Have You Ever Wanted To Blow Yourself Away?

Today in one of my classes we did what was called a power walk. The way it works is everyone stands in a circle or in lines facing each other. There is one person who reads from a list. This list could include events that you have experienced in life, actions you have taken, or emotions you have felt. The proctor of the power walk reads down the list. If they feel comfortable enough, the individuals participating in the power walk can stand/step forward if they can relate with any of the bullets that are read.

The power walk we did today was gender based and asked a lot of personal questions. Some of the questions were about committing an act of violence towards another person, some were a little more light hearted. One in particular stood out to me and left me with a heavy heart. The question was, "Have you ever wanted to blow yourself away?" which in normal terms means, have you ever wanted to commit suicide. 

Before I go any further, let me tell you a bit about the environment in this class room. It is my Human Sexuality class, there are only about thirty people in this classroom and since we are almost to the end of our semester and have been talking about pretty much everything sex and sexuality related, we are very close with each other. The dynamic we have is one that you rarely find with strangers, and the people in that class are ones I have come to hold near and dear to my heart. Now that you know a bit more about the vibe of the class I will continue.

"Have you ever wanted to blow yourself away?" Out of the thirty people in my class roughly 25 people stood up when asked this question. These are people that look as normal as you and I, these are people that if I didn't know them somewhat personally and I saw them walking on campus I would think they were very well put together and couldn't possibly have issues. The fact that this big of a percentage of my peers has felt this emotion at one time or another absolutely kills me. 

At the end of class today our professor asked us to try and connect and be kind to people. She asked us to try and disconnect ourselves from this world of electronics that we have all come to live, in and say  hello to someone we don't know. We then went on as a class to talk about how important it is to be kind and friendly to others, regardless of your knowledge of who they are because you never know how important and life changing your act of kindness could be. 

For the past couple of days I have been secretly keeping up with a couple of Twitter accounts that were created in my home town of Holbrook. These pages are @holbrook_polls and @polls_holbrook. Essentially what these pages are for is to create polls about the people in the town and have people vote on them. First let me start by pointing out that all of the effort going into running a page like this is an absolute waste of time and skill and a horrible representation of the education these individuals have received in their life thus far. There is something so much bigger that is wrong with the whole thing though, it is a page solely for the purpose of secretly talking about the individuals that live there.

I know what you're going to say, it's just supposed to be funny. Or, its just a twitter feed, you don't have to look at it. Let me be the first to say that I love sarcasm and joking with friends and making little digs, the people I hang out with find the same thing humorous and we all get along just fine without feelings being hurt, but just because this type of humor works in your tight knit social group   where everyone finds this  interaction to be humorous, ABSOLUTELY DOES NOT MAKE IT JUSTIFIABLE WHEN IT COMES TO STRANGERS. The fact that you like this type of humor doesn't mean that everyone else in the world does. When you look at the bigger picture, we are all human beings, we all have problems, we all have feelings, and we are all just trying to make it through this hectic thing called life in one piece. To take someone's characteristics, appearance, personal issues, quirks,  choices, etc.  into a big joke is not okay in the slightest. Especially when they don't give consent to the person making the joke.

As for the argument that you don't have to look at the page if you don't like it. You're absolutely right, you don't have to go and view the page. In fact, I'm sure a majority of the people who are against it or have been offended by it have tried their very hardest to completely forget it exists, but when everyone is talking about it and has become so obsessed with it, it is pretty much being forced upon everyone in its proximity.

The fact that we as a society have gotten to the point where we think this kind of behavior is okay and we even go as far as justifying it is absolutely sickening to me. Especially when the people who are justifying it are people who at one point where the butt of other people's jokes. I understand that this kind of thing is a result of bordem, lack of life experience, and immaturity and the point of this blog isn't to shame the creators of the Twitter feed or to shame anyone who has ever judged or treated someone badly because of who they are or aren't,  because at the end of the day  we are all human, we are all learning, and we all make mistakes. The point is to open your eyes to the fact that your words, even when the intentions of them are innocent, can be hurtful; and also that you should be a little bit more considerate of others mental health.

I urge all who read this to go out into the world and be kind to eachother, let us lift each other up and put our amazing talents to great use! There is so much talent to be discovered and developed in this world, but this development doesn't happen without encouragement and support, and this encouragement cannot happen when we are spending our time tearing eachother down. 

As for the title of this blog, remember that pain is temporary and even though it seems completely unbareable, it will end! Remember that there are people who love you and care so very deeply for you.

Do not waste the beautiful creation that is you.