Rally 'round the out of reach fool.

I have a paper due on the French Revolution tomorrow at midnight and I haven’t finished reading the two documents I need in order to write the damned thing. I never studied the French Revolution and have only taken French I, but I’m in love with that period after having studied it for only a couple classes. It was inspired by the Enlightenment thinkers who believed that human beings should be courageous, take action, and learn. I wholeheartedly agree. I know so many people who think they’re the bees’ knees while they can’t even think for themselves. I’m not particularly intelligent; I know how to read, write, do some basic calculus (but not algebra), and can speak Spanish, which is almost required nowadays. But I want more. I want to go beyond where I am now. That’s why I’m writing this: to inspire you all to do the same.

I should have a poem by Edgar Lee Masters (“Abel Melveny:” read it now) memorized for my creative writing class tomorrow. It’s about twelve lines in total, but I don’t see the point in memorizing it. Supposedly this exercise is to teach me how to understand rhyme and meter, yet this poem is written in free verse and hardly follows any scheme. So that’s getting done five minutes before class. Some might say I’m procrastinating, but I really do believe that I have better things to do with my time, like reading books and comics, playing music, or writing posts such as this—as well as stories and poems no one has ever seen. To me, that is the complete opposite of procrastination: I’m doing things I love in order to be happy as well as improve myself with them. Maybe reading all those comics will someday get me a writing gig at Image or Vertigo, who knows.

Sure, I do believe there are appropriate times to pay homage and understand history as well as poetry, but with people like myself, who know what they want to do, what is the point of fulfilling such requirements? To be well-rounded is the response: good answer. But how apt do I need to be at everything? There is no answer because I don’t: I will never sketch a hyperbola from an equation unless I’m solely doing it on a dare or for money. (Piece of advice: always accept the challenges thrown at you. There is no pain in trying; even if you fail, you can always say you tried while others did not.)

I really hope this inspires people to go out there and do the things they love in order to better themselves and make them happy. There needs to be more happiness in the world, and it does not always have to derive from external factors.