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Essays, Uncategorized  0 Comments

Fear Is A Lost Little Boy on A Bus

This is another literature assignment for a unit appropriately called ‘Writing Creative Non-fiction.’ We were required to write a 1500 word immersion essay—something I had never attempted before, but I grabbed my friend Tom and we headed out into the city for a ‘night on the town’ and there I was confronted with both my agoraphobia and my lost youth. It’s not one of my best pieces but it’s well worth a read – if not for mere entertainment, as there are a few memorable characters we came across.

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The Importance of Feeling Wonder

This article has been my most popular piece written for Medium thus far. I suppose it has touched people because of its overall theme: mysteries are bigger than us. I do believe people want to feel more connected to the universe. ‘Our’ world and the societies we have built, are becoming faster, more stressful and we seem to be losing our ability to truly connect with each other in a meaningful way. Perhaps we should stop glaring down into our screens and cast our eyes up into the night sky. Who knows what we’ll discover.

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Youth Suicide: An Unnecessary Statistic

And why our healthcare system isn’t helping We had a deal. Had created a system for when she was feeling ‘under the weather.’ In fact, it was a code for when she felt suicidal, a simple text message that used a hurricane category scale system. If Grace was feeling blue but it wasn’t too serious, it was a Category 1. Winds were picking up and there might be some falling debris, but usually some music or a silly movie could calm things down. If it was a Category 2 or 3, I’d start to worry. Sometimes she’d text: Category 2 … I think, maybe worse. Definitely strong. And I’d wait to hear back, hoping her foundations wouldn’t be ripped from the earth, all the while knowing she was in a dangerous sway towards a free-fall. Often a hot chocolate and a long chat would do the trick, and I would feel a swell of relief that she was stable, calm and safe.

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Your Looking-Glass Self

Why you should give up the need for validation You want to be popular, you want people to like you and that’s completely normal. Maintaining a healthy self esteem is vital. In fact, it’s becoming even more important as our society grows ever more competitive. And yet, the race towards popularity comes with some adverse side-effects, such as depression, alienation and anxiety. Being ignored can be just as painful as being rejected, and it’s exactly why external validation has become the latest ‘psychological drug,’ administered online by trained App Developers. Your self image is exactly what fuels social media companies. It’s why they re-purpose language (like, follow, friend, love) and it works perfectly — for them. They understand that people have a need to control painful feelings and prove their worth. It’s why you make posts, it’s why you upload selfies to Instagram, and it’s why you use social media in the first place — to be seen, to have a voice, and to

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Why Haruki Murakami is so Very Japanese

by Jakob Ryce / 5th June, 2018 Haruki Murakami belongs to a new generation of contemporary authors who speak to the eclectic, progressive spirit of Japan, often communicating his theories through popular magazines and resisting traditional literary labels, such as ‘jun bungaku, pure literature, opting instead for the Anglicism fuikkushon, fiction’ (Stretcher 1998). And this indifference with the Japanese literary establishment has sparked debate if this is Murakami’s rejection ‘of literature as “art” in the contemporary period’ (Stretcher 1998). Murakami’s writing style lives in the present and is uncluttered by hyperbolic descriptions; a minimalist who embraces the Japanese concept of Kanso – avoiding accentuation to allow room for simplicity. Comparatively, his writing often features English expressions, which are translated back into Japanese. ‘Murakami writes in Japanese, but his writing is not really Japanese. If you translate it into American English, it can be read very naturally in New York’ (Stretcher 1998). Nonetheless, the ‘internationality’ and transparency of his writing style

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