This is my haven. I have never talked about most of these subjects out loud, and yet, occasionally I get the urge to write something and so I post it here. I do not know whether it is right to be posting these feelings over the internet for any random person to read, but perhaps other people will learn from what I have experienced. I do not pretend to be the best person in the world, but I try hard to do what's right and discover everything that I can about life. Writing is good for the soul because it lets one's emotions spill over and be transformed into something malleable.

"We are standing it seems at the roads of destiny, waiting to see which way to turn." - House

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This is a place about me. This is place where I talk about who I am without criticism. I believe that it is essential that other people know who I am. Though that may sound arrogant, it was not intended to be so. I know with all of me that the way to be content in life is to personally understand other people. We go through the motions each day, a wave, a smile, a "hello, how do you do?" but we never actually see who the other people are. Especially teenagers. I am nearly 17 and I have lived my life up til now not knowing what I have a passion for. I have wandered aimlessly seeing what other people have and briefly breaking the surface of who other people are, but I have never seen myself in any sort of light. I have never dug deeper into a topic with another person, or dared to ask a question that could cause complications. The worst is, that I never knew that I had these restraints on myself. I have erected walls around what I say and what I think without the slightest hint. I am not a spiritual person. I see life as an adventure to be lived and when we die it is like going into a deep sleep. This deep sleep is the type of sleep that is velvety and drowns you in its many folds, there is no thinking involved. I cannot grasp why some beliefs are called cults, some true religions and some only as lost religions filled with myths. It makes me angry at times. I want to be like everybody else. I want to believe in something, anything, just to feel the way that the martyrs must have felt. But I cannot. I can't force myself to believe that somebody is watching over me or somebody created this all. What is so wrong with believing that this all happened accidently by particles colliding? Does it make people feel miniscule in comparision to the universe? At this point I do not know the answers to all these questions that circulate through my brain, but I know that these are the questions that I need to find an answer for. I am told that I stare off into space much of the time. I am not spacing out, I am thinking. Sometimes I wonder if it is arrogant of me to think that my ideas are right. The problem is that everything inside of me tells me that this is the truth. It is as if every particle in me tells me that I am right to put faith into human nature. I am an idealist. I am proud of what I believe it and it depresses me to hear the cries of this disillusioned population. I am certain that if people put faith in the themselves and the greater ideas, such as love, hope and liberty, that everything would be alright. We look at America today and we see how people have lost faith. I know that if people started to believe in what one man can do, they would see what they can do for themselves and others. If people realized what can be accomplished when they work together, no soul would feel like he is a hindrance to society. If people knew that they were important to somebody that they see as influential, then there would be something to work towards. People need to be moved to do things. If there is nothing to encourage people to dream, then there is no reason to dream. And yet, it only takes one person to inspire a community. I have known what it is like to sit in a room filled with inspirations. I do not think that I will ever forget that moment when my history class had just finished discussing the system in the industrial period. We had moved from talking about the industrial age to talking about today and how we could help society. As we sat in this circle, people became excited. These are teenagers who could be spending their days doing whatever they wanted, and yet we planned to give up our time to making our world better. The intensity in the room rose and we felt as if we could fix anything; as if no challenge was too big for us. Suddenly, it was as if people began to glow and lift out of their seats with their new found wings. That is inspiration. It does not take a great speaker like Lincoln to help people to see what can be accomplished. This is what I believe faith is. I put my faith in the people around me, not in a higher being. I may never know whether there is a higher being, but I know what it is to see somebody smile; to see determination light up a face; to feel what it is to stand on top of the world. I am told I am an idealist, but I am a realist. I know that these great ideals can be accomplished for I have seen it many times with my own two eyes. How can I deny what I see plainly in front of my face as frivolous ideals? FDR said in his fireside chats, "There is nothing to fear but fear itself", but more importantly, he started those chats with the words "My friends".