A Beautiful Mess

I keep a notes thing on my phone for ideas for blogs and one reads, "banana and coconut and humans." Like, what? I honestly could not tell you what the heck that means or when I wrote it or why. I really wonder what my intent was there. Was I going to compare bananas and coconuts to humans? Who knows. I have been really busy recently. It is amazing. I wish my entire school year had been this way. The days go so fast it is awesome. I am so incredibly content and happy recently. I have really good people in my life. I know they probably would not consider me their friend necessarily, but I feel like I just kind of fit in better recently. And, yes, to answer your question, I do still want to transfer. In fact, just to go ahead and confront the issue, I would like to say a few things about that. I am transferring because I do not like the education and food and living conditions at John Carroll. You know those signs that are like, "don't feed the animals"? I am pretty sure JCU has a sign somewhere that says, "don't feed the vegetarians." I mean, it honestly is awful. I have given up on 50% of the caf (for those of you familiar with it, I have not eaten at the grill, comfort station, or pizza/pasta area since Christmas break). I have been living on soup, salad, rice and beans, sandwiches, and the tasty mini cup desert parfait things. I tried eating meat for a few days. I was so tired of being hungry after meals that I tried eating meat for a week. I felt so heavy and fat and gross that I had to stop that nonsense. I really do feel lighter and better as a vegetarian. I recommend everyone trying it, or at least just only eating meat like twice a week. I will never deny people of severe cravings or a need for bacon or fried chicken here or there. But, it really makes you feel healthier and better when you lay off meat for a few days. For me, at least. I find myself really funny sometimes. Random, I know. Lemme explain my mind switch there lol. I identify as bisexual because I just honestly do not know who I will end up with. I know that I like guys and girls so I use the label bisexual to explain that I have no freaking clue who I will end up with. Which is intimidating. I know most people are like woah, who will I marry? For me, that is doubled. Like, I do not even know which gender I will marry. Which will obviously determine how I have kids which is drastically different and very important to me. Anyway. Sorry I really do not have a layout for this blog so my mind is kind of everywhere. I think it is interesting that I tell people I am a vegetarian. I usually am so unsure of myself and my decisions and so incapable of sticking to decisions that I use the most lenient labels as possible. Like, I cheat all the time by eating meat. Why don't I just tell people I try to not eat too much meat? I confuse myself, honestly. 

Holy cow. Where is my life going? Are you guys as curious as I am? I am so exciting to see where this plot is going. I feel like just about anything could happen. I'm ready for it all.

I think it is really interesting how much better art is when the person creating the art (the artist lol I do not know why I wrote it so fancily. I have realized recently that I am an excellent manipulator of words. I sound good just because I say things like, "the creator of art" rather than "artist." Jesus, my cockiness is out of control recently. I'm sorry) is happy. This is always a prevalent topic but I have really been feeling it recently. I went to Florida last weekend and saw a Jason Mraz concert and MILCK opened for him. In one of her songs (she's awesome btw, look up her song "quiet") she sings, "thought I had to be tortured and sad to make great art cuz if I was happy I would lose my edge and not have anything deep to say." I LOVE that. John Green talks about it a lot in his new book Turtles All the Way Down as well. About how artists are seen as broken and damaged. Like some Edgar Allen Poe type of shit. But, in reality, the best art comes from bliss, not distress. I mean, look at romanticism and transcendentalism and the modern movement of comedic poetry. THAT is the good stuff. Yes, Poe was great and so was dark romanticism (actually I hate dark romanticism but don't let the English community know I said that) but people do not turn to art to feel depressed. People turn to art to feel better. Art is invigorating. 

But, MILCK's song is just really great. Check it out: MILCK - "Oh My My" (Live in Boston) - YouTube

 She can really belt it out, too. She's a good singer. The lyrics are funny. I mean the chorus is so stupid. It's just, "oh my my, I could cry cry cry, no I've never been this happy in my life life life. What a life, what a life, what a life." That is it. But, I love it. Honestly. Like. It just encapsulates everything I have been feeling recently. WHAT A LIFE MAN. Life is beautiful. That is also the name of my all time favorite movie. I highly recommend. Yes, it is in Italian, but yo, broaden your horizons because it is incredibly worth it. 

