Sunday, September 25, 2005

High School Relationships: Doomed to Fail...

The more and more I think about High School relationships, the more dumb I think teenagers are...Why is it that High School relationships usually end up failing? What mistake(s) are we teenagers making that lead to the inevitable, "You're breaking up with me?!?"

One big mistake is the most common one that we hear from adults; mistaking lust for love. It's true, cliche, but true. It's a common fact that teenage hormones are haywire. We have all these new feelings and do know how to control them, so we let our hormones get the best of us. So we find ourselves getting into a relationship, not for companionship, but for wild make-out sessions instead. Since so much time is spent making out instead of talking, only after we finally control the feelings of lust inside that we discover we really don't like the person we are dating, therefore leading to another painful, awkward break-up.

The second most common mistake made by high-schoolers goes hand-in-hand with mistaking lust for love. Rushing. Because of all these new feelings, and our inability to define and seperate one from another, we rush into things. Rather than taking the time to get to know the person, we act on our physical attraction to them. And if we're not rushing a relationship purely because of physical attraction, we are rushing it because we think we're mature enough to handle being in a commited, serious relationship. While I do realise there are people who have ended up being happily married to their high school sweet hearts, the majority of teenagers are most definetly not emotionally ready.

High School relationships should not be hot and passionate. That only leads to baaaad things, like pregnancy, emotional pain, and more teen-angst than seems humanly possible. What they should be is cute and awkward. You should have the awkward moment where you go to a movie and play the (what I like to call) "Hand Holdin' Game." You should have the, "Oh does he like me, does he not like me?" moments of panic. They should treat you like a princess/prince, and not like their possession, they should respect your opinion, and not shoot it down, and if you say no, then they should respect that...These are what should happen, but unfortunately what doesn't happen in High School Relationships, and that's why they are Doomed to Fail.

Sunday, September 18, 2005

?????...

Theatre is my passion. It's what I live for, and what I come to school for...or so I thought. It's what I planned to do after I graduated. I was going to go to Southern Utah University, and master in Theatre. I was going to become a High School Drama Teacher...at least, that's what I was going to do. Until I woke up one morning and asked myself what the point of pretending to be someone else was exactly? Did I do it because I like to entertain? Did I do it because I thought it was fun? Or was it because I didn't like who I was, and I wanted to be someone else? And the answer made me sick. I'm a pathalogical liar, to myself and others all because I can't deal with the real world.

So if that's not what I want to do, then what is? It's terrifying to not have the answers.

My life is changing. Drastically. Things that I thought were important, now seem moot. Things that I didn't really care about, things I didn't think would be important in my life are now suddenly major determining factors in my life. I had my life planned out, I knew what I was going to do and how I would do it. Now, my scrupulous planning, it seems, was all for naught. It's scary. I feel out of control; my foot is stuck on the accelerator of the Car o' Life, I'm careening, swerving in and out having to dodge traffic, and all I can do is hold on to the wheel and pray to God that I survive.

Saturday, September 10, 2005

The Corrupting Power of Ambition...

Power

It's a perplexing word. While we know that power often leads to corruption, at the same time it's the thing we strive for most as a human being. Perfection, for some reason means power, money, luxury...but sometimes the things we strive for the most, become our undoing. In order to gain something humans will go to great lengths in order to do so. Often falling into a trap of lying, cheating, manipulating, and, in extreme cases, resorting to murder in order to satisfy our voracious hunger for power.

There is no better example of this than the play Macbeth. Like in most of Shakespeare's Tragedy/Histories, we see the main characters, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, become so engrossed in the trap that they are willing to commit treason, heresy, and murder to quench their insatiable thirst for power. Which ultimately leads to their demise.

After their brutal betrayal of King Duncan, Macbeth's surreptitious murder of Banquo, and the ruthless slaughter of Macduff's family; it seemed that there wasn't anything that was going to stand in their way of the throne. One little betrayal here, five murders there and BAM the throne is free for the taking. It sounds good right?

Wrong. The problem is that once you use violence to feed your hunger for power, it's hard to stop. As the play progresses, and the bloodshed continues you witness both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth slip further into madness: Lady Macbeth, out of guilt, Macbeth, out of a drive to prove that his actions had merit. He was possessed by greed, corrupted by his ambition for power, and driven mad by his tyranical actions.

This play begs the question...Do the ends really justify the means? Was self jusification for their actions really worth it in the end? Or was their relentless ambition inevitably another path to Hell?

Friday, September 02, 2005

Thank you...

Thank you for everything.

There is no one way to sit down and thank everyone for everything that they've done for me...there is no one way to tell all of you how much I appreciate each and every one of you, so I'm just sending out a blanket 'thank you' to all of you.

Thank you for everything.