Author: toseealife

Holiday Meanings.

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I did a post on new Year’s Day and did not talk about New Year’s resolutions…that would make me weird. I notice that bloggers usually talk about popular things around the holidays, like Christmas Spirit, being thankful, and changing your life.

You know, it’s interesting if you put those holidays in order, the order everyone thinks of, (technically New Year’s is both the first and last holiday of the year, since it starts on December 31st and ends January 1st), you get the Day for Thankfulness, the Day for Giving and Receiving, and the Day for New Beginnings.

I don’t want to say it was done on purpose, but there could be some symbolism there if you’re the type to look for it.

Often a step toward change is being thankful for what you have to start with, to take the ingredients of your life and start seeing them as assets, and not annoyances.

Then you might realize you need to be contribute something to the people around you, and if you’re like me, you realize you need to let them give something back to you. People like to be needed.

Finally, this may all amount to some serious life changes.

People complain a lot that New Year’s resolutions are a waste of time and lead only to broken promises, but holiday traditions are not necessarily completely literal.

In the Church when we take Communion, we are not literally eating the body of Christ and drinking the blood, he gave us communion so we could remember that we have done this in the spiritual realm, that eating and drinking mean something different there then they do in the physical. It reminds us of our need for Him, and Him fulfilling it.

In the same way, at Thanksgiving, we aren’t starving (hopefully) and we aren’t always people who are unhappy with this life and need to revolutionize how we think, it is simply reminding us to be thankful. That we are blessed.

Christmas is not the day we can give each other the most important gift of all, New Life, Hope, Christ, but we give gifts to remind each other of that gift. IT’s our way of honoring it.

And New Year’s resolutions aren’t necessarily a call to change everything in one day, they remind us that change is possible and we can make that choice. They remind us we aren’t perfect. But we can keep dreaming, and improving.

While it’s true many people have lost sight of the meaning of all three of these holidays, it doesn’t mean the meaning is not there.

I like the reminder on January first that I have a new year ahead, and a new chance.

I make a dream list every year instead of resolutions. I have things I want changed, but I prefer to dream, and not necessarily have a time limit on it. I’ve put some of the same things on my list for years, you learn patience.

I mentioned in my post about fan fiction that one thing I’ve learned form it is that I am not able to fix everything. I am not that smart. All I have to go on is the truth.

I’ve learned in twenty years of living that there’s alto I can’t control. But I’m at peace with that most of the time. I do get frustrated now and then, but I’ve come to see that God is the one who should be in control, not me.

The thing about writing, and often other art forms, is that you have total creative control, and yet you don’t. You are limited by your own limitations of character, intelligence, and knowledge. Many great writers wrote their best stuff without knowing they were doing it.

Leonardo Da Vinci is famous for his Mona Lisa, and we are not sure who she was, it’s likely he thought he would sell it, but he chose not to. It could be he didn’t plan on it being one of his greatest works, yet it ended up being so.

The same thing with holidays. They remind us of important things, but they won’t substitute for those things, it’s just a day to remember. And remember that we have room to grow.

Anyway, to the New Year!–Natasha.

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What I learned from Fan Fiction–2

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So, I googled images for writing fan fiction after my last post, and it turns out I’m like the 50th person to write on this subject, but chances are most people still haven’t read about it, since I never have…logically…

I may check out some other people’s perspectives later, but there’s nothing wrong with continuing with mine, that is why people read this…man I love blogs.

Anyway, picking up from part one, I talked about why fan fiction is written, and what it taught me functionally about writing characters and romance.

I think one of the reasons it works is because writers of fan fiction are imitating, and you learn by intimating. The quality of the source materiel is a huge part of whether or not this imitating it making you a good writer. Bad shows have fan fictions, and they typically suck. It’s hard to make it better than it already was if there was nothing praiseworthy to begin with.

But, starting from the assumption that what I like is already worthwhile😉, I’d like to get more into how and why I write fan fiction.

A part of me does wonder if it’s unhealthy and obsessive. Many people think it is and will mock fan fic-ers mercilessly. I don’t typically talk about it. Once I mentioned it to some other fans of a show I like, and one guy’s response was just “no.”

With that encouragement, I keep it to myself.

But I honestly believe fan fiction is awesome. It’s so much fun, and it helps you understand why you likes something, and why it’s good, and what it’s flaws are.

