All You Need is...

Abstract

Ever since I can remember, I've always had some desire for unity around me. I seem to thrive on harmony. If people around me are happy or growing personally in some way, I can almost feed off of that energy. At those times, I can often just sit in silence and sort of just suck it up as if other people's happiness were like some sort of clean forest air. However, when that fragile harmony cracks, I tend to crack with it. When people begin arguing around me or if there's a comment said that you can just tell hit someone in a hurtful way, that sends something at me. Almost like some electric shock sent down my spine. I freeze. I don't know what to do I am usually left just trying to hold my own shell together, and I think the motionlessness of my mind is also reflected in my body, though I don't know how that is always perceived. I don't know that its right to even be trying that shell of mine together though. Maybe that has been my problem. Maybe I have to try and let that shell go. Maybe keeping that shell on only contributes to the shattering pain I feel when those around me are pained. Maybe this paper is a part of my attempt to do that. I've lived so much of my life keeping so many of my thoughts, experiences, and questions inside myself and, consequently, think it is time to put those onto paper and hopefully begin to reach out to others more, to begin to at least attempt to mend things like I've always wanted to. So what follows is, I guess, a partial autobiography, highlighting whatever main events and thoughts that I can pinpoint which have shaped my thought today, an exploration of my own history and exposition of my present belief structure: what I search for in others, strive for in myself, and hope for in life.