Violence

If you are not under any threat of any kind and your life is at not risk and the only way you can defend yourself is by participating in some sort of violence, then I do not tolerate it. At all. Ever.

 Now I go to a relatively middle class grammar school where the only violence that usually occurs are playground scraps, but recently an incident happened where almost the entire year were left in shock and disgust. A group of young men in their late teens arrived behind the leisure centre which is situated behind my school intending to beat up a boy aged 14 as some sort of revenge for a female friend attending my school. The young boy was attacks by one of the men and hit a number of times causing a great deal of damage to the boy's face before running off back down the hill. A number of other students of the same age witnessed the account and were dumbfounded as the innocent children that they were, desperately trying to help their friend as he bled heavily from the nose.

 The boy was then taken to the school matron, cleaned up and reassured as no serious damage had been done. Over the last hour left of the school day a number of pupils were asked to write statements on the event as the rest of us, shaken by the violence, chatted continuously until the last period ended.

 I understand that this violence was fairly minimal to the amount that is committed on a daily basis in wars and gangs and abuse of every kind but it opened our sheltered eyes up to see what humans can do to their own species. As teens barely out of childhood we struggled to comprehend why anyone could even suggest doing such a thing as what had been done. The mental ability to physically use one's body to seriously hurt another was an alien concept for us. It was unlike a playful scrap in the schoolyard or a puppy like fight with a sibling it was real and forceful and completely intent on sincerely causing another person pain. It was no longer the baddie getting what he deserved in a film but a real life demonstration of what we as humans are entirely capable of and subject to in our lives.

 I believe I am about to contradict myself here when I say that I conjecture that violence is an important part of one's life and that nature is bound to take its course. However, my reasoning behind this is that where I completely oppose to hatred behind violence and pointless violence in media such as movies put in for entertainment purposes only I personally believe that primarily as a child exploring violence through play and experimenting how far hitting your sibling is stretching the rules can actually be justified. I think that investigating violence as an infant helps you to understand it in later life.

 In most circumstances I completely object to the existence of the death penalty as I believe that the state is becoming equally as evil as the criminal and being a hypocrite by ending someone's life in a deliberately cruel way. Whilst some might say it's an eye for an eye, a statement I sort of relate to, I am of the opinion that life imprisonment for murder or rape is a far better punishment than an easy path to death and a release from the inevitable guilt.

 Violence of the cruel kind is completely intolerable and having witnessed an example of this, I've realised that I am definitely behind this view. I wouldn't say that I was a pacifist as such but I would put myself in that category if asked, and I suggest, if you have any sense that you do too.

Crying isn't just for babies.

I don’t cry that often but when I do, I cry a lot. Sometimes I cry at TV programmes or books or films but mostly, some days, just at how everything is extremely difficult and I don’t want to carry on. I don’t mean suicide, obviously, I just mean giving up completely. I think, or at least hope, that everyone feels like this once in a while because in a funny sort of way I think it’s good for you. To just cry. It’s like having a bath or a shower really but just washing out your emotions rather than your body. It's much like a down pour, if you think about it, you spend so much time holding it in and building it up (like the clouds swelling with rain) that eventually the moment comes where you just have to release and tears come flooding. You empty out your soul to whoever is nearest or your childhood teddybear if a human is not available. Afterwards, once you realise all fate is not eternally doomed, the releasing feeling of your nose unblocking and your face reducing to its original size and losing the puffy redness induced by crying feels rather pleasant. As you sink back into a non-hysterical place where just thinking about that scene from '10 Things I Hate About You' where she reads a heart breaking poem to Heath Ledger doesn't reduce you to tears you are entering a new, fresh state. 

Indulge yourself, have a good old bawl about everything, cleanse your soul then return to your fabulously wonderful lives. 

The Climbing Metaphor

I climb. By the way. I go rock climbing every Tuesday evening at my local leisure centre and participate in a junior club where I learn the do's and don'ts of climbing. I love it. I love it because everyone there is particularly nice and non judgemental people, it pushes me to personal physical limits that I may not reach on other occasions, I am encouraged to try extra hard by people who genuinely care and I always come away feeling alive and buzzing. I'm not the best, I'm not even close to being the best, but that doesn't matter because it's all about your personal ambition and ability and no one has the right to interfere. Even when I've been close to quitting, I never have because the pure thrill I receive from going climbing beats almost anything.

The reason I am informing you of this seemingly irrelevant part of my free time, is because I believe it has very similar attributes to life. Climbing, therefore, is a very tiring metaphor.
These are the aspects that I am personally convinced should be used as a general template for varying occurrences of your time on Earth;

a) Be friendly with everyone, all the time. I don't know the entirety of the climbing population so this may be just my experience of the sport but it's still quite a nice objective anyway. Everyone I've met through the activity has been kind to me, involved me in conversation, called me pet names, cracked jokes with me, showed encouragement or support or just simply smiled politely. It doesn't matter how long I've known the individual, I've always been shown hospitality.
  Now, of course, this advice does not include certain members of the population who you possibly don't want to be friends with as their company could endanger your life or wellbeing, but these, fortunately are a very small percentage of us humans therefore being friendly with almost everyone is nearly entirely possible. Like, maybe it's a good idea to stay clear of the axe murderer who escaped from prison and has just knocked down your door with a blood lust look in his eyes, but it is a very good idea to stay friendly with your next door neighbour. Even if he gives you dirty looks for that time you broke his greenhouse with the football, taking no notice and smiling anyway will annoy him all the more, so it's basically a win win situation.