But fan fiction is always primarily about the characters. People write it to get more of their favorite. Often a character who is dead will be alive, one who left the show is still there, one who is good will be evil (I never do that, but I will make typically steadily good characters have a crisis), one who is evil will turn good (guilty as charged), and a lonely character may get paired with another. An interesting outcome of fan fictions, (and a staple of most of them), is the emergence of what is known as OCs, or Original Characters. And they are hated by a lot of people who read fan fiction out of curiosity. An OC is almost always a self insert character. Born out of the writer’s desire to experience the story for themselves.

And I do have OCs, not every OC is self insert, it typically is, but some writers come up with many of them just because they enjoy character design and creation; my sister does this, she has little interest in writing a story, she just comes up with a look and a background.

I did something more unique with my OCs, I actually repeat them. I reference my previous fan fictions each time I write a new one. I have a whole part of the story that’s original, which explains how each is connected. It’s actually a very interesting idea that I think is worth exploring, involving dimension travel and the like, but for now I’m sticking to how it helps me write.

By having repeating OCs, especially my main one, I double the learning experience of writing. When you have to make your character fit in with this other world, you have to ask what makes it different form yours, what makes it similar, how would the characters react to anew person? What can your ideas add to the story? Can they add anything?

Often the shipping fan fics do not add anything to the story, and that goes for their OCs. So they mostly just write however they want and ignore how characters act.

But leaving that aside, others have to think about it. Many people don’t care if it’s true to story because it’s “just fan fiction” but my sisters have made me stick to the story’s tempo, it’s heart, and it’s tone. They don’t think a fan fiction is any good if it cannot work within the show or movie. because if there was nothing good about it, why would you care? And if it’s good, don’t change the good.

Change the bad.

So yes, I “fix” thinks in my fan fictions. Healing the story is actually considered to be a huge part of critical writing and reading, it teaches us what we like, what we don’t, what we value, what we don’t, etc.

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Before you assume that makes us spoiled brats who have to have things our way, let me ask you, do you complain about your life?

Do you wish it was different?

Do you ever try to change people? (We all do it.)

Do you try to change circumstances?

Are you God? Are you all knowing? Did you bring yourself into this world? Can you control your life?

The answer to all four of those latter questions is no.

You aren’t really qualified to change your life, yet you still do, or you try, and sometimes you succeed.

That’s real. That’s has real consequence, you could screw it up royally.

But you still do it.

Now, if you, oh flawed, limited person, can do that with real life, are you really able to judge us for doing it with imaginary things? We can’t hurt anyone but ourselves by doing it. It’s fairly “safe” to mess up your fan fiction. You can try to change people, and never actually change anything except your own perspective.

And that’s why I write. I do it to get a better perspective.

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I have control in a story that I will never have in real life. It’s not a power trip thought, few things are as humbling as writing. It shows you how little you know. It forces you to limit yourself…and that actually helps you. Through writing fan fictions I’ve faced the fact that I can’t change people. I can learn from them, but in the end you have to believe people can change because they have the ability not because you can make them. You can try to help, but they have to be open.

See, I can change the events of a plot, and still change absolutely nothing. The problems remain. The only way I can solve them is to find the truth. And I turn to an outside source for that.

When I “fix” stories, I don’t do it by doing what I want solely to happen, what I want becomes merged with what I think would happen, and what I think is best for the characters. I don’t actually always enjoy what I write, but I do it to work out the issues.

Basically, fan fiction lets me do what my original stories don’t. It’s just like real life enough to present me with people’s real world problems, and then I ask: can this be helped? Is there an answer to this in my Faith?

So far, I have always found one. Fiction often mirrors biblical truths without knowing it does.

My own stories, I need to have the answer already, there’s not much time to learn it. Fan fictions let me explore until I find it, then I can take that into my next original story.

I know some people will never understand why fan fiction is helpful. But I don’t need them to, I know it is. That’s what matters, until next time–Natasha.

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What I learned from Fan Fiction–1.

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Happy New Year! And Merry Christmas. Hope it was a good one.

I have not been posting and I really have no excuse, other than a lack of ideas and the fact that I’ve been spending all my writing time on a thing called Fan fiction, or Fan fic, if you’re in the millennial and under abbreviated word crowd.

Then I thought: Why not just blog about that?

Fan Fiction: The only literature more mocked than trashy romance and cheesy sci-fi.

