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Monday, March 16, 2020

"Hello! You Are Alive! " by Izaiah R

  Hellooooo. Yes. Hi there. Yes you. Silly little one. Making wretched noises. Welcome to the world little bag of hungry cells. In essence a literal sponge, with the highest brain plasticity and capacity to learn you will ever have in your existence; before your great decay and return into the elements of the sandbox universe. All of this on the floating asteroid you call home... I’m sorry that was a rather strong introduction. Maybe enjoy this pacifier a little, while I share some basic average human life problems. Oh, what's that? You’re more interested in your thumb? Ah yes the thumb. A wondrous sucking apparatus and wonderful choice. Very comforting … but you’ll upgrade to sucking your mother’s nipple in a few short hours, because sustenance and all. It’s important, trust me. It allows you to better grow and become a young healthy grub of subsistence to where you’ll be expected to do some things here and there. Minor in the start. Kinda big in the middle. Meaningful in the end. Or maybe you’ll waste it. Eventually after a couple many full moons you will find yourself going to a stereotypically brick structure with no clue what anything is, with other small walking squawking little cherubs that just know how to say, “HIIIII!!” really loud awkwardly in a damn adorable manner or that the sky is blue. You’ll say, “HIIIII!!” back. Suddenly it’s a friend. The hieroglyphics on the wall will start to make sense. Drawing the connection that a DHA, OH, and JUH equals a fluffy companion that is commonly referred to as a ‘dog’. Congratulations, your first step to being a more exceptional human being was taken. Few years of memorizing irrelevant things, parents divorce, grandpa passes, cousin marries, adopt a vertebrate friend and to remember barely a third of everything. One must love the brain for its storage efficiency. The game of life continues on but it’s principals are the same. Most do a few years on a larger campus with more buildings, mostly retaining Hitler equal bad and how to sparknotes. Graduate with a paper that probably came from the Amazon saying “YOU ARE READY FOR LIFE”. Realize you don’t know what you’re doing. Panic. Continue on. Go thousands into debt for college, or enter the workforce or the military. Not that one cares what you want anyway, you’re just another breathing corpse. They don’t share your goals or desires. On each application remove any personality and be ‘normal’, because no one cares about your sock collection passion, how impressive your card tricks are or any other of your idiosyncratic pleasures; only just how well you can follow rules. No one
believes in you, until one day they do. For the time being stick with your side hobby and the chosen path. Fondly reminiscing on the happier times. When life was Mario Kart or dancing with cousins past midnight. In comparison to the utter hell you live in now. Give it some years. Some depression. Lack of purpose to spice it up. Get Lost. Age more. Maybe suicidal thoughts? Alcohol. Sex. Lots of that ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) . Both are excellent coping mechanisms and while doing that perhaps consider finding someone who will tolerate/deal with your quirky nature and not just do it for the looks/pleasure. Hit the 10,950 day mark also known as 30. Congratulations. You made it past the worst, maybe but you still let your crippling fear of others hold you back despite being GROWN. Ironic how we still are victims of basic instinct despite advancements Galileo, Socretes or Einstein would’ve wet themselves over. We don’t have Atlantis but if you were to tell people 100 years ago what today is like, they wouldn’t believe you. Have the mid life crisis understanding a typical natural death is closer than ever somewhere in between the 30 to 40 year marks or anytime after realizing how much time you wasted. Vow you won’t waste anymore time. Vow you won’t hesitate anymore. Then forget that because of your fear or self sabotage. Continue the path you’ve taken. Play it safe. Stay in your lane. Keep the course. Don’t kanoodle. Stay in the miserable, easier path. Sacrificing your happiness and unwillingness to be remarkable in the name of image for people you don’t care about. We all have debts to pay and you apparently can’t pay them if you compromise your perception or inability to be flawed. Get older. Get wiser. Regrets start to pour in as life reflection begins. Queue the why questions you already know the answers to. Why did I let the one run away from me and not tell her that I loved her and just wanted to adore her for our lives? Why couldn’t I get over my embarrassment and give mom one last hug and “I love you”? Why was I too ‘busy’ to cheer up grandma down the street after she lost grandpa? Why did I hesitate and question everything? Why did I care so much about what people perceived of me? What one would do if time could fall back. Return the in-exchangeable currency of time for the better hopeful outcome of a new life. Instead only gaining wisdom and allowing more reflection. Yet you still fear exposure. Realize that no one really knows why they are here or what they are doing here and that we are all trying to cope with that. Everything breathing dies eventually; nature, she is under no obligation to grant you another successful beat, but at will start another new one and so is the cycle called life. One day
you will follow suit in whatever manner you believe in, passing on into whatever you think is the right answer to death; but the universal answer will be the return of life into the ground which it was borne from; in a grave. In your final waking moments, as the life hourglass empties you will probably be there afraid and unaware of your future, the same principles which dictated the majority of your life. Hopefully moments before your passing you’ll wonder of the good moments, the bad, the beautiful, the ugly. Hopefully it’ll flash through and you’ll be content. Or maybe you wasted it all. Still, yet to think this is all predicated from your decisions and choices you make in the ‘today’ but most don’t see that. So please dear little one, choose wisely and It’ll serve you some good. Choose the stars, not the ground. Choose happiness, not misery. Choose solace in the wrongs and empathize. Take good action, for it will determine your destiny. 
 
*Just a small note to those who finished reading this. First, thank you, secondly if you were wondering yes I am fine and thirdly this is not intended to convey a sad message and if it doesn’t make complete sense that is also a way to interpret this. Though if it did make you sad, I would advise to eat some oranges. Those always make me feel better. 

21 comments:

  1. This was a great story! This almost makes me wish I knew these things before growing up to prepare myself. I love the irony in that it is preparing the person in the story about adult things when they're young, instead of learning them on the way. Great job!

