The feeling of dread runs through my veins as I am tasked to present and discuss topics that I have no particular interest in. This happens every time during my high school English classes. What are the themes throughout the journey of As I Lay Dying? How does Iago reflect his cold-hearted hatred towards Othello? If I think, therefore I am, does that mean this chair doesn’t exist? My brain was not hard-wired at the time to discuss such complex philosophical statements. In fact, I did not even grasp the concept of capitalism and communism until later in high school and the ethics that come from these two drastically different economical ideologies were the basis of societal understanding.
I recall the time that I stuttered so hard during a class-wide discussion on Frankenstein. That was a disaster, and I would not want to think about it anymore. The inner machinations of my mind worked like clockwork but it seems that these mechanisms dissipate the moment I speak. Thankfully, I enjoy writing down my thoughts. I communicate my ideas better through writing. The flow of letters and words mixed in with the sinusoidal sentence structures depict my ideas better than when I speak. Writing is like cooking, you need to know how many words you are going to use in order to convey the ideas in your mind and the correct measurements of the structure, grammar, punctuation, and emotion to get the idea across in your readers’ mind.
Sometimes, this world may be a bit too stressful for young students like me. With increasing racial injustices, police brutality, depleting natural resources, environmental habitat loss, carbon dioxide emissions, unlawful incarceration, corrupt leadership, unfair elections, lack of affordable healthcare, LGBTQ+ discrimination, removal of accessible reproductive rights, cases in the pandemic, white supremacy, and 14-year-old edgelords who think that they are smart because they watch Ben Shapiro, the world may seem to be a huge burden to the generation that wants to provide better for everyone. Someday, this generation will skyrocket into extraordinary paths that will protect the lives of many individuals. While we do not have the power now, every discussion you speak and every essay you write will ignite those machinations that live within the deepest dreams of your mind.
