Essay - Population Crisis

In the year 1960, barely before my mother was born, the world had a population of 3 billion people. It had taken 33 years since it was at 2 billion in 1927, and the world’s first billion people was over 100 years before that in 1804. In barely more than 50 years since the world reached 3 billion people, we have more than doubled our population, reaching 7 billion in 2011.

                At the world’s current population growth, we add another billion people every 13 years. Every person on this planet needs food, water, healthcare, and other resources to survive. At what point are there not going to be enough of those resources for the billions upon billions of people that we have created?

                Already, people in third-world countries go without the basics that many of us consider to be necessary for survival: sanitation, clean water, a variety of nutritious foods, and basic healthcare, just to name a few. But many people say that this is mere selfishness of the first-world countries, where we are wasteful and over-indulge, that there is, in fact, enough to go around if it was actually evenly spread.

                The question is, how much can the world take? With current trends, we are eating up resources faster than we can figure out how to replace them, and outside of the first world, education is a privilege, not something that is seen as required. And as people continue to flood urban areas, because that’s where the jobs are, housing becomes more and more scarce. If you look at China and how they have people who have moved to the urban areas then live in horrid conditions, you can get a glimpse of what the rest of the world could be if we continue current trends of population and urbanization.

                 Along with the rapid growth in population has come the industrialization of the world. In the last hundred years, we have effectively ruined the world’s environment almost beyond repair. By constantly burning fossil fuels to power the things that make our lives easier, we have created an unsustainable way of life, not only for ourselves, but also for the planet.

                The topic of population control is almost a taboo in today’s society. How can we possibly tell people how many children they are allowed to have, or worse, stop them from having them altogether? Religion and lack of education have continued the belief that more children is better and taking away the right of people to choose that would cause a complete uproar.

                But here is a question that very few are willing to ask, and even more ignore completely: how can we possibly sustain our species on this planet with population growth happening the way it is. 1 billion people every thirteen years means that by 2115, only 100 years from now, the world’s population will be at 15 billion people.

                Is there enough farmland to sustain that many people? Probably not. Is there enough oxygen for that many people to breathe? If we keep cutting down the rainforests there won’t be. Is there enough clean drinking water for that many people to live? Remember that water is required to grow food as well. Sure 80% of the earth is water, but most of that is salt water. How can we possibly sustain this level of growth and still be able to survive?

                In the past, disease and infant mortality have kept the human race from rapid growth. With modern medicine, fatal communicable diseases are almost non-existent, infants live even when they’re born with what could have been fatal conditions, and people live twice as long as they did only a couple of hundred years ago. Modern medicine is considered a miracle, and I would not disagree with that. But life itself is a miracle and if we save every life, how can we keep all of life from ceasing to exist?

                The human race is incredibly egotistical. Because we’ve figured out how to communicate with one another and have opposable thumbs, we think this world is ours. It does belong to us, but it also belongs to every other living thing on this planet. And if this planet is ours, we need to start taking better care of our things. If this world was a classic car, it would be barely running with body damage and a terrible paint job and running out of gas in the middle of the desert with nowhere to fill up. It would also only have one seat left and ten more people to pick up before it reached the station.

                Globalization has done one major thing: it has forced us to see the world, not just our country; at least some of us, anyway. We see that people live every day without things we prize above our lives. We see that the Western way of life is destroying the ability to live for everyone on the planet, and most of them don’t live in a Western society.

                Education is the only remedy to the world’s current crisis. Educate the third world about reproductive health and make birth control available to them. Educate the Western society about the truth of global warming and the astronomical effects it will have on this world we live in. Educate the world about the need to slow down population growth before it’s too late. And educate the people who won’t listen. Educate the people who refuse to see. Only when there are more people who stand up for these things than people who won’t listen will there be real change. If that doesn’t happen, I fear for the lives my grandchildren may be forced to live, or maybe not be able to have at all.

Issues

I have issues. I know what you're thinking. "Who doesn't?" But as everyone is different and my issues and demons are my own to deal with, let me tell you...

My issues define me. I wish this was not the case and I'm trying every day for that to change, but it's hard. When I look around at the cycle of my life that has been repeating over and over and the common factor in all of these situations is me, it's hard to look past that. And I know I'm not the only one who feels this way.