b) Always try your hardest, and stay committed. This one's pretty obvious and is already well known and widely used, but within climbing particularly it's quite hard not to do what you know your body is capable of. It's your brain that's the issue. Commitment is the most important factor of the climbing sport. There's no doubt that being 11 metres up a wall with just a rope between you and your death, or severe injury, and clinging on to a teeny hold that only your finger tips can fit on and being shouted at to just "stand up and reach" for another hold that is more than your arm's length away is a more than daunting prospect. What you need to do is just trust yourself and commit to the climb and you will find that, even if after more than one try, you will complete the climb and you will feel amazing.
Breaking that barrier in your mind down is a task that everyone has to face in an infinite array of everyday events. It is never anything or anyone else that is stopping you from reaching your goal, it is you and you alone. Always give it your best shot and even if that formidable block in your brain appears, stay committed and try over and over again until eventually it breaks down and you find you can do what ever you desire.

and finally,

c) Encourage yourself and others, to do what you love. The sheer amount of support I've received from my climbing centre is inspiring. I feel completely accepted, and although I don't always do things correctly (almost always actually) I've just been told that I've done well to try, to pick myself up, and to try all over again. I'm not perfect at climbing, although I adore it, but perfection is a nonexistent attribute to doing what you love, passion is really the only thing you need. I've been encouraged by my instructors and friends to continue this hobby of mine and they provide that little push that you need carry on no matter what issues arise.
If you have an ambition or desire, you'd expect others to support and encourage you to carry it out thus you must also reverse your role to when others need your help, to be there in the background with t-shirts and banners screaming 'YOU CAN DO IT!' as they struggle on through the numerous hurdles to the perfect paradise that is success.

Climbing isn't the only sport where you can discover rather wonderful advice for living, and it certainly isn't the only place where you can find these guidelines. Always, always do what you love with the people you love in the places you love. And search for hidden metaphors in daily aspects, for you may find that what you discover is the way in which you want to continue living and that, in itself, is pretty bloody powerful.

If the bus is late, walk.

I'm fed up with waiting and being told "it will happen someday" because this way of thinking seems to me a little unproductive. If I sat around all day wondering when my time will come and not doing anything of the sort to actually ensure it will ever happen, then I'd be waiting a very long time. I don't want to spend my entire adolescence feeling sorry for myself because others have got off their backsides and done something impressive whilst I spent my days on twitter pretending that I have a life, which is sadly a lot of what I do now, I want to be the one inspiring people to stop moaning endlessly and start doing things that they love. Which is why I write this blog and enter creative writing competitions of ranging variety and email people I don't know asking if I could write for them and be in their fabulous writing crew.

You have to take opportunities when they come, and if they don't come then you bloody well make them do so. In my head, as soon as leave university I will instantly be entered into the glorious world of success and attend parties with all the right people in all the right places and wear clothes that I could never afford and live in places where only very important people live. This, unfortunately, is a rather glorified idea of what will probably be me, still living with my parents and pretending to like people I really, really don't. However, I could improve on this, I know I can, I can have exactly what I want and more. I just need to stop thinking it will happen with time, and do something to make sure that gradually I begin to live exactly how I expect my adult life to be.

Of course, my desires and opinions will change with time and I might end up living a completely different dream to the one I first set my eyes on but as long as I begin to pursue my ambitions now my life will neatly fall into place in front of me.

Life isn't easy, you don't get what you want with the blink of an eye you obtain a living dream with a lot of hard work and hell of a lot of motivation. Don't wait for opportunities to come, make them happen. If the bus is late, walk.

All you need is love.

What do I think love is? To be perfectly honest I have no idea, being fourteen and having very little experience in the subject my knowledge is fully based on romantic novels and films. I am, myself, a romantic, not just in the hopeless sappy way but in the elaborate decorations I feel life needs to have. Such as beautiful dresses that float as you walk and the idea of cities like Paris and Rome and vintage cars that are more about the look than the actual function and fairies all over my room and old photographs of time captured and frozen as a masterpiece of life. I love everything that is both meaningless and valid at the same time. I love the idea that life is not just about reproduction and survival and matter but something deeper and unknown. In particular, I love the idea of love.

I love how it's painful, how it makes your chest ache with yearning. I love how it saves life, and kills it simultaneously. I love how it creates almost anything and everything with simple desire. I love how people are joined through it, and how they are separated. I love how it can make you smile so hard your jaw aches. I love how it is always good, and always bad. I love how hard it is, and how hard people work for it. I love how it is the core of everything animal, and it is everything as well as being nothing.