IF you could even call some of it literature.

IF you’re unfortunate enough to ever google your favorite show or movie and search for “images” you probably know the disturbing porny stuff that will pop up. ( I wonder if I can adjust my filter for that?) I’m just looking for some innocent wallpaper or something, and I get this? Ewww!

Anyway, that in a nutshell is why people hate fan fiction, or at least consider it a sort of guilty pleasure and find nothing in it that would have any real meaning.

And some fan–all–fan fiction is the fans making what they think should happen happen, irregardless of what the creators of the content actually intend. Which many people think is disrespectful.

If you approach it from the perspective that there is no right way to write, then those people are right, but as all of you know, I believe in absolutes and standards that are above personal opinion, so I will make the argument that there IS a RIGHT way to WRITE, and fan fiction is then somewhat justified.

SOME of it is.

People write fan fiction for one of three or maybe two, reasons. They either ship certain characters, often LGBT ones, and the creators refuse to make it cannon, so they write the story how they think it should happen, but it’s typically very sexual, disgustingly so; porny; and at about the level of a 13-14 year old’s fantasy romance. No substance, all attraction and vanity. And yes, that was once me too. I moved on. (Just to be clear, I’ve never written a story like that, I just read them. We all make mistakes.)

The other, and more interesting reason, is the fans think the writers are doing something wrong with a certain character or plot point, and they change it. These fan fictions can actually be quite fascinating from what  hear, and sometimes the creators even think so and take inspiration from them. Fans can be smart writers and amazingly creative.

Now, you may think, if the fans think it’s wrong, why watch it?

Well, to use some more pop culture internet lingo, fan fic-ers are rarely HATERS. Haters are actually the bane of fandoms (and trolls), and will complain about literally anything, even if it’s precisely the opposite of what they complained about before. For example, they want a character to get some emotional development, the writers agree and write it in (chances are they were going to do it anyway) and the fan sees it, grudgingly acknowledges it was what they asked for…and then complains that some of it wasn’t in line with what they thought would happen.

This is sometimes justified if the character is acting completely funky. Like how in the Avengers movies Captain America completely changes his emotional issues every movie. He has no consistency–except feeling out of place in the future. Which wears n me because they do nothing with it except make me feel sad.

Cap was one of my favorite characters, but I can’t keep liking him if he keeps changing every time, and it’s kind of sad.

However, most of the time, that’s not the case and the haters are whiny babies as far as the material is concerned.

That’s not where fan fiction comes from. Fans who write fiction love the show, usually more than any other fans do, and are committed enough to devote hours of their time to their fantasy. They watch every episode (or installment if its’ movies) they study every scene, and they usually have some decent reasons for their complaints. The ones who actually have complaints and don’t just ship characters. and by the way, fan fic-ers who write to fix the story usually feel disgusted or at least amused with the ones who just ship people, it’s so vapid.

Not that it’s wrong, as long as it’s not porny, but it’s…just shipping, unless it grows the characters, what purpose does it serve? (I’ve explained in previous posts how I think shipping is good when it helps the characters and thereby the fans, but bad when it’s just about attraction and hormones.)

As you can guess by now, I also write fan fiction.

I was hesitant to start doing it, my first fan fiction was about the Justice League, I wrote some for Frozen, Kim Possible, more Justice League, Ever After High, and now RWBY. (If you’ve followed me for years, you probably have read about each of those in turn.)

Now don’t worry, I have no intention of posting this stuff in public. It’s only interesting to me and my siblings because we agree about how things should happen. But I thought I’d like to talk about what I learned from doing it.

Because believe it or not, I learned a lot form writing this stuff.

When I write, I ask God to lead me. whether it’s something I want to publish, or something I never want to. Because to me it doesn’t matter. I write to teach myself as much as other people, so even if they never see it, I’m still learning.

And the first thing Fan fic has taught me is to be a better writer.

I originally was a very preachy, pedantic, fundamental Christian writer. And while there is a place for all three of those things, I write fiction. And only a few geniuses have very balanced a very preachy message with a very good story. Hans Christian Andersen, George MacDonald, John Bunyan, Louisa May Alcott, those are a few I know of.

My fiction was okay back then but it was sorely lacking in nuance. At first, when I wrote fan fiction, I treated it the same way. I paid little attention to emotional development, and I didn’t know how to make the characters true to form.