Everyone has those moments when they feel isolated and alone. Everyone has a demon on their shoulder and skeletons in their closet but when those skeletons are creeping out of the closet and affecting every day life, something has to change. The question is, what? Is it truly possible for a person to realize that the problems in their life are on their own shoulders and no one else's and that it's time to make a change and then, BAM, they do it?

Throughout my life and the series of circumstances that have created the previously mentioned issues, I've made some fairly significant life changes. The people who see me through rose-colered glasses like to say I've overcome challenges. But I can't say I've overcome them when they are always with me. They are always there, nudging me and reminding me why. Why I can't trust, why I'm alone, why I'm crazy, why I should stay away from people who might cause me to feel. I have a million reasons why I can't do a million things and plenty of affirmations from my past to back them up.

I know it's time to look into the future. But how do I make the changes I need to make? How do I make sure that when I'm ready to move on from this place in my life, that I won't be bringing my reasons along with me?

"You see, I'm trying to find my place, but it might not be here where I feel safe. We all learn to make mistakes and run from them with no direction..." - Paramore

Inked Innocence

My dreams are a rainstorm

Unpredictable and darkly beautiful

Everyone is proud

But I see the shame in their eyes

My tattoos didn’t hurt

At least I told Larry they didn’t

When he took away the cleanliness

Of my once clear, pale skin

The buzz of the machine

Sends a shiver down my spine

And the cold needle

Steals what’s left of my childhood

The ink permanently penetrating

And staining my body

Feels like an angry cat

That just won’t let go

Carefully hidden

When I walk into work

Because Kaci is a smart girl

And has to look professional

I will be successful

Despite the stigma you give me

My soul is displayed in art

I am more than just a canvas

Alive - The Story of 155

This is what didn't happen... I didn't die. The adrenaline pumping through my system was telling me that dying was highly possible, and at those speeds, it was right.

                I had never gone that fast in my life, not even in a car. And a car has four wheels and doors and seatbelts. That bullet bike was barely big enough to fit both of us on it and the only protection I had was the helmet on my head and the riding jacket I was wearing, which didn’t feel like much at all in the moment.

            I knew he was doing it to get exactly this reaction. He wanted to feel me cling tighter to him when he sped up. He wanted me to hang onto him for dear life, literally. But I know he wouldn't have been doing it if I hadn’t been enjoying it.

                It was a hell of a first date. I hadn't been on a date in years. Since my junior year of high school, I'd been with pretty much two guys and neither of them ever really took me out on dates. Yeah, I really know how to pick 'em. But after meeting Justin for the first time for lunch earlier that day, there I was, placing my life in his hands as he rode it like a maniac to impress me. Here's the really annoying part: it worked.

                He was charming at lunch, paying for my food and pulling out my chair like a gentleman and actually managing to carry on intelligent and humorous conversation with me. It didn't help that he was he was pretty freaking attractive, despite his scrawny figure. I don't normally like scrawny guys, but between his charming smile and effortless wit, I found myself looking past that detail. Well, the bright green, sleek bike helped his cause, too.

                The ride to the shooting range was fairly mellow. Yeah, he'd take off faster than was strictly necessary in order to get me to hang on a little tighter, but he didn't do anything crazy, even on the freeway. I had fun hanging on to him while got an idea for how comfortable I was on the bike and how adventurous I was. Every time I laughed, I was encouraging him, even if I didn’t mean to.

             I’m no novice to guns. Even if I'm not personally a fan of them, my family is and thus, I've been taught how to shoot. I'm actually pretty good aim with a rifle and a shotgun but I have always been awful with a handgun. Somehow, this random guy managed to fix that in only an hour on the range. I still don't like guns. But now at least I know I can aim them all. Zombie apocalypse, here I come.

                The ride back from the shooting range was when it got interesting. He knew me a little better now, knew my limits, knew what I was willing to allow. We didn’t talk about it, but he could read me like a book. I don’t normally let people see my emotions, but something about this blue-eyed, motorcycle-riding bad ass got to me. Even if I didn’t mean to, I let him read.

            Now you have to understand, I own my own motorcycle and have been riding on the back of them for a good portion of my life. But never in my 25 years had I met someone who could handle a bike the way this 26 year old kid could, and I know a riding instructor.

