberation in the beat of footsteps. A shadow forms before you. It is of a giant, hairy creature. You try to run, but you stumble over your own feet. It approaches you silently, and reaches out to crush you. You close your eyes as the gnarled hand grasps you firmly, and pulls you up. And then--you wake up from your untimely slumber during your least favorite class, with the teacher standing before your desk. I find that stories are written by creative people whose lives are inadequate for them. Or desire a means of expression, which they cannot achieve otherwise. For me, writing is a means of escape. Reading as well. And daydreaming. Sleeping. Playing games. All of that, just for me to escape from reality.

         To be honest, I believe that life is completely sufferable. I just can't bear it. Can I change the world with my belief? Although I may not be able to, stories change the world and its views. Lives, themselves, are stories. And so is the Bible. So is Twilight and Eragon and The Hunger Games and Don Quixote. So are those poems by Robert Frost and William Butler Yeats. Stories change lives, and they bring us death and life; tragedy and hope; and strength and knowledge.

         After all, all things are just chapters within the greater Book. And as insignificant a single line may be in the greater picture, a single well-written phrase, could determine the totality of the chapter, and bring about an epic opening, climax, conclusion.

         My life has a tendency of being borderline misanthropic. I'm paranoid, distrusting, and a fool in more ways than one. And although I am incapable of helping people literally, I hope to somehow help them not become like me through the only method that feels real to me--my imagination, my stories, myself.

         I simply pray that I am not disillusioned about their quality; if I were to lose those dream-like romances, then the ambivalence and cruelty and kindness of reality will then come upon me and crush me.