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Thoughts of the day
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A lot goes on in life. Especially in the life of a teenager. School, homework, clubs, sports, lessons, drama, family problems, and those few minutes of free time in between. It seems like a lot because it is then that we emerge from childhood and are aware of our surroundings; we feel like for the first time, we can do things on our own, and when we are expected to and find we can't, we are overwhelmed. It almost seems like it was all done on purpose; we are given so much schoolwork and homework and activities and worries that we don't have time to do anything bad in between.
But though we don't have time for things that are considered harmful to us, (and we probably weren't going to do any of that anyway, if we bother to do all of the s**t we're supposed to) we also lose time for things that are really important in the grand scheme of things. Our minds become so basic, so uneasy, spurred by television, by things moving too fast, by having too much to do at once, that we cannot focus, everything has to be quick and easy and if it's not, we despair. And in this, we lose what's most important to us as human beings: our ability to ponder the high meanings of life, to show compassion, and to think rationally.
No patience. We move too fast; we can't wait on our desires to be granted over time. Travel then becomes machinated; cars zoom us from place to place, and we don't bother with letting speed limits hold us back. Happiness becomes drug-induced; it's quick and easy and it works. Love becomes sex; instant pleasure without the bothers of responsibility. With this, we lose our human feelings, thoughts, and nature; with this, we degenerate, and cease to gain a thing.
Life is a dance, and when we are children, we learn. When we are teenagers, we have fewer limitations; we are herded into the dance hall, told to dance to the songs they play, whatever they may be, and are given a few rules and left alone. To some, dancing is fun and easy; to others it's boring; to others, painful; to others, pointless; to others, confusing and loud and scary. And however we feel about dancing, we are told to do it; but eventually, we will get tired, and need to stop. Sometimes the quiet times between songs, meant for rest, just don't come often enough, and then we begin a new game along with the dance: catch-up.
Every person in our lives adds a new dance move for us to do; each person has a different combination, some more moves, some less, but we have to do those plus the ones to the music, and sometimes we have to contort ourselves to ridiculous proportions to do it. We often fail; people aren't born with bodies like limp spaghetti. We are human, we can't do it all.
We are all being watched as we dance. Every move is calculated, every mistake noted, and our overall performance affects where we go when we leave, on to another freer dance. We know they're there. We feel the pressure of their eyes on our heads as they watch from above. Parents, teachers tell us that these people are judges in a court, executioners, people who will decide our entire lives just by the way we dance; not by the compassion or the courage or the effort or the intelligence we show. They are our audience, watching us jump through hoops; they are our masters, telling us what they want done for them to spare us.
Different people react differently in this environment. Most do as they are told and dance when they have to, stop when they don't; a handful of these do fairly well, but the rest of them grow tired and haggard and stressed and can't make it to the next song, the next break. Some stand in the middle and pretend to dance, swaying back and forth; they tire less, they talk a little and have a little more fun, but they are not looked upon as fondly as the others. Some don't dance at all, merely sit and enjoy the pleasures of life, the loud music that they don't have to dance to, the refreshments provided, the things the others can't stop to pay attention to. Some try to escape the dance, push through people and disrupt the dancing and try to get away. Sometimes they are caught, sometimes they are not.
And there are a few, a rare few, that can't take dancing anymore. And though people mock them and pretend to be like them, there are actually more than you know; they just try to hide in the crowd. These people are overwhelmed by the loud music, by the noise and the shouting and the shallow pointlessness of it all. They may try to carry on, but they hurt too much to continue. Too many people have asked them to do too many things. Stress makes them panicked, harried; they do the dances wrong; they disappoint people, they hurt worse. These are the dancers that give up, go join the laughing layabouts on the sidelines, stop trying for people that don't care much anyway.
And out of those rare few are even fewer, yet you'd be surprised at how many there are hidden in the crowds; the ones who hurt inside, the ones who are afraid. They have tender hearts that can't take the music and the dancing and the burdens the dancers must bear; they want quiet, they want peace, they want someone to slow down and care for them. They are the little girl, the skinny boy sitting in the corner, watching the world through tears, the invisible dancers.
The invisible ones are never noticed until it's too late, and they disappear from the dance for good; they are carried off by policemen, in a coffin. They are the school-shooters, the cutters, the suicidals...the lonliest people on the planet. They don't feel noticed, they don't feel loved; they feel neglected, overburdened, they despair.
