11. Music

I've decided to out the pressure on music to be the thing that keeps me from going completely insane over the next year and a half of high school. I'm almost certain a mental/emotional breakdown will ensue just because I'm just that unstable but I have put my faith (and mental health) in the hands of sweet, glorious music.

So without further ado, let us begin with a list of my most recent music obsessions/finds where you can get a taste of my taste in music and judge it against your probably more superior musical knowledge and expertise:

(And I've decided to go with the my favourite albums because if I started listing songs I would literally never get back to the modern history speech I'm procrastinating writing right now...)

(In no particular order other than from the one that makes me the most emotional in a good way)

Macklemore and Ryan Lewis - The Heist

Bastille - Other People's Heartaches

Bastille - Bad Blood

One Republic - Native

The Neighbourhood - I Love You

Rudimental - Home

Imagine Dragons - Night Visions

Groenland - The Chase

10. In which Jess decides to blog on her blog

So I've started to realise how depressingly cynical and moody my posts have been so far. I promise I'm not always as wary, hypocritical, condescending and, let's face it, pretentious as I may come across on the big, wide world of the internet. I'm actually, sometimes, occasionally, sort of a fun, warm, loving person to be around. I guess I just find myself more 'inspired' to write when it's about something I feel really emotional towards which probably isn't the best idea since I write a lot more carelessly and irrational when I'm emotional.

All that blabbering aside, I thought I'd introduce more than just shallow rants and maybe showcase some other sides of me as well. As much as I enjoy pouring my anger and bitterness into my keyboard and posting them for the world to potentially see against my better judgment, I wouldn't mind doing a bit of superficial gushing over books and music and movies and tv shows and fandoms and other bits and pieces that inspire me creatively. Basically I want to start a normal blog. Good one, Jess.

No, but seriously, I was going to go ahead and start in this post but as you have probably worked out I've gone on one of my tangents and I think it's too late to go back now. So I guess I'll leave it here for now and perhaps come back another day to begin this big dream of a personal blog. Hopefully it turns into less of me rambling along into internet oblivion and more into a two way relationship between myself and the people of the internet who are lovely enough to take the time to try and make sense of my rambles.

9. Egos and why they don't listen

We don't realise how much time and effort we put into talking about ourselves until we stop talking about ourselves and really listen to each other. And it's when you stop caring so much about projecting the polished and abridged version of yourself that you want people to see and start becoming genuinely interested and concerned for others that we see a raw and candid display of human egotism.

In a way, our obsession with enhancing our own importance, abilities or, more recently, our need to feel 'special' mocks us. And we're weak because we let it.

It's actually kind of funny to watch. A group of people all talking to each other about one subject but no one is actually listening to each other. We're all just waiting for an opportunity-a free pass, if you will- to jump in and add something about yourself or something you've done or someone you've met and ultimately turn to the attention onto you and not just you but how interesting and clever and wonderful YOU are. And I know I sound pretty cynical about it at the moment but in all honesty it's not such a bad thing. Technically, we're not hurting anyone else (not directly) and it's just natural to want to make yourself feel better while seemingly interacting with others and listening to their stories.

But the problem (and, yes, there always is one) arises when the self-improvement is more than the listening and the thinking. Talking about yourself takes no talent, no intelligence. It's one of the most shallow and most natural abilities of humans. Soon, nobody is really interested in anyone but themselves and a whole conversation can be had where, because everyone had been so enthusiastically how interesting they are and describing their own life, no one has even heard what anyone else has to say and their own words go unheard except in their own ears.

I started listening extra intently just last night and I don't want to go into any specifics in case it becomes personal but basically I was with three of my friends and we were just talking about random things. I stopped talking about myself around the time we started talking about religion. (Don't worry, it wasn't an intense religion debate-we're too open-minded for that.) The first friend was talking about being having shrines in her home because her family was Buddhist and I was just about to comment on how interesting that was and ask more about the shrine when a second friend chimes in to add that her grandparents are Buddhist and so when they're over she has to each vegetarian and I was about to ask about that when my third friend comes in to add that her family is only vegetarian on Easter Sunday though she can eat fish and oh my word you can see where this is going.