This showed in my own stories in how I often failed to flesh out the characters I made up. I liked the adventure, but my character’s motivation often didn’t make sense.

But as I got older and read back over these fan fics, I realized the problem, and my sisters pointed it out also since they are the only people usually interested in them, and they pushed me to the point of annoyance to learn how to write the characters better…so I did.

I studied them, and  I started to recognize cues like expression, body language, word choice, and their outlook on life, and I started to incorporate it.

It was clumsy at first, since it is extremely hard to write characters who talk differently then you, react differently, and think differently, ask any new writer. IF you read people’s earlier books, even famous authors, you’ll notice the same thing. But I tried and tried…and now more often than not, I nail it. I can tell how a character would react because I’ve become way better at assessing them.

This carries over into my writing. One of my favorite books I’ve written has six main characters, and I gave each of them their own quirks, speech patterns, sense of humor (or lack thereof) and body language, I thoroughly enjoyed rereading it and my sister laughed out loud at a lot of their exchanges. I don’t think I could have written it without months of practicing in fan fictions.

Fan fictions are training stories for me. It’s where I practice new styles, concepts, and types of characters before I attempt to create some of my own. I find out what I’m good at writing, what I struggle with, and I practice it.

Another example: Romance

writing good romance is essential to an author who’s going to have a diverse cast of characters in their story. It’s bound to happen, and it’s fun to read, but I was very shy of writing it. Fan fiction helped me push past that. Knowing it wouldn’t go public, and no one but me necessarily has to see it, gave me the freedom to practice.

Romance is till probably my weakest writing point, but it’s improved immensely over time because of fan fiction.

That’s all I can fit into this, but next time I want to talk about the even more important reason I think fan fiction is awesome and crucial to many people.

Until next time–Natasha.

The effect of LGBT and Darkness in fiction.

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Hello everyone! School is OVER! Yay…maybe now I can post more often.

Thanks for hanging in there, now, for the nitty gritty:

Let’s talk about storytelling again. In my mind the two biggest problems with modern storytelling, particularly fiction, are it’s obsession with darkness, and the homosexuality progressive push.

As controversial as the second one sounds, it’s not just about not liking homosexuality, it’s about what effect the subject has on a story. I’ll explain this one first.

Okay, so you’re cruising along, watching your favorite show or movie, and then boom! Someone on it is gay. It happens with book series too. There’s one book series I really liked, The Heroes of OLYMPUS (it was a phase) and up till book 4, it was pretty good, and then book 4 came along and a kid who’d been normal, even heterosexual up till that point, up and comes out…ugh…

But okay, fine, it’s something real people deal with right? I can’t say it’s wrong to put that in your story, right? However, the catch is, this character already had a lot of emotional issues, ones that desperately needed to be resolved; and guess how they all were resolved? He gets a lust interest at the end of the last book…and that’s it. He’s FINE. Abandonment issues? Grief? Antisocial behavior? Not a problem, not now that he’s embraced being gay…???

I wish I could say that was an isolated example, but it happens all the time. Whether it’s the producers, publishers, or public opinion, a writer feels pressured to be “progressive” so they pick whatever character they think can afford it, and sacrifice them on the altar of LGBT. And that is it, that is the last of their character development. Never mind if they were complex before that, and had a way more interesting emotional arc, it’s all gone. Guess what, it won’t even be talked about anymore. Not in the material, and not by the fans, all anyone cares about is they are LGBT. People worship that label, as if it’s the most important thing about the character, and somehow legitimizes the whole story. Never mind whether it was any good or not.

And can I just say, having an LGBT character does not automatically make your story good…Disney, and Hollywood.

AS I’ve shated before, I personally believe homosexuality is wrong, and unnatural, but even if I didn’t, this is still very bad storytelling. It’s on par with trashy romance novels where the climax of the story is the characters having sex. They rarely get much development or depth outside of that. And most people agree that that is trash, you read it recognizing that, if you read it at all, and you admit your motives are less than pure.

But with LGBT stuff, sex is somehow treated like an honor, even when it is moral-less. The characters often are not any more good than anyone else, and their sexuality shouldn’t earn them the title of brave just because it used to be looked down on. I’m sick of Hollywood waiting till something becomes popular and then riding the wave while marketing it as doing something daring, if it was a real risk, very few studios would do it. Unless we think they actually care about social justice.