What a beautiful mess this is. Jason Mraz sang that song at his concert and it was magical. That is my sister's all time favorite Jason Mraz song. I never particularly felt that strongly about it until I heard it in concert and then I started tearing up and having a classic existential crisis. I think I have one at every concert I go to. Something about the lights and the way the music pulses through me and having the presence of that many humans around me... it really hits me how small and beautiful and short life is. I changed my twitter bio to "what a beautiful mess this is" after the concert. It really stuck out to me. Because, seriously, life is a beautiful mess. Life is so sloppy. Life is everywhere. Life, well. The best simile I can think of is that life is like a bowl of pasta. Because pasta is so messy and saucy and gets everywhere. But it is so goddamn tasty. And no one cares how pasta looks. Like it kind of is a nasty bowl of worm like things but no one cares. Everyone eats pasta and loves it. No one looks at a bowl of spaghetti and says its unappealing. That is life. It does not always look its best, and sometimes it hits you with some sauce or heartburn, but you know you'll always eat it again and love it. Some lyrics for you: "and through timeless words in priceless pictures, we'll fly like birds not of this earth. And tides they turn and hearts disfigure. but that's no concern when we're wounded together. And we tore our dresses and stained our shirts, but it's nice today, oh the wait was so worth it.” Life is a paradox. It is a beautiful mess. It is two opposites thrown together that somehow make sense. It is terribly wonderful.

Lately, though, the mess has really been sticking out to me. I have always known that this world is pretty messed up and has real ugly parts to it. Being the youngest in my family, I have been surrounded by mature conversations my whole life. My brother has a very different political view than my parents, too, so it creates a lot of amicable debates. My family is also full of entrepreneurs. I think, because of that business spirit, we always are trying to think of ways to make things better. My brother and I the other day were talking about how our favorite thing to do is talk about making things better. Whether it be a more efficient way of making a sandwich or a better way to run the government, discussing how to improve things is my favorite thing. Like, when my family walks into a restaurant, we all essentially take turns ripping on what they do wrong and how they should do better. In Florida last weekend, my sister got so upset by a shitty worker that we left the place and went somewhere else. We are all easily agitated by inefficiency and poor work ethic, and this translates into strongly believe that we can do everything better and improve anything. My point is, I have not been entirely ignorant my whole life. I know that the government is screwed up. But, recently, I am really seeing the extent of it. It is really putting me down in the dumps. There is just so much wrong and so little we can do.

I think I need to be a lawyer. I keep trying to justify that teaching people how to use a comma is an important job, and like, yes, it is, we have to remain literate (side note, for those new here, I do not ever re read my posts, that is why the grammar is rocky. This blog is like a vacation for me where I get to take a break from proof reading. I promise I know how to utilize punctuation though), but it just is not satisfying for me. As a Ferrato with the “I can do it better” mentality, I know that I can do something more for the world. My parents have always thought I should be a lawyer. I am eloquent, I love to research, and I passionately am infuriated by injustice. I just am so sick of school that I have been repressing my desire to pursue law. But, my immersion trip reignited that spark and I really think I should do it. I think, long term, I would be much happier.

But, life is still cool guys. That is really important to remember. It is easy super easy to throw your hands up and give up on everyone. Humans can suck. But, you must always remember that for every bad thing that happens there are twenty good things. Humans have survived this long by sticking together and loving each other. I will leave this mess, which hopefully is somehow beautiful, with a Kate Nash quote: “and I think I’m falling down again, so I think about all my good friends. And I wish them the best, I take comfort in knowing I have them.” Nice and simple, but, again, quite beautiful.

Tell them you love them, man. There are some really cool people out there.

Sorry if this is just a plain mess lol.