“Parents are not interested in justice, they're interested in peace and quiet.” ― Bill Cosby

     I do not understand parents.  More specifically, I do not understand my parents.  I assume that something about birthing a child means that the memories of adolescence are wiped from memory.  As I myself am not a parent, I am not privy to their secrets.  
    I have often seen those self-help parenting books in the aisles of libraries and bookstores and garage sales.  One should never judge a book by its cover, even if there is a buxom, smug-looking woman on the front cover, holding in one hand the hand of an equally smug looking child and a tray of muffins in the other.  However I cannot help but scoff every time I see one.  After all, just because I'm considerably younger than most parents doesn't mean that I'm a vapid little idiot. I always wondered why those books never took the actual advice from actual kids.  Now, obviously there is the issue of maturity and whatnot, but most children would be able to tell you that yelling and screaming is scary.  Why do adults trust science over their children? Can they seriously not remember what it's like to be a child? 
   Dumbledore once said something along the lines of: "The truly wise do not forget what it is like to be young".  I think that was in the fifth book, after Sirius Black is killed.  But my point is that the greatest minds were, at some point, the minds of children.  Maturity is not a manifestation of character, but rather the development of our ability to make decisions that do not contradict our consciences.  Also, maturity is not the equivalent of wisdom.  I know myself, my values, and my desires yet I would hardly call myself "mature", which is a hackneyed term anyways.  
    Something about growing up means that you  lose that frank, childish inquiry and that honest transparency.  What adults must use words to communicate, a child can convey with a look.  What adults call love, a child feels no need to label or categorize.  
     Parents, please stop taking everything we say as an attack on your authority.  Please stop pressuring us, because we already compare ourselves and are compared with the "elites" of our generation.  Please stop expecting us to act our age if you won't treat us as though we are.  Please remember that this is a difficult time and that one day we will know how to show you that we love, respect, and admire you.  
    Parents, why are you so confusing? Why don't you understand us, if you were once where we are?

The Jenniferius

     I wanted so badly to write about this but now that I have begun I find it difficult to put what I think and how I feel in writing.  Truthfully, she is the bravest, kindest, most inspiring person I know.  Her name is Jennifer, and (I don't want to give away too much of her private life) she has spent the last few months in the hospital.  
     This is my way of letting Jenn know how I respect and admire her, but for your sakes, I think I better stop jumping around.  I met Jennifer about a year ago, in the first couple days of school.  We were both in Mr. Whitney's physics classroom, waiting to talk to him.  I had come to see Mr. Whitney about some scheduling conflict, and nearly walked into her.  I didn't think too much about the tallish, pale girl with the swirl of soft raven curls and black-rimmed glasses.  Not even after noticing the sweet face, the flushed cheeks and the shy smile.  Why is it that people always overlook the beauty of kindness in the search for the extraordinary?  Because in truth, the truly good are a much rarer phenomenon.  But I digress.  She let me go first, assuring me that she would take a while.  When I finished, I confess that I listened to her conversation as I deposited my things into my seat.  First with an incurious idleness that then grew into sympathetic surprise.  She had come to tell our physics teacher that she would be missing most of the class due to her imminent hospitalization.  
   When they had finished conversing, she looked about her timidly, for class was about to begin.  I caught her look, and patted the stool beside me, smiling (hopefully encouragingly).  Her uncertainty vanished in the gentle radiance of her smile.  That was how I got to know her, the best of all of us.  
    Jennifer, how we miss you! If you only knew how Emma and I celebrated the advent of your transplant.  If you saw how we clasped hands and spoke of our excitement and anxiety for you in hushed voices-the reverence due a saint.  
     There is no way to tell more of this extraordinary girl's life without violating her trust in me, so I won't.  But know that like every good story, there is more to tell.  Every day, every breath she takes will add more to her story.  Jennifer, my dear, you are truly an inspiration.  I would hope for your perpetual and never-ending happiness if not for the fact that sorrows bring out the true flavor of joy.  It is in honor to be your friend.

Humans and Orangatuns

     Below is an essay I received a score of 8 for.  To be honest, I still feel like it should have been higher.  I regard this as the best essay I've ever written, and I don't really understand why I got an 8 out of 12.  I'm probably just being immature, but I can't help myself.  Technically, the graders aren't supposed to judge you if you creatively BS-ed everything but your intro (I did).  