The sad thing is, independent enterprises now feel, thanks to very shortsighted fans, that they must include these characters to do their part. It’s like how you can’t make anything without black characters now. It would probably be acceptable to make something without white characters, but you know…equality.

Anyone else get tired of this hypocrisy?

If homosexuals want to find someone who really cares about them, don’t turn to people who are using their lifestyle for a cash grab…just saying.

And speaking of cash grabs, what about obsession with darkness? Storytime:

For a year I was part of an online writers workshop for Christian teens, and I got to read some other people’s works, and I can tell you 8 out of 10 times, it was dystopian, or some kind of personal angst story. From Christians…they were all the same. They sounded like clones of each other.

Of course that is popular, and what kids read now. Today I watched the second Hunger Games movie for the first time ever…and I looked away at some moments. I still can’t bear to see some stuff played out in front of me. There are those who eat it up. And those who don’t care. I was just amazed anyone could come up with something that sadistic and twisted. For fiction.

Usually when I hear about stuff that terrible, it really happened, and you an put it down to people being sick enough not to feel it was wrong. But to put it up for moral consideration implies you know it was twisted…and what gives?

I have to ask the ever unpopular question, do we need stories like the Hunger Games? It has some social commentary, but by the second movie, the layer of belief that this could happen starts to war real thin. I know that historically, such things have happened, so we could get to that point again, but if you’re comparing to our society, we have many issues, but we’re not that far gone yet. You expect me to believe people would see this kind of torture, and cheer for it, if they cared about the people playing even in the slightest?…maybe. But we are not quite there yet.

And the question also is, are these violent movies pushing us toward that frame of mind? Even if they are  doing it to supposedly point out the problem, these ideas are left in people’s heads.

And horror has an unfortunate effect on people, they try to inoculate themselves. That’s why people read and watch Horror, many of them are riddled with fears of their own, the fear they find in the stories they feel they are in control of, and they want to be inoculated to their horrors. To become unmoved by it. Because then they feel tougher. They can shrug and say “I’ve seen way scarier stuff…”

When I’m horrified, I also have a tenancy to try to find a way to think of it that makes it less terrible. But apathy, and indifference, they won’t drive away fear. Only love can cast out fear.

Beyond fear, hate, rage, PTSD, and jealously feature greatly in our fiction. Brokenness, revenge, justice that is not justice, it all plays in. People justify it in the name of that being the more realistic reaction. Not the RIGHT reaction, just the realistic, one, because producers and writers know, the real reaction could never be the right one! Who’d believe that?

Funny how with parables, proverbs, and fables, the conclusion always turns on doing the right thing or failing to do it. No one found those stories too unreal at the time they were told. In fact, I’d argue that Jesus’ parables can be all too real for comfort.

I am not hear to discourage people from writing stories, but I think we need to reach higher than this crap.

I know many people will defend it to the very end, and I’m not likely to unconvince them, which is kind of unhealthy in of itself. I have stories I believe firmly are good, but if someone argues, I’m not going to attack them for it, I’d probably drop the conversation.

The point is, do we want to write well? Do we want to write stories that can change people, that can give them hope, and that can represent the best of us, our hopes, our dreams, and do we want that to be more than darkness and cheap nods to a movement most writers aren’t even actively part of? Do we want this to be what we tell our audience we think humanity is made of? Is it all about our angst? Is it about sex? Or is there more to life than all that?

Can we write about higher things? Beautiful things? If you cannot write about those as well as the darkness, you’ve got no business writing. You have to have an answer if you intend to raise a rhetorical question.

That said, until next time–Natasha.

ER (My First Time.)

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Story Time: One week ago I made my first trip to the emergency room.

I was fine, but my sister had started throwing up after getting a headache, and spasaming. She’d hit her head a couple days before, so I realized she had a concussion, and made the executive decision as the only adult (and only person) home to run her to the ER.

The scary thing was I couldn’t get a hold of either of my parents to ask them what they thought or inform them where we were, finally after we arrived and I checked her in my dad finally responded. And freaked out. But he called my mom and both of them arrived.

I wasn’t a minute too soon, as the doctor decided my sister needed a CT scan and medication pronto. I okayed this, and my dad arrived and took it from there.