            When he starting weaving so much that my knees were almost touching the ground, I was impressed. When he stood up while we were still riding down the street at 30 miles per hour, I was amazed. And when he took that bike up to 155 miles per hour, I was alive.

            I had to wrap my arms around him so tight, I felt like we were one person. The wind was gushing so hard around me, I both felt like I couldn’t move, and felt like I was going to be pulled off of the back at the same time. There was nothing visible around me, the trees and the lines on the road were the first strokes on a canvas before the painter even knows what the picture will be. Nothing in the world existed but Justin, me, and the machine that was hurling us down a path to life that could never be turned back on.

                For the first time in a long time, I felt truly alive. I put my delicate life in someone else's hands and felt that I was truly feeling that life for myself for the first time in years. I'd been on the edges of life, surviving but never living, until that moment. As I felt that bike speed up and watched the numbers rise, I knew what being truly alive felt like and I didn't want to let it go. The moment lasted longer than I thought possible but ended before I was done experiencing it. That moment changed me.

            When he finally took me back to my car, neither one of us wanted to leave. There was a connection there that I wasn't sure I'd ever let myself feel with someone again. We leaned against my car while the green neons under his bike lit the deserted parking lot. We talked. We touched. And when he kissed me, I was surprised neither of us caught fire. The chemistry between us was tangible. Whether we were talking or just staring at the stars slowly appearing above us, there was always some part of us that was touching. We couldn't help it, it was like gravity.

            I didn't have to wait to be near him. Only the next day, he begged to come see me again. I invited him to my apartment and we watched Mary Poppins while we both sang along to the first half, laughing together, and paid absolutely no attention to the last half as we got lost in each other.

                I didn't sleep with him that night. I told myself that despite every part of my body saying it was a good idea, the rational side of my brain was screaming to think about what I was doing and to stop losing myself in the feelings. I still barely knew this guy.

                Only a few days later, the chemistry won.

                Within a few weeks, he was gone.

                I can't bring myself to regret the few weeks I spent with Justin. Yeah, he turned out to be just like every other ass hole that I've ever been involved with. Yeah, he walked away from me without a backward glance, which sealed my decision to stop dating until I was out of college. Yeah, he risked my life a few times. But he was exactly what I needed when I met him.

                I was so caught up in surviving, I'd forgotten how to live. Justin reminded me how important living is. It's called life, not survival. He never knew the side of me that was broken, because I'd never allowed him in that far. He never knew why I wouldn't let him in. And perhaps that's why he walked away. But it's okay. Because Justin taught me that when life is about survival, the pain is what matters, but when life is about forgetting the pain and living, it's amazing how much more there is to feel.

Words...

Words come more easily to me than to most people. I can put words together on a piece of paper and make sense of people and emotions and life in a way that people understand. I can make ugly things sound pretty, I can make pretty things sound horrid, and I can make average things sound wonderful. It's a gift I've had my entire life.

And yet lately, I feel like I'm wasting my gift. In my attempt to better myself, I lost sight of what I was reaching for. I went to back to school because I wanted to write. I went back to school because I wanted the novel that I'd already written to be worth something. It's now been 4 years since I finished that novel and I have done next to nothing with it.

4 years. That's almost five times longer than it took me to write the damn thing. When I went back to school, I was going to be a creative writing major and be the next Great American Novelist. Then practicality got in the way of creativity and I lost sight of the dream I had.

Now I look at my graduation date in six months and I wonder whether I'll have time to do what I went to school to do in the first place. When I'm starting my career as a young adult and trying to make my life in a bad economy, will I have time to write? Will I be able to do what I love?

I was trying to find myself and I lost sight of what I was looking for along the way. I miss this. I miss the words flowing through my mind and onto the screen so effortlessly. I miss having an outlet for all of the thoughts and stories constantly swimming through my brain.

I don't have time to write like I used to. Life got in the way of what I love and now I don't know how to get that back without sabotaging the career that my degree could get me, the one I've worked hard for.

I'm caught in a very strange place... I miss my words.

This blog is named after one of my all-time favorite quotes, "I write for the same reason that I breathe, because if I didn't, I would die."

I'm dying. I need to come up for air, but I'm lost in the currents of life, struggling to swim to the top but being pulled under whenever I think I've caught a break.