And the truly sad thing is, we notice them. Of course we notice them. Who wouldn't notice if a little kid was just sitting by herself in the corner? But we don't do anything. We are too caught up in our dance. Occasionally one of us goes up to them and demands they return to the dance, but when they refuse, the "samaritan" feels forced to return to the other dancers lest he or she be missed. Distraction pulls us away from thoughts of the lonely girl, we can't focus on her for long.
Up in the balconies, our judges--everyone from our parents to a teacher to a college recruiter to a job scouter to God himself--notice her too. But they don't do anything, even though if she asked them nicely and paid them off, they would hand her some pills they think will help. All they see is that she isn't dancing the way she's supposed to; they frown at her, disapprove, and all of them mark on their industrial tablets--you can hear the scratching of pens from below.
And the girl? She sees people come up to her, try to drag her back in; she sees people watching her but failing to take action; she sees people look away from her and continue dancing like she doesn't exist. She is almost invisible, and wishes she was, for then the people in the rafters wouldn't make those awful commetns about her in their tablets up above, wouldn't put more and more pressures on her, and people would stop approaching her and trying to pull her away.
She knows that these people care about her, she knows it well. But the fact of the matter is that they can't help her, because the dance must go on; the only way she can leave this dance forever is in the back of a hearse.
Usually, that's how they all leave.
We know these people exist. We also know that life is too busy for anyone to help them. Or at least that's what we think.
Do you feel sorry for that girl? Do you love her? Do you care about her? Do you feel anything for her at all? Then don't waste your time trying to make her feel "happy" for a moment, like a drug, like a one-night-stand; don't tell her you care and leave her; don't try and make her go back into that dance. Want to help her? Then all you have to do is take ten minutes out of your hectic life, sit with her awhile, let her talk or cry until she's got nothing left to give, hug her until she doesn't feel like she's falling to pieces anymore. That's all; with just that, the poison will bleed out of her, and she can smile again. A little more of that, a bit each day, and soon she'll join the dance, soon she has the strength to go back to her life.
But until then....
There's a little girl sitting in the corner of the room. The music's playing, everyone's dancing, you've got lots to do and you've not even started yet. You see her; she catches your eye. She holds a gun in her hand, a plea in her eyes, a story in her heart.
What are you going to do?
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Where this came from: lately I've been feeling like that girl. Just like her. Although believe it or not, very few, if any, of the people that say they care about me have really taken me seriously. I don't know why in this day and age you can threaten to shoot yourself when you get home and no one raises an eyebrow.
But what if you really wanted to? And what if all you wanted was someone to believe there's something wrong, listen to you, or just sit with you awhile...? Maybe when you threaten again, all you want is for their eyes to widen, for them to show true regret, for them to ask you not to.
I've done that for the people I care about, whether I believed they would or not. But for me....
It may seem stupid to a lot of you that anyone should give up so easily, but try to look at it this way: imagine finding from a very early time that you weren't very good at dancing. You didn't utterly suck at it, but it wasn't where you shone. So you stood in the crowds and you made something beautiful, spend years on it, and forsook most of your dancing for that little piece of you. Imagine someone smiling at you, coming over, asking about you and how you felt. Imagine feeling on top of the world, imagine dreaming of things you'd never thought of before, all because one person cared about you and encouraged you when everyone else just let you be.
Then imagine finishing your work of art, and brandishing it up to the sky for judgement, shouting over the music: Look at this! Look what I can do! See? Isn't that much better than this silly dance? Look, I can do both at the same time! Imagine that they can't hear you over the booming speakers. Imagine them shaking their heads at you, telling you that you aren't good enough, they don't find you very impressive down there and it's about time you shape up and dance right this time.
Imagine your savior, the one who smiled at you, feeling the pull of the dance while your hands were raised in the air; imagine turning around and finding that they were lost in the crowd. Imagine knowing that it would be a long, long time before there was a break long enough for you to find him in. Imagine being shunted aside until you found a break in the crowd; imagine drifting over to the corner, becoming the invisible girl, just wishing someone would care for you that way again.
If that's the way life is supposed to be, then life isn't worth it anyway.
Sorry for being long-winded. Had to vent....
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