Every time some topic comes up that someone can relate back to themselves the jump right in and do that and even though I am genuinely interested in what they have to say and ask about their opinions, someone else will feel the need to talk about their own opinions. It's as if we just can't stand the thought of thirty seconds of conversation that doesn't include our lives or opinions in some form or another. It's insane.

Maybe it comes from whether or not you're a listener or a talker and I'm probably a moody blend of both. Maybe all three friends last night were talkers and it just seemed more noticeable then or maybe it's something we all should work on.

I've decided to start a pledge with myself to talk less about myself and focus more on others. Basically, be more altruistic in my words and my listening, not just my intentions and actions. This will probably be one of the easier challenges I set for myself but an important one nonetheless. Listening opens your world and mind up to new ideas, opinions, and thoughts and is one of the most rewarding things you can do.

8. Paradigms

I'm not the same as I was last year let alone ten years ago when I was a hopeful, bright-eyed, wonder-filled little girl seeing the world through rose-coloured specs. I'm not a different person-just a different version.

I think it's safe to say that I am now a product of society. I guess we all grow out of the haze of childhood innocence and naivety probably around the years on which I travel on now. I contorted and twisted the way I spoke, worked, played, thought and dreamed to fit the paradigms of being socially-acceptable, even highly regarded.

It doesn't take long to realise that in order to avoid becoming a social out-cast who stands out for the wrong reasons, you have to conform. And so we do. Quite unconsciously, actually. That's probably the scariest part. I like to imagine everyone walking down an enormous highway (some people are going sideways and diagonally and all sorts of funky directions but at the end of the day everyone's moving forward) and we begin the walk as soon as we're born. And as we walk, we grow and we change. And part of that change is the gradual shedding and letting go of all the quirks and personalities we naturally developed as a child. They slip unknowingly between our fingers, fall from our back pockets, untangle themselves from our hair and it all falls, on the ground, left behind as we keep moving onward.

It's terribly sad to think of all the goodness and uniqueness and purity that we all leave behind on this road to an easy, 'successful' life.

Awkward interrupting disclaimer: I know it's close-minded and simplistic of me to narrow all the blame towards 'society' but to be honest I'm too tired to go into who is to 'blame' for anything and I think that is it's own separate post.

Over the years I've become more eloquent in my use of language, more diverse in my knowledge of the past and present, more aware of my emotions and the way the world works in general.

But I've also lost the creativity that once came so naturally to me. I've forgotten how simply sit and do without wild fears, uncertainties and emotions distracting me and plaguing my thought process. Even though it is now full of facts and names and dates and explanations, my mind has never felt more unhealthy.

It's also sad to think that people have to change who they are in order to please society's standards and expectations. We don't trust what we don't understand and it has been a reoccurring habit of humans to criticise and condemn and dismiss what is new and unique and strange. There is something frightening to us about a person who speaks and acts and thinks differently to what we've defined as 'normal'. Racism is just one extreme of not being able to see through another person's eyes and only trusting your own view of the world. I think empathy is so important and yet we do nothing to teach our children. Growing up, if I wanted to learn about true compassion and empathy over sympathy, I would have to go out of my way and conduct my own research online and in books and from older, wiser people. I have never been taught compassion in the classroom and that's just one of the many reasons I begin to question the validity and effectiveness of the current school system.

I think it's time to put aside this mold that we think everyone should conform into and instead celebrate and embrace and nurture each and every person's individuality. Stop making people leave behind the very essence of who they are to make room for who others think they should be. If we stop following these unwritten rules of bland and boring equaling good and right then maybe, just maybe, we'll see a brighter world full of more honest, more true, more human, humans.

7. Weather talk

As an awkward, socially inept introvert, it's no lie that I'm not a fan of small talk. I don't necessarily hate it and sometimes the shallow, predictable polite banter can be comforting to pass the time or pretend I'm actually socialising. But at the end of the day there comes a time when I just can't stand keeping another person from moving on with life when I can quite clearly see how much they don't want to be a part of this dull conversation.

