Vissable Views

Archive for July, 2011

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My single greatest accomplishment would have to be getting published this year four times. Over the windy, erroded and refurbished path which is my life I have learned that one of the most essential skills we must master is expressionism. People spend their entire lives working and making money, and I’m not saying that they do not have good reason: they have kids, they have a mortgage, they’re proving something to their family, however I’ve noticed how little adults spend doing things that they love or used to love. My mother is an interior designer; she buys and flips houses before she puts them back on the market to make profit. She also used to play the stock market a little with her inherited NYSE (Archipelligo) seat, but I noticed that she never took time for herself. To this day she puts a dollar sign above everything she looks at, but at the age of sixty-six she has recently picked up painting, and is a phenominal portrait painter. Although I am only eighteen I can say with confidence that I have a large amount of life experience under my belt, and have communicated the values and lessons I have learned over the course of my life through poetry. Since the summer of 2009 I have written over two hundred poems and have a poetry blog online, which attracts varied audiences. It wasn’t until this past year that I took the courage to submit my poems to online publishers, but when I did I received an e-mail saying that they were extremely impressed with my level of insight with respect to my age, and I received publication. This was one of the largest honors anybody could have ever given to me. That same year I had earned the lead of the winter musical, “Company,” and I had joined a group at my school known as the Critical Issues Forum. This is an interscholastic project that deals with the issue of nuclear nonproliferation through the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. This year I worked with a team of seven other students to produce a one-hundred page paper on nuclear nonproliferation as it pertains specifically to the Middle East. We earned an Award of Excellence, and published our three part essay online.

If I had to live under water for two years, why would I want to be anything less than the top of the food chain? I would want to be a human! Humans may not be the most rapidly changing species on this planet, however; we create the most change found on this planet. If we had created the technology and structure to allow myself to survive under millions of tons of water pressure safely, I would be thrilled to wake up in the morning, look out my window and greet fish instead of birds. The beauty of nature above water is impressive, however, and I would indeed miss the way the wind howls or the smell of dry summer rain as it hits concrete, or the reflection of the sun on Lake Winnipessaukee in its placidity. Good thing I would be returning two years later, though.

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I grew up in the Upper East Side of New York’s Manhattan island and attended an all boys private Catholic school for five years. Being surrounded by waspy families and children who had been raised with more money than their wallets had room for. With the money came an irrefutable and unwavering superiority complex that led me to feeling ostracised, like I didn’t belong. It was not to say that I didn’t have money; however, I just couldn’t identify with them. I was subjected to jokes and mockery more than anybody in my grade. When, two years later, my father had taken his life it seemed ironic to be attending a Catholic school, as I didn’t feel like a God existed, but the concept of heaven had consumed my thoughts. I turned to poetry and music to serve as coping mechanisms for the emotions that had led my blood to boil, but I needed a form of faith to reconsile. In high school, last year, I met a man named Jeff Lieberman who came to speak at our public podeum about his TV Show “Time Warp.” I was the only student who took the initiative to talk to him, and the conversation we had will forever be engraved in my mind. He pulled out a copy of Tao Te Ching and began quoting LaoTzu. The passive tone of the scripture made me feel like I could connect with people on so many levels, and that there is no wrong way, or right way, there is only your way and the way. As my interest was peaked by Jeff’s ‘show and tell,’ I began researching most Eastern traditions and fell in love with the idea of Nirvana. I believe that we all pass away and come back as a higher life form based on how we act to others during the span of our lives. Heaven is found when our souls have been completed and achieve Nirvana.

I have a friend who seems to attract trouble.  She causes problems whenever she is around and in general can be very childish and juvenile.  She tends to flirt with other peoples husbands even if she does not realize she does it.  She always has some new tragedy occurring in her life or has broken up with some boy or another.  And worst of all, she is always thinking she is pregnant.  I would love to tell her to grow up and act like a real woman, but I know she would be offended and it would probably just send her further down the road of attention seeking behavior.