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

Best Love Story Ever

I had a writing teacher once, whom I and my classmates were quite fond of.  Part of the reason must have been our light-heared camaraderie that sprung from his ability to tolerate our good-natured ribboning.  We used to heckle him quite a bit about his wife, whom I will rename as "May".  You see, "Daryll" was, in our minds, quite a romantic figure as well as a man of the world.  We were after him for ages to tell us their proposal story, which he finally did tell us, days before term ended.  

 

So here is the story.  Disclaimer: some things were changed.  

  "There is a time in your life when you will find yourself in a relationship.  And in every relationship there is a time, although you all might be too young to know about, where you either realize that you two will get married and be together for ever, or that things are going nowhere and you just need to break up."  At this point, Daryll literally had half of us in what I like to call H.S.F.C.C. (Hysterics Stemming From Cuteness Overload).  
    Then the dirty little bugger stomped on our hearts by continuing: "So May and I broke up." Now, we all cried out in our distress, but they clearly worked out their differences, seeing as Daryll was standing there, looking all smug and wearing a wedding band.
      (I am now going to pretend I'm Daryll, because I can't remember what he said, word for word)  So, kids, my friends wanted to cheer me up.  That's what friends do: meaning well while in actuality making a crappy day worse.   They took me bowling.  Here I am, on the worst day of my life, trying for their sakes to carry on like my heart wasn't broken.  There inevitably will be that one friend that makes everything ten times worse because he tries too hard to make you have fun.  This one friend-his name was Stephen-thought it would be a good idea to push me into a puddle of melted ice cream, just for kicks and giggles.  Yeah...math teachers are bad at jokes.  
    Anyways, there I was, now sopping wet and sticky, when my phone rang in my pocket.  Surprised that it was still functional (seeing as the phones back in the days were pretty much brick-like fossils, haha), I checked my messages to see that May had left me about eight messages.  She was all:

     "Daryll.  My U-Haul has a flat tire, and I have no idea where I am.  I hate to do this, but please come help me."

 Now, I'm a pretty nice guy, but I reeeeaaaaalllllly did not want to help her.  But like I said, I'm a pretty nice guy.  I drove to her, still in my sticky shorts, and found her drenched in sweat, courtesy of the Arizona sun.  I changed the tire for her, nodded awkwardly at her equally awkward thanks, and got into the U-Haul.  We made eye contact, and there was this moment.  ( Daryll pauses to let that sink in.  Everybody  flipped out) We were like: "Did we make a mistake? Were we too hasty?" So then I looked around and the only ring I could find was they U-Haul key, with that stupid key chain that says "You want quick? You want U-HAUL!".  So I put it on her finger.  Then the people back at the company made us give it back.  It didn't matter in the end because I wore my distant friend, Elvis Presley,'s ring and May wore her mother's.  
 

  

See? Wasn't that the best love story ever? That would be one rom com I would willingly see twice.

Insomnia

   Sleepless nights preceding hazy mornings.  The worst is when you know that a big day is ahead of you, and you really, really needed a good night's sleep  to avoid the situation where you say something stupid in a moment of haziness.  Or when it is exactly and frustratingly 3:17 am and you're trying not to dwell on the fact that you're thinking too hard about sleeping.  
   Sometimes, though, I feel that it's not so bad to lay awake during the  purplish hours from midnight to dawn.  When your heart is broken, when you feel that it is simply too insensitive to be productive the next day, sometimes it's nice to have all of the night to ponder and contemplate things.  It's an unexpected luxury, because your exhaustion lends a certain languid flavor to your thoughts.  It's so beautiful, because everything is colored a whimsical, dusky blue.  Suddenly your life as you look back becomes a thrilling storybook tale, worthy of song.  Suddenly things are not as they are; quintessence is no longer quintessence; you are not you; everything ceases to exist as it is.  All is at the mercy of your fancy.  
   My room-it's quite a nice room, with its numerous prints of Nattier and Robert Plant -melts into the mist and might reappear as the silken lining of Sultan Mehmed's tent. The sultan himself sits before a vast mahogany table, surrounded by his courtiers, generals, and advisors, all resplendant in splendid tunics and turbans.  My imagination might pause at that table; surely a piece as fine as that would be heavy?  It's such an impracticality to haul it over such a long distance as one of the Sultan's military campaigns.  And the a map sits atop the smoothly ruddy surface! Finely etched upon the finest calfskin, it must be the marvel  of whole nations.  

      A whirl, a spin, a waft of grass and horses and soldiers, and then the scene shifts at my mind's command.  The walls are papered with dainty apple blossom prints and the windows are hung with frilly muslin curtains.  It is evident by the costly furniture that this is a room of heirlooms and ancestors.  Festooned by candles and sprays of cherry blossoms is a yellowing picture of Robert E. Lee.  Ah, so this is the Old South, caught in the ravages of the American Civil War.  I had wondered at the bareness of the room, even with its fine threads.  I pause, mourning the loss of the old Southern ways, of fine ladies and powdered gloves.  Yet I feel, too, a sense of exultation at the emancipation of a people too long oppressed, whose stories were too long disregarded, and whose children were too long shuffled off to the side.  




At some point, my waking fancies will see me to the edge of the the River of Consciousness and accompany me, instead, as Dreams.  

   
 
“I've always envied people who sleep easily. Their brains must be cleaner, the floorboards of the skull well swept, all the little monsters closed up in a steamer trunk at the foot of the bed.”
― David Benioff, City of Thieves

  

August

     How can it be August already? Where has my Summer gone? I have spent seven weeks inside an SAT prep class, dreaming about sandy beaches and watermelon agua frescas.  What has the world come to?
    My June was alright, but my July slipped past in such a flurry of academic hustle-and-bustle that it may as well have not existed at all.  It pains me to admit that my Summa experience (that's the name of the prep class) was not excruciatingly dull.  Rather, I found that I enjoyed myself, and learned things actually relevant to my life.  I always thought that the SAT was an absurdity: a ridiculous way to classify America's youth due to the educational system's general ineptitude.  Typical teenaged pomposity.  I still think that the SAT perhaps isn't the best way to categorize students, but now I realize that it's the best way we have, for now.  It makes sense that colleges need some way of determining their incoming freshman classes.  
     But however much I may have found improving myself an engaging experience, my inner child still rebelled; Little Cynthia wanted to see actual sunshine.  I don't think it's unreasonable to long for what childhood is left me, either.  Sixteen is neither adult nor child, and it's a painfully awkward place to be in.  If I ever look back to the July of my sixteenth Summer, I'll remember a big whiteboard with a dirty eraser and a sea of desks with those stupid plastic chairs that are attached to them (Seriously, whoever invented them must have been a spartan disciplinarian who clearly hated children and smiles and kittens).  Of course, I had weekends and afternoons to myself, provided that I finished my homework, but mornings are my favorite time of the day.  
    Summa now only has one week remaining, and I want to enjoy my ten days of freedom.  If I can't have my July, at least I'll have my August.  It shall be everything an August ought to be: hot, sandy, and irresponsible.  If by the time school starts I haven't increased my chances for skin cancer at least a little, I'll consider myself a failure as a human being ( my bottle of Neutrogena Sunscreen on my nightstand is glaring at me, as if to say: "I'd like to see you try, you screw-up!") 

On the twentieth I think I'll bake Robert Plant a birthday cake.
Let's all be children of the sun together!
~Cynthia