It was the first time in my life I ever had to handle an emergency, a real emergency, and drive with someone throwing up in the seat next to me, to find  a hospital I’d never been to before, without a GPS handy. I ended up finding a different hospital but at that point, I wasn’t being choosy.

Everyone said later that I handled it amazingly, better than many people would have. I didn’t disagree, my sense kicked into high gear, and I was praying.

I felt God’s hand strongly through the whole thing, when I needed to decide if we should go, I felt He said “Yes.” and I felt his calm when she started throwing up int he car, normally I get paralyzed when people start puking, and I felt the urge to, but I said “Jesus” a few times, and it went away, I felt peace. And I was convinced he directed my eyes to the hospital sign, because I somehow missed the one I was looking for. In the end it was probably for the best because the lesser known one was only half full and we got seen in about half an hour.

Luckily also, my sister never lost consciousness, probably because we hurried. Even if she was pretty miserable. Also she never got confused, and I needed her to stay lucid and help me by not going to sleep or anything like that.

I felt a weird exhilaration amidst the stress because I knew I was doing all I could to the best of my ability, and God would just have to do the rest.

Somehow I kept my head the whole time, I knew what to do, and I knew I just needed to do my part and my parents would take over once they got there.  So I did all I needed to.

Honestly, I think the doctor realized I had the situation clear in my head because she was willing to let me make the calls even though I wasn’t my sister’s guardian. Plus, speed was important.

The whole thing taught me… not a lesson per sec, but it taught me that in an emergency, I can be reliable and competent, and that God will be there for me when I need Him. It’s good to be jarred into needing all our wits and abilities every now and then. Everyone agreed God was merciful, because if I hadn’t had our family car, by a last minute change of plans, we would’ve been stuck at home or had to take an Uber or something. And my sister was pretty bad even though we acted quickly.

I’m happy to report she’s almost completely better now, and no serious damage was found, but she did get much needed meds for her nasua and pain.

I’ve never been a super emotional person as far as feeling love and crying and stuff goes. I feel those things in small amounts usually, I rarely sustain any emotion beyond contentment for longer than few hours. (Since I stopped being anxious all the time.) And Truthfully, I’ve always seen that as a bad thing. Like I’m less caring because of that, and I should be more tender.

But this time around, my calmer temperament was what my sister needed. I stayed calm, so she stayed calm, so I in turn stayed more calm. I couldn’t panic or cry, so I didn’t. Maybe at other times  I wish I was softer, but though I was reassuring, I had to be strong for this circumstance.

In an emergency, that’s the person you want around. At least, it is for me. People who get really emotional under stress stress me out further. I think I stay calm as a way to counter balance that. Otherwise we’d both be overwhelmed, and nothing could be resolved.

I don’t get choked up and melt like some people do. I have a hard time not blaming myself for that, but…maybe it’s just part of who I am, and maybe I’m meant to be that way. Maybe God made me that way on purpose because I need that to do what I’m called to do.

I do know that every emergency is different, and it’s possible to react differently each time. So I could still need that support, instead of being it, but now I know I at least have the capability, with God.

And this is from the girl who used to panic over nothing and be a hypochondriac. That’s a miracle, ladies and gentlemen.

It all seems kind of surreal now, I’m just glad we all got through it okay and no harm seems to have been done.

Until next time–Natasha.

More than a stereotype.

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I know Thanksgiving was last week, but I’d like to start this post off with a few things I’m thankful for.

I celebrated my 20th birthday recently. And my sixth spiritual birthday. I can’t believe it’s only been 6 years since I became a  Christian, I can’t imagine not knowing God. I also can’t believe I’m no longer a teenager, after seven years of it, I almost forgot what that’s like, I hop my twenties are the plus side of not being a teen.

I’m thankful for my family, they are doing better for the most part, and we recently found out we have a family member we’ve never met. My dad has a half brother, I could swear it’s like a movie.

I’m thankful for my friends…because I actually have some finally! And I’ve been getting to know them better over the past few months.

I’m glad for making good grades despite feeling overbooked this semester.

I’m thankful for RWBY providing me with a lot of interesting content to think about and enjoy.

And of course I’m thankful for all of you. I had not idea I’d ever make it to 80+ followers.

Now, on the subject of thankfulness, I’d be the millionth person to write about that at this time of year, but it’s truly something we need to remember every single day. And honestly, I don’t. I’m not a negative person but I don’t stop and thank God for things every day, and I really should, because school is teaching me I have it really good.

