Frozen over

He was of tin and steadfast loyalty; she was of paper and ephemeral beauty. Nobody could touch them. Passion had consumed them; fire had swallowed them whole. But nothing burns forever. In the aftermath, she was gone without a trace, save the jewel she once proudly wore, now left behind. He, on the other hand, had been so malleable, so easily deformed by love that when the last embers were finally cooled, all that could be sifted from the ashes was a cold metal heart.

- L

What is attachment but a sense of dependency? You give and take, you lean and are leaned upon -- you need and are needed.

That's all it is. There isn't much to be afraid of.

I understand that we're incredibly different people in this respect, but I sincerely doubt that desperately gripping every part of your mind and refusing to surrender control to anyone else has done anything to help you conquer your feelings.

The tin soldier may have died with a heart hardened by the painful trysts of love. But at least he had known how it felt to have his heart engulfed by the feelings of another. At least he had faced the fires and valiantly danced in them, if only to be consumed shortly after. At least he had finally broken down his cast-iron box and let in the sun's warmth.

The tin soldier died in agony. But he didn't die alone.
 
And so I ask you:
Is your frozen heart really any different from that tin soldier's metal heart?

My goal

My goal is to be important enough for people to hate me.

You're so weird.

I don't think people in high school school realized this, but I actually take it as a compliment when people call me weird. Yeah, maybe I'd rather be deemed "chill, awesome, super nice" or whatever buzzwords are flying around at the the time. But I know I'm not any of the above.

See, at the very least, being weird (and embracing it) means that you're not too worried about being different. And based on my admittedly short existence, that's the kind of person I tend to find more interesting.

No, I'm not a hipster.

It's eerily similar to why I also consider calling someone a dork to be a compliment. If urbandictionary is to be trusted, a dork is "Someone who has odd interests, and is often silly at times. A dork is also someone who can be themselves and not care what anyone thinks."

Of course, it's not like I've enjoyed the company of every weird person or dork that I've met. But you have to admit: in their own little way, these kinds of people have a certain kind of confidence -- a good confidence.

And I guess that, because I've met so many people with the other kinds of confidence (arrogance for example), I find the weirdos and dorks to be refreshing.

In conclusion, I'm weird.

Head out of the shell

From watching the experiences of people before me, I know enough to not burrow my head into my shell like a turtle. If there's an impending problem, it's usually better to willingly stare it in the face when it's still far away, then be forced to deal with it later, when it's too late.

The question is: can you prepare for a future that no one knows for certain? Because for all we know, we could have been staring at a ship that wasn't ever going to make it to shore.

At least when your head is stuck in your shell, you take every experience at a time. You're in one place at one time, and you know nothing else - there's nothing else you can see.

Funny. Isn't that precisely what people always tell us to do? To always live life in the present, and enjoy it?

So maybe the turtle had it right after all - stick your head in your shell, live in the now, and brace yourself for disaster.

Because regardless of whether you were planning for it or not, it's going to come anyway.

Death.

column - insecurites and industries

Every year, hundreds of volcanic eruptions occur. Broiling, red hot magma spurts out of the
mountains. People scream. Lives and livelihoods are destroyed. The helpless humans try their best to mitigate the damage – buckets of water, fire retardants, and lucky charms – but to no avail. The towering messengers of smoldering destruction never stop terrorizing the populace.

I am, of course, referring to pimples.

Being the little baby I am, I easily get nightmares from good horror movies, bad horror movies, and bad parodies of bad horror movies. But waking up in the morning to a smoldering mountain of red on my nose is on an entirely different level of terror.

I hear that normal people have nightmares of being naked, which supposedly suggests subconscious insecurity or something to that effect. I laugh at their trite nudist fantasies. Because at least in that situation, no one ever seems to actually notice that, well, you're butt naked.

Now a pimple, on the other hand -- every time you dare show your volcanic face in public, the blind population increases.

So naturally, wherever there’s an insecurity, there’s an industry. With companies like Neutrogena touting a magical "pore-cleansing" formula and Cetaphil with its "now 3x more powerful!" daily cleanser, pimple-stricken teenagers now have the appropriate arsenal to defend against the red alien invaders.

Unfortunately, I am not one of those teenagers. Starting from seventh grade, I have unwillingly nurtured my very own Ring of Fire right on my forehead. Yet five years of oily catastrophe and six different acne creams later, I've long since accepted my fate as a giant walking Petri dish for acne bacteria to party in. Sure, it may not be very attractive to have volcanoes and craters all over my face, but it's not like I'm some shirtless model gracing shopping bags around the world. There's nothing to lose!

Of course, it would be nice if all those creepy little bacteria would leave me and my exquisitely textured face alone. But even then, I've pretty much learned to accept my pimples for the poor (albeit hideous) creatures that they are. After all, it’s not fair to just exterminate things if they’re ugly, right?

Uh...right?

...Guys?