 But now that I'm 16, in year 11 in high school, small talk is one of the easiest things to do and for people to do with me. Why? Because there is a fail-safe topic that every person falls back onto and that is the future. My future, to be exact. What university I want to go to if I want to go at all, what course I plan to take if I go to uni and my absolute favourite; what I want to do after school and uni. Beautiful.

It's the perfect question for the other person. They get to seem genuinely interested in an acquaintance's life and dreams and goals and my answer is sure to go for a while and fill up the needed awkward stage of the meeting.

The only problem is that when they do ask me what I want to do, no one really expects me to have it all figured out. And that's great-except that, in theory, I do sort of kind of have most things figured out. And is it weird that I feel guilty for that? Like I'm not following the normal procedure of a high school teen who hasn't quite got it figured out yet? I'm not saying I have it figured out, not at all, it's just that I know where I want to go, ultimately in life and the road I want to be travelling along.

And so, because I feel like I shouldn't have a straight answer to the question of what I want to do with my life, I lie. Every time. It's actually become a sort of game. A game that only I know the rules of and only I understand. And, okay, only I'm playing. So it's basically a pretty sad thing is what I'm getting at here.
I wasn't actually consciously doing it at first. And when people first started asking me, I was truly confused about what to say and often I just ended up saying I didn't know. But that was boring. So in the split seconds after they deliver the big question, I'll make up my mind and blurt something like "law" or "international and global studies" or "media communications" at Sydney Uni. And they're not really lies. But even right now I can see just how slim the chances of me actually picking those subjects let alone getting into them.

Sure I would love to study law and I would love it even more to be able to tell people that I'm studying law but I noticed something after every time I chose to say law. I always got the look. And it's not a very well-disguised look. In fact, it's pretty atrociously plain to see. Basically, a person's first impressions of me are along the lines of nice, quiet, friendly, relaxed and maybe funny. The key word here is 'nice'. Once people get to know me even better that word is transformed into 'too nice'. And eventually, 'timid'. It's a bit like an evolution in pokemon. Except no where near as cool and actually a deterioration more than advancement.
What I'm trying to say here is that people show quite clearly on their faces that they don't believe I have the guts, the fight, the determination or the brains to do law, let alone become a lawyer. Which, you know, fair enough and whatever but at the same time..excuse you.

As for careers, I for one, know exactly what I want to dedicate my life to although I don't have a specific job. The strange part is that I've never really told people what I actually want to do. Well, no, I have. In the early days of the cross-examinations. I used to tell people, even acquaintances, what I wanted to spend my life doing and oh my word. Those looks were almost as shocking as the law ones. Maybe worse because it cut deeper into something I actually believe in. I won't get into the details of what I want to do for the sake of not turning this into an essay, but in short, I want to do charity work/humanitarian based thing such as travelling to third world impoverished countries and helping to educate communities, opening/building schools for children, teaching English and other subjects like art and music. And lately I've thought about becoming a primary school teacher (there are looks for this one as well), specifically one who teaches kids with both mental and physical disabilities such as the seeing and hearing impaired.

The looks are reserved mainly for the going to poor countries dream just because people think I've got this idealised, romanticised, glamourised version of aid/humanitarian work and think I'm trying hard to be some super great person by saying I'm going to do all these great things. I remember a friend of my parent said (behind my back), "Oh, that's what all the little girls say. Don't worry, she won't be saying that when she's in the real world trying to make a living." And I swear to the heavens above I was about the go awwww hell no and whip out a massive rant on how any living I make is more life lived than he will ever know. Except that I wasn't actually there when he said it and I don't actually care enough about his opinion to waste my energy on him.

But I know many people have thought that about me saying I want to 'change the world' and 'help the poor' etc and thinking it's not realistic and I'm being fanciful but that's ok because those people don't know me. They don't know how compassionate and passionate I am about this and I'm not passionate about anything as much as I am about dedicating my life to helping other people.

Whew. That was a bit of a tangent. And I don't think I ever got my point across. Oh well, this will have to do because I've wasted almost an entire night laughing to myself on tumblr, listening to The Walking Dead soundtrack and writing this.

It's Monday. I have an athletics carnival tomorrow.

I don't think any one (not even future me) will be able to understanding the misery encapsulated in those two sentences.