Organic Mind

Most recently I have been paying a lot of attention to how much we as humans have lost touch with nature.  I’m not sure if we've all just forgotten that we are a part of nature as well, or every one really does think we are separate entities from the earth.  Technology is incredible and obviously very useful, hence why you are reading this right now.  Still, I wonder how often (if even at all) people stop to think about nature and life.  Every night before I go to bed I just lay there and revel in the silence.   Silence is one of the greatest gifts for thinking minds.  It isn't long until my hamster wakes up and relentlessly runs on his noisy wheel, but I do get time of just pure silence, even if it is only a moment long.
 The quiet is hard to come by in populated areas.  I think the quietest place I have ever been was at the top of Machu Picchu about four years ago.  It wasn’t that I was alone, there were plenty of people up there with me, but we didn’t speak at all.  There is no way to explain how it felt to be standing in such an incredible place.  That’s probably why we were all so quiet.  Now, I’m aware that not everyone seeking solace can just hop, skip, and jump on over to Peru, but there are plenty other silent places in the world.  If you travel far enough into hiking areas, and parks it can be fairly quiet (WARNING: Watch out for bears and other potentially dangerous things/people, snakes, etc.).
I also am in the process of eating more organic.  DID YOU KNOW at the grocery store (or at least mine) you can find some organic products for less money than the grocery store brand?  Just yesterday I discovered that the celery, carrots and lemon were less money if you chose organic.  So why the heck not pick out the organic ones?!  It makes so much sense.  For about a year, I have been eating diary free as well, because for one, I’m mildly lactose intolerant, and also, milk sort of grosses me out. So I don’t really have an appetite for cheese or anything anymore, but I’ll spare you the gory details because this is Buffalo, and, well… Pizza, right?
I also like to steer clear of artificial coloring, hard-to-pronounce preservatives, and all that happy jazz.  I feel like a different human being after I stopped all of that.   If you took my conscious mind and plopped it from my nineteen-year-old self to my seventeen-year-old self I would feel like a ton of bricks and want to puke my innards out.
Humans are part of nature, no argument about it, so why should we eat such horrifyingly unnatural food?  I do understand how good it tastes.  Really, Doritos are amazing, but go a year without eating them and then eating a few actually sort of hurts your tongue.  Same thing goes with pop (“soda” for you weirdos).  It burns your tongue if you’re not used to drinking it.  That’s because it’s actually disgusting.  Of course I still eat processed things, it’s hard to avoid, but I do my best.
In my attempts to become even more in touch with nature, I also am switching over to organic make-up.  Physician’s Formula Organic Wear’s ingredients are 100% Naturally Derived and 80% Organic.  For pretty much the same cost as other drugstore brands, it is by far the superior choice (No animal cruelty!).  
Being aware of our environment is so important because we are the environment.  So why not start acting like it? The next time you’re at the grocery store, see if you can’t get the organic fruits and vegetables.  When you run out of your mascara or foundation, try out the Organics Wear.  Maybe wean yourself away from artificial coloring.  Your body will thank you, trust me.  But if none of the above sounds manageable, at least enjoy the fresh air sometimes.  Roll the windows down while you’re driving and breath in nature.  Revel in the silence of the night, you’d be surprised what comes across your mind when you let go of the technological world and just look at the moon and think about what it is to be a human.  Just be.

Six Years Old

Don’t ever forget that you were once six years old. You can’t throw yourself into adulthood and suddenly think anyone who has a free formed opinion on life and humanism is below you.  So many people assume the position of being an adult and they get too caught up in what they think is expected of them that they forget that they were a six year old once in their life.  No matter how long ago that may have been, it is still who you once were.  Who is to say that who you were then was not who you were supposed to be?
I have very different ideas than the average nineteen-year-old, and because I’m unusual, and because I am for nonconformity and individuality, I am looked at by people (who are not much older than me) like the Engine that Could.  Look at that cute little one learning how to be a train.  I both reject and embrace the title of being a teenager.  Reject because it is discrediting to have your own philosophies and be a teenager at the same time.  “Nobody understands me,” right?  (Feel free to laugh now).  But yet I still embrace being called a teenager, because I am so sure of whom I am that I’m incredibly content with having most of my life to live and enjoy being myself.
I pity those who look down upon the youth for being who they are, because while we are happily discovering and rediscovering ourselves, they are miserable and limited and doomed by their own minds to resent the life they have.  Sure there are some teenagers who you are fully permitted to shake your head at in shame and be glad you weren't like, but never forget there are just as many adults who we look at with disgust and vow never to become.
I had a thought the other day that at first seemed like a desperate cry of a small child afraid of growing up, but as I let it resonate in my head, I realized how raw and viable my wish was.  More than anything, I want a chance in this world to become something other than miserable.  I am almost one-hundred percent certain that everyone growing up on the planet Earth has had a similar wish, to become something worth being, to stray from sadness, and to keep a livable life.  Happiness, much like the stereotypical perception of beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.  You make yourself happy.
To quote one of my new favorite authors of all time, John Green, and a horribly magnificent book, The Fault in Our Stars, “the world is not a wish granting factory.”  Not everyone will end up as their six-year-old fantasy.  We won’t leave this world untouched by the destruction of life, but we can decide how we feel about the world.  You can choose to hate everything and everyone, but ultimately you’d never be happy.  You can only ever live in the shadows of happiness.
I am happy because I accept that I’m not just nineteen years old.  I’m seven years old, and fifteen years old, and three years old.  I’m everything I have ever been.
I’m happy because I love living.  I love being alive enough to feel pain, and remorse and guilt.  I love life.
Always remember you were, and always will be six years old.

