I left change

on the nightstand,

key

on your bookshelf,

but my heart

is on your sleeve.

'Till next time.

Every night, I lie in bed and think. How I wish I didn’t. I’m afraid one night I’ll decide to silence my thoughts, to end my frustrations, to permanently rest. I won’t pretend to know how you feel or say I understand what you’re going through. I just want you to know I’m feeling hopeless too.

But see, I’m going through the worst time of my life, and I’ll offer you my shoulder. This should tell you that your family will lend you their spine to give the strength you just can’t find. It’s not a burden; it’s a gift. How we wouldn’t have to live asking how we could have saved a life. But that we’ll have the chance to lend our shoulders, share our spines, extend our arms, and give our hearts.

But even if you share, the thoughts won’t stop. The world can be horrible and devoid of hope. The fact that you feel it in your bones says you’re a better person than most. It’s not pitiful – it’s human nature. It sucks, but you will keep on feeling. Just don’t let yourself drown.

As you empathize with the state of the world, don’t lose yourself. There’s always an answer or a way out. You’ll always have someone.

Consider genetics. Review your family history for signs that what you’re going through is familiar territory. It won’t always be diagnosed, but you might learn about an eccentric uncle or an isolated cousin. This isn’t for you to realize you’re doomed. It helps you make sense of your experience – so you can take control.

Look at psychology. Consider anxiety’s best friend, cognitive distortion. Could you be overmagnifying a minor hurdle? Are there sweeping conclusions involved? You might not find the answers yourself, and even if you do, it helps to have a counselor to help you find the path.

Point towards physiology. Could it be a chemical imbalance? Or a side effect of medication? If so, there’s no shame or weakness in taking antidepressants. Our brains are wired differently. When people lack vitamins, they take a pill. My brain’s not producing enough serotonin, so I take one for that too.

Every night, we lie in bed and think. How we wish we didn’t. We’re afraid – and that’s the point. The future is uncertain and unpolished. But we can borrow someone’s shoulder, review the past, analyze our logic, or blame science. Now, if all of these fail – we’ll still have each other. It’s okay to borrow my shoulder, your parents’ spine, and your friends’ arms.

But if you get so exhausted from your thoughts that you see giving in as the only way out – stop and reach out. Someone will come running. Someone always does. Someone always will.

When the aliens find the Golden Record, we’d all be dead.

Voyagers 1 and 2 had 12-inch gold-plated copper disks on board before they launched out to space. Carl Sagan of Cornell University and his team gathered 115 images, around 50 songs and audio clips, greetings in 55 languages, and a letter from President Carter of the U.S. and then U.N. Secretary-General Waldheim. They encoded all these into an “Earth time capsule” phonograph record.

The photos and sounds aim to teach extraterrestrials about who we are, how we function, where we live, and what we’ve accomplished. It was quite the collection. It had photos of the different planets we’d discovered, our location on the galaxy, and Thailand rush-hour traffic. I know, I sound like some space enthusiast giving a pointless lecture you didn’t ask for – but I do have a point.

See, when we look at space through a telescope, we’re looking at the past. It has to do with light speed and distance. If we see a star 50 million light-years away, we see how it looked 50 million years ago. So when the aliens find the Golden Record, the sun had probably already exploded, or Armageddon has destroyed everything, or the sea level has risen beyond what’s habitable. And us, humans, if we don’t get our act together, would be long gone.

When they look through their telescopes, they will likely see the Earth forming, or dinosaurs, or early civilizations. Either way, they’d have to wait a while to see the photos and hear the sounds that we have on the Golden Record. If they watch long enough and get to our present or the near future, they’ll be perplexed. See, there are photos of dolphins, eagles, and an elephant. But humanity has industrialized so much; we’ve destroyed these animals’ homes.

They’ll see a space shuttle, an airplane, and a developed city, but not their consequences. These feats that the aliens want to see are the same ones that would decrease our visibility through smog, air pollution, space pollution, and chemical waste.

Instead of seeing the diversity we proudly embedded in our time capsule, they’ll see racial inequality, cultural divide, and political disarray. Instead of hearing Bach and Mozart, they will listen to the terrifying sound of nukes, the desperate pleas of innocent victims, and the echoes of discontent and disagreement.