We had to read “Death of a Salesman,” over the holiday. Real cheery play, perfect for the occasion–can you hear the sarcasm?

At this point I’ve become philosophical about the darker content. At least the dramas are easier to stomach than the poetry was, poetry really shouldn’t be dark.

I digress. I had a revelation reading about the terrible people in this play, terrible in that their mediocre, petty, and false. I just stopped on one page, and understanding rose up inside me. I thought “I am happier in my simple life than people like this will ever be, because they strive for money, recognition, and gratification. They want to prove they are something, and prove they’re a real man (or woman) and prove that they’re the big shot…and it’s all vanity. And I don’t need to prove anything, and I don’t need money or fame to be happy. I’m more content now then someone like that has ever been.” Of course I didn’t think it in those exact words, but you get it.

It just fully hit me for the moment that what bothers me about these plays we read and stories too is the incessant hunger I find in them for what doesn’t matter. People have some agenda to push, some need to be affirmed by people whom they resent. I find resentment, envy, hatred, and selfishness in all of them. I realize it reflects what the author thinks people strive for and even what they need. They think people are that petty and can’t connect. Endless hunger and discontent drives these stories.

And I can’t believe how foreign that feeling is to me, like, what world are they living in.

You know, I’m not unaware of those feelings, of course I do have that restlessness sometimes, I think all young people do, and older folks too. But by the grace of God, it has never turned me into the monster you find in these stories and dramas. Everyone is either cheating on their wife or destroying their relationship with their family…or raping someone, or murdering someone. You know, like most people do when they are down on their luck…yes, I’m being sarcastic.

If I’m honest, I’ve blundered a lot in my relationships, and I’ve even destroyed them. Butt at my worst, I’ve never done what the people in these stories do. I attribute that to God, because I know that in my selfish human nature I have the capacity to do things like that, but in my redeemed new nature, I would never do it.

These stories would make you afraid to love anyone if you didn’t believe in a God who can change people’s hearts. We read these stories and know that we are like that. We’re petty and selfish and envious and discontent.

We are like that in our flesh. But fortunately I don’t believe that is all we are. I feel so sorry for my classmates who have no defense. no reason to say “That’s not the end of the story.”

The more I see of what people are thinking and saying, especially ones my age, the more I pity them. I pity them because they are so, so lost.

Young people are desperate for faith. They are looking for someone to be willing to have it. They don’t have it themselves because they’ve had different opinions battering them since grade-school. Many don’t actually want to abandon the idea of God, they just aren’t sure how they can hold onto it. They doubt they are smart enough to figure it out.

Young people are aware of how they are stigmatized, and they believe it. That is the saddest thing. They believe they are stupid, shallow millennials, who are fit only to embrace the stereotype culture has of us.

Most of them care about more than just their phones and their shows, but they talk about that because they feel incapable of talking about anything else. If you aren’t mingling with them, you don’t realize…the ache is palpable.

Man, they want to connect, they just don’t have a clue how to. No one taught us to.

You don’t realize it, but no one did. I was never taught how. I had to learn. TV didn’t help. TV would have taught me to be selfish and snarky if I went by how kids are portrayed on the shows.

We’re called flaky and air-headed, and maybe we are. (Not me obviously.) But…we are expected to be. We don’t know any different. In fact, it’s part of our culture to expect flakiness.

That’s another subject, but what I’m trying to say is this stereotype is killing us faster than social media is, not because we may be addicted, but it’s because we’re written off that we are not helped.

Guess what, it’s not us who don’t care. It’s not us who are apathetic, it’s the 40+ year olds who’ve decided we’re losers who are beyond hope. I assume, if you’re reading this, that’s not you. But I bet you know some.

I am not condemning the previous generation. Millennials frustrate me too, but they are not what I was told either.

I do not think we can change the culture as a whole quickly or easily, but what falls to us is to reach out to people we do know. And to try to rediscover what connecting with them means. Our hunger for it isn’t going away, and Netflix can’t fool us into accepting a substitute forever. But I don’t want us to let that depress us, I think we should be excited that we get to rediscover friendship. If we don’t let fear stop us.

And I’m not being naively optimistic. There’s plenty we’ve lost. But I refuse to believe that that’s the end of the story.

Until next time–Natasha.