My Problem with Ke$ha

First things first, this will not be a blog about my opinion of Ke$ha.  Like I said in my previous blog, I was obsessed with her enough to borrow her surname.  Her music is fun, and she makes the world a more vibrant place by being a unique character, so I still adore her.
Today I’ll tell you a story based on true events of my actual life that haunt me to this day and give me vivid flashbacks every time I hear the song “Timber,” by Ke$ha, obviously.
Our story takes place in a horrifically scarring place called Middle School.  I was a moderately awkward pre-teen, considerably longer than I was wide having just gone through a major growth spurt.  That being said, it was pretty evident that I was not the most graceful creature on land.  I was teased frequently that year, but not for being gangly.  I was picked on when I got bangs, because I apparently was Hannah Montana’s doppelganger, despite looking nothing like her besides the hair cut.  People used to ask me if I could flap away on my large ears that stuck far away from my face, and I ended up changing alone in gym class for a while because some girls started a rumor that I was watching everyone get changed.  I was no stranger to bullying, but none of what I just mentioned relates to Ke$ha.
 This particular event revolves entirely around a Computers class I took in eighth grade.  In this class, we learned how to properly make power point presentations, utilize excel spreadsheets, and various other useful skills.  The least productive students in my class also learned that you can make excel regurgitate anything you write in the boxes.  So, every day of class, before the teacher came in and shut everyone up, there were a lot of robotic voices saying profanity.  Once they all grew bored with that, they began specifically targeting people.  Being Middle School students they were obviously very original and clever.
I will give them one thing; they were very diligent when it came to stalking their prey.  One day I walked into class flustered, most likely homework related.  The room was filled with the normal blather of my classmates, the usual excel robot woman swearing casually. Everyone immersed in either themselves, or their friends and I was hurriedly walking to my computer because I was not in the mood to talk to anyone, nor did I have the patience to hear any Hannah Montana jokes.  As I reached the row where my computer was, my feet got caught in a tangle of chords, and I hit the floor sprawled out like the gawky birdlike little girl I was.  Almost immediately I was back up speed- walking to my chair, and sat down red in the face.  I looked around and waited for someone to say something but it seemed as if no one even noticed I just took a spill.  Then I heard a girl laughing across the room and saw that she was staring at me.  I made a face as if to say “Yeah I fell, what of it?”  And she turned around to face her computer, which was open to excel, and she continued to giggle as she typed something.  “Did you guys just see Julia totally wipe out?” she said to no one in particular, and most of the class looked at her and nodded with smirks on their faces as if they were glad she brought it up, making it okay to actually laugh at me.  Then she turned the volume on her computer all the way up, hit a few buttons, and turned to look at me as her computer blared out “TIMBERRRRRRRRR.”
If it wasn’t mean enough, most of the room joined in and there was a loud chorus of robotic “TIMBER” up until the teacher came in.  I guess it was one of the best ones they came up with because the rest of that year, every time I walked into the class, at least one person made their computer virtually harass me.  Some people even decided my name was Timber.
The reason I decided to tell this story was not because I want pity, but mostly because I think everyone has something like this that has happened to them in grade school, even culprits like my fellow classmates.  Also because I think it’s silly, and I would rather laugh at it, and invite everyone else to laugh with me than to act like it deflated my self esteem.  So really, I’m inviting you into one of my unhappy memories and asking you to think about one of your own, but own it.  Don’t let it own you.  So if you feel like a tree that’s been cut down, think about my story.  I may not actually listen to the song, “Timber,” mostly because I think it’s annoying, not because it legitimately brings back bitter memories.  I’m happy with that memory, because I own it.  My name is Timber, and I am fabulously clumsy.

Today I Flew with Time

Since this is my very first blog post, I will start with the obvious.  My name is not actually Bailey Sebert.  The reason why I'm using this pseudonym is not to protect my identity or make my name more memorable, it's because when i signed onto Google Plus to make this blog, this account popped up.  It was my fake account name from when I was younger when I made it, with a fake birth year and everything, because I wanted to be able to watch the Jenna Marbles videos that were age restricted.  I chose the name Bailey, because my parents thought about naming me that and I thought it was a pretty awesome name because it reminded me of the alcoholic beverage "Bailey's" my parents put in their coffee during Christmas time.  The name Sebert was derived from my obsession with Ke$ha at the time, her real last name being Sebert.
My real name is Julia.  I have a deep appreciation for sarcasm, young adult novels, giraffes, and cats.  I decided to start blogging not because I want to become the next internet sensation, but because I would like somewhere and possibly someone to just tell funny stories to and talk about my crazy thoughts and ideas.  The name of my blog is one of the first ideas that I had and thought to myself, hey you could write a novel about that.  Some day I just might do that, but for now it's birthplace into the public world is right here...

Everyone talks about how fast time flies by.  I think that there's something wrong with that.  Who said it was okay to get caught up in life and just watch time fly?  It makes people unhappy to think about time flying, so why do we continue to let it?  Why do we allow time to fly by without us? What is wrong with saying that time flies, is that you have simply let it do so.  Has no one tried to fly with it?  Why isn't it that we say to each other, "time flies, so fly with it"?  Don't dwell in the helpless feeling you get when you see how much time has past in your life without you noticing.  Don't let this elusive thing we call time get away without us.
Race it.
Challenge it.
Push it.
Beat it.
There is no greater pleasure that defying time, for once you have, you have begun to live.