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  2. Dang! Period! Isaiah, you are a beast. I love the short, brief sentences at the beginning. It really brings a whole other mood to the whole story. I absolutely love your writing style. It seems as if we are watching a suspenseful movie, and we are watching from the narrator’s perspective just waiting for everything single thought, “First! This! Next, that!” kind of way. It really puts the readers basically on the edge of their seats waiting for the next response. You also did a great job with your social commentary on basically life in general. Great blog post!

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  3. Reading this was like a mouse chasing a cheese only to find out it’s lactose intolerant. We are all looked at as if we should know everything and put our personal likes aside, and your writing really high lighted this. It was really great!

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  4. Reading this was like a mouse chasing a cheese only to find out it’s lactose intolerant. We are all looked at as if we should know everything and put our personal likes aside, and your writing really high lighted this. It was really great!

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  5. I like the way this written out because it shows the process and the experiences of life as a whole. It doesn't show the exacts, but it shows us what we can encounter in the journey called "Life". Great story and well written and thought out.

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  6. I absolutely loved reading this! The accuracy of it all with people's lives is in a way humerus, especially with the speaker speaking in such a belittling tone with a hint of fascination. I very much enjoyed this piece. Stupendous job.

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  7. I love this! You're whole description of what life is to become and how this child's life is going to go is honestly beautiful. I personally loved how the passage itself is narrated by some sort of higher being or other person. It really adds to the effect of the piece as a whole. Your description at the start, the "Silly little one. Making wretched noises. Welcome to the world little bag of hungry cells," is quite hysterical since that is all you really see with a baby lol. 10/10 piece writing Izaiah!

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  8. The way you brought a different perspective to what we really are as humans was so refreshing and outside the box! You have truth in your writing, as we all go through the same stages in life but all end up in different situations. The way you described humans as they are small children going to school made me laugh (in a good way) because it's all so true. Great job! :)

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  9. wow this was very well thought out! life is beautiful and can be ugly all at the same time. it reminds us to take advantage of all the good experiences and make the most of it. i loved the way you conveyed the passage of time. great job

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  10. Wow, this story took my breath away. I love how your writing style is extremely reflective of your personality! The tone/tone shift, diction, and writing style blended together so perfectly to make such an exquisite piece. While it starts out as a lighthearted conversation to a baby about the stages of life it will go through, you made this piece so much deeper, touching on the regret, confusion, and dissatisfaction we will all face as we grow older while helping us to get to know our protagonist. Overall wonderful piece.

    - Julia Lozano

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  11. This was great to read! It really shows that life can be the most amazing thing or the opposite. I especially loved the different perspective! Most of the time it's from person's perspective so I really enjoyed reading this.

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  12. Going from not knowing what you meant at all to reading a little bit more and being able to understand that you were talking about a living human in a bunch of personified little sentences about things that, if not put together, would not make much sense. The thinking process of many people over time was clarified in a short piece. Your emphasis on the small details, certain things that no one else really mentions when describing what life is like, were perfectly shown. The things that got to me were the mentions of SparkNotes and that Hitler is bad, because we all know that that is very true... it was super funny! Great piece of work! -Sofia Riccobelli

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  13. Hi Izaiah, I like how you told the thing like a storybook, one by one, information by little details bits by bits. it's always interesting to read one of these as it is sort of cringy to read but also kind of funny to read, overall, I like how you brought across the fact that yes, we(you) are alive.

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  14. OH my GOODNESS! I love your honesty of telling how life truly is. The impressive amounts of humor that you had scattered everywhere made the entire essay memorable and fun to read. I love the little voice that you created in the beginning and kinda made it grow. Over all this piece was greatly thought out and shows the great complexity that life can truly handle. - Hannah Colunga

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  15. I love the humorous distancing that you put into your writing you wrote on the human experience. The way you described this "bag of hungry little cells'" as it progressed and developed into a human being, learning how to make sounds and convey ideas to going through the formal education system. It was a very interesting take on the collective experience we as humans all generally go through from a very abstract and detached point of view- Justin Lim

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  16. It sounded strange at first, but the more I read the more real it became. You're telling life as it is, plain and simple, with all the craziness and quirkiness that surrounds everyone's lives. We all have these crazy feelings and things we think of and I love that you penned them into this piece.

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  17. This was such an amazing piece! The amount of creativity you put in this and how you were able to show your philosophy and your perspective in life. I’m so proud of you and this was just so well written. I’m glad you were able to include part of your own personal story in this because it’s part of the reason that you are who you are. And I loved how you included comedy to take out a bit of seriousness out of such a delicate topic. I admire you so much and this was very inspiring. - Aneika Madrigal

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  18. This story was very compelling. It was a good take on perspective, and life in general. The writing isn't too complex adding to the effect the story has. Overall an amazing read. ~Nathan Sandoval

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  19. Reading this was an experience! It felt like1 long sentence, and I mean that in the best way. It was raw and uncomfortable and made me question life. I found myself laughing at some parts because it’s the ugly truth. Really well written! I loved it

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  20. Nathaniel PattersonApril 2, 2020 at 4:41 PM

    izaiah when I first read this a couple days before you submitted this i was already at awe at how good it was, but then you added more detail and new things to make it even better. Especially the part where you say "So please dear little one, choose wisely and It’ll serve you some good. Choose the stars, not the ground. Choose happiness, not misery. Choose solace in the wrongs and empathize. Take good action, for it will determine your destiny.", this really made me rethink have I made the right choices in life, have I got my happiness?, Thank you so much once again!!

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  21. This is such an amazing story Izaiah! The unique perspective you use to tell the story truly reveals your creativity and honesty as you piece the little details together to create a humorous and intriguing effect that made this a great read.

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