No Thanks

Porn has it place in society, though I can't believe its a good one.  People can do it if they want; their decisions, though likely destructive, aren't mine to make.  That doesn't bother me that much.  What does bother me, however, is when it isn't a matter of choice.  Even before midnight, there are Girls Gone Wild ads on Comedy Central.  No thanks.  Do not want.  I don't want my Reno 911 interrupted by reminders of how big the porn industry is.  It is my decision if I want to partake in such activities.  Or at least it should be.  I don't want to see hardly-censored tits when I'm at a stage in my life where I want to make generally good decisions.  Like any guy who has the balls to admit it, I've done that stuff in the past (and regretted it), and for me, that's where I'm hoping it stays.  If I want to change that, it should be my choice, not anybody else's.

Besides, if you want to do that, are 20-second Comedy Central ads really the place to go?

Of Things Lost

High school is no longer mine.  Its not like I'm leaving my home for college; when that happens I'll be welcome back.  I'm leaving high school for good.  No coming back.  No more first days of school, no more cramming for AP tests, no more staying up late for homework I've had dozens of hours to do, no more band concerts in my sweaty oversized tux, no more shitty band camps, no more competitions to see who can take more AP classes than everybody else, no more calculating to see if my GPA is above 4.165 or not, no more Supernova, no more audience-less jazz band competitions, no more thrills marching on the feild at Valley, no more listening to Dub push her students, no more 7 a.m. classes, no more waiting 10 minutes to get from the North lot to my house two kilometers away.  I'll go back, but none of that will ever be mine again.

Not Ready

Its 2 in the morning.  In four hours, I will wake to my final day of high school.  I can't even believe this is happening.  No moment has ever been this bittersweet.  I really don't think I'm ready to do this.  I've been telling myself for the past 14 months that life in Ames is going to be great and I'll do just fine but that was just a shield to hide behind the fact that Kennedy is my home.  I have another home, but Kennedy is really where I'm at.  I can't begin to compare myself to the person I was coming out of Franklin.  So much has happened to me here that I can't imagine life without it.  Even during breaks, it was all about Kennedy.  My life has been focused around band and homework for the past four years.  My friends have been entirely out of Kennedy and overwhelmingly in the band program.  I'm not going to be in the Kennedy band next year.  Am I going to fall off the deep end like I did in my transition four years ago?  I am being forced out of my water.  I can't do this.

Of Summer

Perhaps the fondest memories of my childhood came from summer.  The only obligations back then were ones I looked forward to: baseball practice, golf lessons, and family swim at the pool.  The rest of the time was spent walking outside in bare feet, on dying grass, in front of the TV or behind a plate of fried food.  I walked my dog today with no shoes on and it felt like summer.  By the time I arrived at home, I was sweaty, my feet were dirty, and I just wanted to lay down on my couch.  It was comforting, but at the same time, those days are almost gone.  I'll be waking up early every day to go to work and some days I might be working a night job.  I won't be able to stay up late and sleep in till 2 when I have a legitimate job in a few years, and I doubt my parents will let me not search for a summer job in college.  I hope those lazy days of summer aren't lost.

Post Not

Seeing as this blog is generally an account of things that I think about, I recently felt a need to blog about my prom, which was this past weekend.  I could write a lot about how our decisions now affect our futures, how drastic the divisions between social cliques was, and how some people showed their true colors in light of such a socially significant event, but that's been done before.  However, one thing I learned that I can put words to is that its possible to have an absolutely amazing time without making any potentially harmful decisions, something I hope to never forget.

Of Arguing

I had an awful argument with a friend of mine recently.  What was discusses is irrelevant to this blog, but it and some other events have changed my opinion on arguing.  Its supposed to be two people or groups of people sharing their viewpoints.  Assuming that happens, what really happens?  People rarely change their beliefs and when you pit opposing forces together, all they do is push.  I guess people sometimes change what they think about something, but in my experience, it happens more as group polarization than anything.  The prime example is atheist-christian debates.  I've never even heard of people changing sides.  All that happens is the Christians become more Christian and the atheists more atheistic.  Both sides get more pissed off, stubborn, and any chance of change is thrown out the window.  Those debates usually open with something like "no good society prevents these debates from occurring," but I'm at a loss to find any positive effect of those debates other than people finding what they believe is legitimate justification for their beliefs.  I'm probably neglecting a number of good arguments I have had in the past, but it seems that I always leave an argument worse off than I was when I entered it.

Cycles

For years now, I've been passing through cycles of self-confidence and self-pity.  I reminisce on my past more than I should and I seem to have some distorted perception of my own self that makes md blind to all of my successes and only look back on my failures.  I can tell myself that if I would have done things differently, I would turn out better.  I can point to hundreds of decisions I've made in the past four years that I wish I didn't.  But then again, who can't?  I've done things with my life so far than millions of other people never could, and likewise, millions of other people will always be ahead of me in some game of life.  I figure its about time to accept that I'll always be above the bottom and below the top.

Next Time

Several times today, I've heard or been told to do something different "next time."  Its a decent philosophy to follow for things like free throws and chinese food, but it doesn't really apply to things that matter.  As much as I want one, I won't get a second chance at high school.  I won't be able to change my past, even though I have in my mind exactly everything I would have done differently.  I can't change the words I've said and regretted saying, I can't change the friendships I've messed up, I can't allocate the past seventeen and a half years of my life differently, and I sure can't change the addictive decisions I've made in the past.  Why do they say "next time" when the last has already come?