    Prompt: Do people need other people to understand themselves? Support you answer with examples yada yada yada...

    When I was still in preschool, I made friends with a tree, whose wit I treasured very much.  My peers couldn't understand why anyone would want to spend time with something as incapable of reciprocation as a tree, so they teased me for it.  They called me things like "weirdo" and "tree beard".  I later realized that it is human nature to put down or ridicule things we cannot comprehend.  So I would say that yes, humans need other humans in order to understand themselves because one human is merely a part of the bigger whole that is the homo sapiens species. 
     My good friend and celebrated biologist, Dr. Annae Blythe explained to me once, how organisms need to be a part of a society made up of those same organisms in order to achieve an understanding of themselves (naturally this only applies to creatures that are capable of meta-cognition).  Humans are no different.  Humans also do not possess any predilection for self-study.  It is only through social interactions that we can develop an understanding of human nature and the workings of the human mind.  As we mature, so does our comprehension of humanity and because everyone is ultimately a member of humanity, that leads to a greater understanding of ourselves.
     Some twenty years ago, Annae conducted a study with our close relative, the orangatan.  She found that when isolated, they did not develop the social skills necessary to pick up on the emotional cues of their companions.  In addition, they had a harder time figuring out a means to respond to certain signals their own bodies sent them: hunger, pain, discomfort.  In contrast, however, the second group consisting of several orangutan that spent time in each others company did rather better at all these things.  Annae concluded that therefore, organisms such as orangutan and humans can achieve  greater self-awareness and understanding when able to observe those around them.  Our compatriots bring out our own quintessentially human qualities and observation of theirs allows for a greater understanding of our own.
    Yes, there are those special individuals that do consciously contemplate their own personalities and character, but the rest of us achieve that same understanding at the subconscious level.  Because of this, we learn by unconsciously observing others of our species and are better able to consciously analyze our own feelings when they are brought to the surface by certain events or interactions.  As Anne Sheppard said :" As human beings we all have things in common".

The Reward for Conformity is that Everyone Likes You Except Yourself

    I have a new math teacher, whose name I'll leave to your imagination.  He is the child of a dying race of a bygone era.  To give you some idea of what I mean, he graduated high school in the year 1974.  He must have been one of those rebellious spirits that marched, protested, and perhaps even fought.  Even now, with long silvery hair and a beard to match, the aura of intellectual power swirls about him.  As he stood before the class, towering above we mortals as a cliff stands over the sand, his every worded incited rebellion, individualism, a break from conventions.  I wished, in that moment, that he were a grandfather to me because I felt that we were as, Anne Shirley put it, "kindred spirits".  
    I hate math.  But according to this man, we do not learn math; rather, we memorize rules and regurgitate them onto paper, in the vague hopes of one day moving on to learning real math.  I could hear his disappointment in the system, how he wanted us to break away from restrictions.  "I want you guys to say to your teachers 'Hey teach! Is this math? When are we really gonna do math?'".  There is an eloquence in the roughness of his manner, and an elegance in the single-mindedness of his denunciation of what  can only be "the man". 
    Why have I not met another person like this?  A person that tells stories about halcyon days, a person that politely begs us to "please forgive his French," when he curses in front of us, a person whose watery blue eyes are mournful beneath black rimmed spectacles.  It is easy to envision him as a friend to Robert Plant, whom I have romanticized many times over (note: friends, stop misusing the word "romanticize").  This is no example of the idealized, perfect human, yet this is also no example of the product of complacency and mental stasis.  
     Nowhere shy of 6'5", lanky, and rather stoop-shouldered, he is at once an old man and an immortal man.  Immortal, I imagine, because his life had meaning; he was his own man, and fought to prove it.  He could have been stationed in Vietnam, had he enlisted as soon as he left high school.  He speaks with the authority of a person that has seen horror, and has learned to appreciate beauty.  He speaks of his travels and the books he has read, the things a lifetime of questioning has taught him.  
     On the surface, there is nothing remarkable about him.  A little too loud, a little too emphatic, yes, but nothing anyone else thought out of the ordinary.  But he is what I wish to be.  I want to be freed of the constraints of society, the way a man such as him must be.  I want to see the world through eyes none other than my own, and accept the horrors of a technologically changing world without swallowing the sugar-coating. 

“It`s not how old you are, it`s how you are old.”
― Jules Renard