My Guitar

There is always one thing a person can truly count on in their life, and its usually different for everyone. My one thing is music, specifically my guitar. As a child my parents always made me sing in front of audiences but I never truly enjoyed it due to the fact I suffered from massive stage fright. For my 12^th birthday my dad got me the one thing that has got me through everything, my guitar. I never touched it until 4 years after receiving it. One night I was watching Coal Miner’s Daughter, the story of Loretta Lynn and had my dad teach me the three chords it took to play the main song, Coal Miners Daughter. From then on I was hooked and it got me through the rest of high school instilling a passion that no other feeling can bring forth from my soul. Fate played a big role in the discovery of my music. Mainly through my father being so passionate about his music and providing me with the knowledge and resources I needed. My freewill also played a part in my discovery. The fact that I chose not to pick the guitar up for four years after receiving it hindered me in my musical development, none the less it happened and taught me self discipline and how to truly feel passion for what you are good at.

Weeding Our Gardens

When we are born we are given a foundation from our parents, a solid ground for us to continue to grow from. As we get older it is our responsibility to decide where we want to take this stepping-stone, but I question how much say we have in how we lead our futures. We are presented with many options and influences in our lives that try to dictate what path we choose to follow. It seems as though my future had been planned out for me at birth; starting with my college trust fund, moving on to grade school where every Friday was “college spirit day”, ending with high school where teachers and advisors guided you to choose your career path at the age of eighteen. Keeping in mind I am grateful for the care and support that was behind all of these driving factors leading me to where I am today, I can’t help but look back and wonder if I let other people influence my life to how they thought it should be and not how I want to live it.  Up until recently I felt as though we didn’t have much free will as young adults, however, I have come to learn that it is entirely on us to decide just how much power we let others have. It is as if we each are the tenders of our own gardens of life. There are always going to be new weeds appearing  and taking up space among what we choose to grow but how much room we let those weeds take up and how long we allow them to stay is entirely on us. It is often easy to give up and let uninvited company in our gardens but ultimately we have the power to remove them as many times as necessary to accomplish exactly what we desire, we are in control of our garden of life. 

"A Simple Twist of Fate"

Sometimes when riding in my car I envision myself in a scene of my favorite song. The music I listen to plays a significant part in my fantasies of a music themed life. One of the main songs that inspired me to write on the topic of fate and freewill is the song “Simple Twist of Fate” by Bob Dylan. Dylan released this song on his “Blood on the Tracks” album in 1975, which happens to be my favorite album of all time and is extremely inspirational. The song tells a story of a woman he meets on the street and he instantly falls in love with her. They end of spending the night together and then in the morning she is gone from his life, he wonders to himself “how long should I wait, one more time for a simple twist of fate”. This is a confusing concept because maybe the woman that left ruined her own fate by leaving that morning without a word. Could it be that we can ruin our fate and not be able to get it back once destroyed. In the end of the song he makes it sound like fate that she left because “she was born in spring, but I was born too late, blame it on a simple twist of fate”. So maybe Dylan is trying to tell us that there is no free will and that everything has a purpose in our lives, even the things and people that don’t stay.

Money. Good or Bad.?

Money: The escape from poverty and the heart of greed. Like the nature of humans, it too has good and bad qualities. It is simply paper and ink but we put a quantitative value on it. It is our currency. On just the surface, you see it as a tool to buy something. We work for it, pay bills with it, and buy food and other luxuries with it. It is needed to survive in the modern world. Or is it? On the other side, lives have been ended to gain it and hands steal it without a blink of the eye.

Money: A capitalist scheme designed to create a classist system where labor is over/underpriced depending on the origin, education, gender, and sexuality of the laborer. This system is the sole reason for the giant gap between the super-rich and those living in poverty. Why should someone work 10 hours a day in an air conditioned office make more than someone working 10 hours outside in the element? They are both doing an equally important task toward the function and upkeep of society, but one is given a higher status just because they make more money. With this status they feel obligated to maintain a “more luxurious” way living than is required. Buying a house with more space than they need and driving cars that go faster than what the interstates allow. This idea of “higher” or “wealth” motivates. This motivation is not necessarily bad. It gives people the spirt to work hard and to do better. It also gives others the motivation to take the easy way out and acquire the moneys by force. This system separates people and the giant gap in the separation is creating the problems of this world. 

Are we forced to grow up too fast?

Since I was a little kid I have always been thinking about my future. When I was in kindergarten I looked at the 6^th graders on the playground and couldn’t wait to be that old. In junior high I couldn’t wait to be in high school and act like the teenagers did. And once I got there, I spent high school thinking about where I would end up in college. Now that I am here I have had time to pause and look back at my life. While I am extremely happy at the path I have taken, I can’t help but wonder if it all happened too fast. Did I spend my childhood constantly seeking what was coming next? And did I really take advantage of my childhood while it lasted? We seem to live in a culture that is obsessed with tomorrow, with the future. We ask students at the age of eighteen to plan their life with little to no hesitation and before we know it we are thrown into the real world, expected to get jobs and survive on our own. As a kid I couldn’t wait to grow up and now that I am here I wish time would slow down so I could enjoy being young. The concept of maturing and being on my own always sounded so good to me but now I can’t help but raise the question, are we forced to grow up too fast? Is our youth striped of their childhood by the mere fascination of wanting to be independent? And at what stage are you defined as ‘grown up’?

Are people inherently good or bad?

I’ve always been curious as to why people act the way they act. The biggest factors of behavior are the influence of the environment and the influence of others. These two forces help shape people from their birth through adulthood. This is not everything that goes into one’s behavior and I’ve always wanted to answer a certain question about mankind: Are we inherently good or inherently bad? This is something deeply rooted in humans and we truly cannot find the answer yet. Examples of both sides can be seen by paying close attention to people. I like to consider myself a very positive and friendly person. I was raised in a very positive environment and my parents have done nothing but love me with their full hearts since I was a child. This is why I like to consider myself good. When I see someone’s struggles or strife, my first reaction is to see if they need help or to find out if there is anything I can do to cheer them up. On rare occasions, I find myself saying negative things about people and talking bad behind their back. Sometimes I even judge a person’s character before even meeting them. This is a side of myself I would consider bad. Mankind is very complex and our behavior changes every minute. What is our inherent nature? Are we essentially good or bad at heart?

How do fate and freewill coexist?

As humans we crave emotional and physical attachment to others. Our culture has made love into something almost unattainable, a dark and handsome prince sweeps a lonely housemaid off her feet and they live happily ever after in a castle on a hill. The story of Cinderella has been ingrained in my mind ever since I was a child. As time has gone on I have come to the realization that this is not always the case. This brings up the questions, “How do fate and freewill coexist?” We all have the choice to end things whenever we want or establish new relationships and experiences, but if fate exists how do we not derail our fate causing a wrinkle in our destiny? Maybe one or the other does not even exist; maybe there is not fate or destiny pushing us forward, which is a little unsettling. If we have no fate then how do we know we are not making huge mistakes that could ruin our life? I personally believe there is an essence of fate intertwined with our freewill. Basically, we have multiple roads that we can choose travel down. It is a possibility that we make the choice which road we take; each outcome is a mixture of freewill and our destiny.