It’s like a first date. You put your best foot forward in hopes that there will be another one. You only show what’s healthy and acceptable. We hide the skeletons in our whatever. We all do it, and it’s alright. The aliens probably won’t visit if they immediately see the ugly side of this world. But honesty goes a long way. And hey, I’m sure they will also see the good and the honest.

I’m saying that we still have time to give the aliens a happy ending as they watch the melodrama that is humanity on Earth. The destruction of our environment, inequality, wars, and greed; are just some of our faults that we still have control over. We can do this.

I know, some of you don’t believe in aliens or don’t care. But look, the Golden Record had the sounds of footsteps, heartbeat, and laughter. It’d be nice if whatever or whoever is out there looks at Earth and sees us marching forward, wearing our hearts on our sleeves, no nukes, or divides. Sure, we’ll probably be dead. But we’d have died laughing.

There are giants

in the sky

in the woods

in the castle

in our hearts.

Agony,

When the one thing you want

is the one thing you can’t reach.

When we're so far apart,

and there’s nowhere to start.

No one should be forgotten.

Someone will come running.

Someone’s on your side.

They will take you home

because no one is alone.

I wish

that I won’t be forgotten,

that the curse will be broken,

that I wasn’t in the wrong story,

that I knew when it’s time to leave the woods.

#IntoTheWoods #DearEvanHansen

Can’t you see?

I am but a metaphor.

a broken past,

a downcast future,

a stain you can’t erase,

I am

Sprawled out bones,

blood-stained armor,

left by a war without a victor,

I am

Look and see!

I am just a metaphor.

a busted marriage,

a dream forgotten,

a source of someone’s sorrow,

I am

Cadaver of a bygone marriage,

offspring of infidelity,

Out, damned spot! you plead,

I am

To be my own person,

not an emblem of withered love

and hope adrift,

I dream

Ad: Male college students needed for psychological study of prison life.

Look, it paid $15.00 a day. I’m in college, how was I to refuse? Plus, they were just makeshift prison cells for voluntary “criminals.”

Degradation. We stripped the prisoners naked and sprayed them to cleanse them of their germs. This is okay, they’re volunteers, I kept on telling myself.

Uniforms. Sandals. Ankle Chains. ID numbers. In a matter of minutes, they changed from people to numbers. Men in dresses, al fresco. It was like a spell. They suddenly acted differently – like we took away their manliness.

After that, well, we were let loose. They wanted this, I thought. So we woke them up with whistles around 2 am. Push-ups for inappropriate behavior. It was harmless. Yeah, sometimes we’d have someone sit on their back or step on their backs, but it was harmless.

Ripped off numbers. Visible Hair. Barricades. Rebellion. It was the night guard’s fault, they were too easy on them. So we had to shoot them with carbon dioxide, strip them naked, and take away their beds. Ringleaders moved to isolation. We’re responsible guards, you see. We have to show them they were wrong.

We assigned one of the cells for those who didn’t rebel as much. We returned their beds, given good food, and were allowed to clean themselves. It was fair. They were model prisoners. The others didn’t get any of that, why should they? And then we switched them. Why? I didn’t know at first, too. But it worked. After that, none of them trusted each other.

No. 8621 started to cry his guts out. Later telling everybody that they can’t leave, Then he went crazy. So he was let go. Well, we wanted to assign an informant to his cell. The others were planning to escape, you see. But that didn’t pan out. We prepared all day to prevent it. Then it didn’t happen. It was infuriating. So we had them clean the toilet with their hands, it was just fair.

No. 819 didn’t want to talk to the priest. They had a priest visit the following day. He didn’t want to eat and saw a doctor instead. When he finally did talk to the priest, we had the other prisoners chant that no. 819 was a bad prisoner. Oh, I heard he was breaking down, wanting to go back and prove he wasn’t bad. But they let him go.

Anyway, they stopped the study soon after. Some lawyers got involved.

I bet you think you’d be compassionate. You’d call them by their name, help them, and treat them as people. You can claim that, and you know, maybe you will. I mean, some of us were. But you didn’t feel the power. I was somebody in that prison. They were scared of me. They wanted to be terrified. How can you say no when they clearly asked for it?

#psychology #experiment