I don't think people do fully understand what love is, and I don't think they ever will. Yes, scientists will say that being in love with someone is just chemical reactions within one's brain, but love is more than just romance between two people. If you look at everything in life you will find love will be there, or that there is a lack of it. People become architects because they love designing buildings, people grow plants because they love gardening, or being able to aid a living thing in fulfilling its life, people go on roller coasters because they love the thrill. It works the other way too, it's so common that people who take drugs feel unloved or were unloved as a child or through adulthood. In extreme cases terrorists who love their God feel it's their duty to terrorise others. Love is everywhere, and it's good and bad.

What do I think love is? I think love is everything. It is so complicated that not even the world's most intelligent minds can comprehend it. It is romantic, caring, kindly, spiteful, hormonal, hateful, passionate, and frightening. Love is so powerful you rarely know it's there and when it is visible it's the most beautiful thing of all.

Who are you?

Who are we? No, seriously, do we actually have any control over who we are? Are our dislikes and interests distorted from reality?

If I'm honest, I think they are. Every time I put some clothes on- after much debating as to what my outfit will be - and go outside, I instantly regret the choice that I made. I look around at people wearing garments in such a fashion that they closely resemble the images targeted for that very purpose. I look down at myself and think, I don't look like them, what must they be thinking of me? I want to look as effortlessly cool as the women who walk around with messy hair and vintage shades and doc martens. I want to look different, like they do, I want to look the same.

And there we have it, the distorted view on what we must look like, what we must buy. If you want to be different, you have to be the same. This idea that the idols at the height of fashion whom everyone lusts after and longs to look alike are being so controversial and making such a statement that everyone and their mother is doing it too. But doesn't that defy the point? Aren't you supposed to look unique? Isn't your appearance supposed to look like who you are, not anyone else? There isn't any individuality or creativity in fashion anymore, it's all about what everybody else is doing. There is no choice.

Because I look at clothes and think I'm meant to be wearing that, I should buy it, but I just don't like it. Which is wrong. If I don't like something then it's not me, I should be wearing what makes me happy, what represents me. Nothing unique is ever appreciated anymore. Even the word indie has completely lost its meaning. You think you're being different, you really do, but what you're actually doing is exactly the same as everyone else. Fair enough if you genuinely enjoy what the rest of the world seems to as well, it's not your fault it happens to be popular. Even I am partial to the vintage fad that's taken over the western world. It's fine, because I'm completely obsessed with history and the past, so it only makes sense that I love periodic clothing.

Just make sure that what you want and what you like isn't just because you saw an over edited photo on tumblr that looks suspiciously similar to the rest of the images on the website. Be you, always, and never give a damn about what people might think. I make that mistake often, and it never ends well.

Exams

Exams; a traumatic ritual enforced onto unsuspecting young citizens by means of torture. There to 'test your intelligence' and squeeze barely functioning adolescent brains into weeks of revision and then pressure the poor souls to sit for an hour answering questions with no relevance to actual real life. Also situated, for pure satisfactory effect, at a time when the sun shines brightly and beats perfect sunbathing/going outside heat down onto the labouring individuals locked inside with books full of words they can't comprehend. Thousands of wasted trees scribbled on with symbols of silent torture, millions of wrists aching with the continuos action of writing, each of the foreboding persons suffering, hidden away from the carefree adults without a GCSE in sight.

Unless you are still unaware, after reading my melodramatic opening, that this post is about exams, then please leave now, you clearly can not relate. If you did feel the pang of an ever painful yet distant memory, or ached inside as you recalled that you too were also suffering then read on, I'm here-not to save the day- but to rant about how stupid, pointless, condemning and oppressing these worthless pieces of paper really are.

When these hellish examinations are finally over and you receive the much anticipated results that will supposedly dictate your future, your nerves almost exceed the height at which they had reached during the papers, which is largely ridiculous. Although the results are an enormous answer to how your adult life will begin, the rest of your life is not under their influence and nor are your choices. So this daunting stress and pressure we are presented with is mostly a load of, for lack of a better word, poop. You do not decide what you are taught or forced to have imprinted into your mind, you go to lessons, listen to what will never effect your life, leave and then have a test on what you can vaguely remember. You mostly get good results if you enjoy the lesson, which unfortunately relies on the way in which the subject is taught. This turn of fate is unfortunate because some old gits decided that being passionate about a subject is sinful thus enforced courses to rot your brains. You are incredibly blessed if you have the fortune to be situated with a good teacher because the subject that you are taught is more likely to stick. The lessons are no longer about what they contain, but about whether you can remember worthless facts and write them down.

I do understand, however, that there is a good reason behind this seemingly awful period of a teen's life. The large amount of work does have its advantages. It teaches you perseverance and self control. Making you realise that to get what you want, you have to work hard. This, as much as I'd like to deny it, is an important lesson to learn whilst growing up. It doesn't test your intelligence, it's far from it, instead it puts your work ethic to the test, just giving you a little bit of what life has to offer.

If you had the perfect balance of learning how to work and being passionate about the different subjects the world has to offer. There is so much out there that we could be educated on, learn to love the universe and its many surprises, but they're held back and we are left unknowing whether we enjoy the things we are taught. Life is not all about the work, it's about the things we work for, the things that come from work and that, more than anything else, a passion for education is a most valuable trait.