"If I get it all down on paper, it's no longer inside of me,
Threatening the life it belongs to
And I feel like I'm naked in front of the crowd
Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud
And I know that you'll use them, however you want to"
- Anna Nalick

Broken

I've been trying hard to be positive lately, and it's done some amazing things for my happiness and overall attitude in life. But that doesn't mean that all of the things that have always brought me down aren't still there.

The truth is, there are days when I don't think about the past. There are days when it seems like I'm doing things right and even though its not prefect, I'll get it figured out. And then there are other days...

Days when no matter what I do, I can't get my past out of my head. Days when I remember all the reasons I've never been good enough. Days when I can't stop thinking about why I'm alone. Days when I feel overwhelmed by the negativity.

On days like today, I want to give up. I just want to say screw it and get in my car and drive away and leave my past in the life I'll leave behind and start over somewhere else. Forget all of the bullshit and the pain and find a new me somewhere that no one knows who the old me was. But I know that these issues are bigger than that. They are a part of who I am. Each circumstance that has messed me up has also helped shape who I am.

When I'm living in my world of positivity, it's easy to forget how serious my issues can be. When I'm not putting myself in circumstances where I have to deal with them, I can almost forget about them. But the truth is, no matter how much I try to kid myself, I still have an almost crippling fear of abandonment. My anxiety still gets the better of me sometimes. My attachment issues continue to define my relationships.

Deep down, I'm still broken. 

That's not an easy thing to admit. Yes, I'm doing better. Yes, I'm so much happier. But part of that is that I don't let anyone in far enough to have to deal with the issues. I keep everyone at arms length and  develop superficial relationships where I never have to get to the part of me that's not so pretty.

I still run. I still hide. I still have walls so high I don't know if I will ever find where I put the door and where I put the key cuz I found a super great hiding place for that so that it would be hard for anyone to get in... 

I'm making changes. I'm bettering so many parts of myself. But it's like I think that if I ignore these parts of me, they'll just go away. Or maybe I think that when I find the right person, they won't matter. But they matter. Or else I wouldn't have been dealing with them for so much of my life.

If I'm always wondering why I'm not good enough, when will I accept that I am? If I'm always thinking everyone will leave, what is going to make them stay? If I'm always keeping myself at a distance, why would anyone let me close? 

I'm living for today, and I'm having fun and its good for me right now. But eventually, I'm going to have to deal with this shit or I'm never going to have a promising tomorrow...

"All I want is for you to see the side that I don't show to anyone in fear that they may turn and run..."

Living For Today

It's funny how what's important to you changes as you go through life. Whether it's work or school, family or friends, loving someone else or learning to love yourself.

I've spent much of my life living in the past, dwelling on what has happened to me and worrying that it could happen again. Wondering why these things keep happening and wondering if it was because of something I'd done. I got a new tattoo a couple of months ago. It's on my right foot, in my own handwriting. It says "Let go... It will be okay." I've been trying, ever since I got that tattoo, to live by what I, in essence, wrote on my own body as a reminder.

Let go. Let go of the pain. Let go of the past. Let go of the people who are holding me back. Let go of the fear. Let go of the reasons I have for not doing the things I've always wanted to do. Just go out there and do it. Have fun. Be selfish. Because it's the time of my life when I can do all of those things. So just do it!

It's harder than it sounds when I've spent so many years doing the opposite. Every day presents a new challenge, a new reason to give up and go back to the way I used to be. But every day I fight for what I want. Every day I fight for the happiness I deserve. And every day I remind myself that everything is going to be okay. I can't live my life the way other people want me to live it.

I can't worry about wondering who is going to disapprove of my latest decision. It's about time I took control of my own life and my own decisions and do exactly what I want. I love my friends. I love my family. But for most of my life, I've been living the way someone else wanted me to live and I wasn't truly happy.

It's time for my life to be my own adventure. And that's what I want. Adventure. I want to be able to look back on my life in ten years and know that I didn't waste my 20s. I will be able to look back at all of the cool things I did and say "I made the most of it." Because most of the last ten years of my life has been spent worrying about other people and what was best for them. But now it's time to worry about what is best for me.

I am going to live each day as a new adventure. No past. Just today. Because I deserve my dreams.

"Let's make this fleeting moment last forever. So, tell me what you're waiting for? I'm gonna keep it frozen here forever, There's no regretting anymore... I know what it feels like, come on make me feel alive!" - Krewella