Been Thinking About Things (TIB pitch)

So because I'm going to work on a "This I Believe" style approach to the project next week, I've been thinking about what Marisa believes. What does she believe? My two ideas have been:
1. I believe in driving alone for long lengths of time with nothing but music as company.
2. I believe in being challenged by every aspect of your life.

The first one... I travel five and a half hours to North Carolina at periodic intervals throughout the year. Each of these five to six hour drives allows me to be completely alone with nothing but my music at my side and maybe a couple Milky Way Midnight bars and a can of Nos. The first year I went to NC, I heard my music in a place where I had never heard them before. I was traveling through the unknown with pop, indie-pop, and rock 'n' roll as my soundtrack. When I actually got a chance to listen to the singers time and time again say how much they were SO over whats-his-face, and how much they wanted to "drink up in this club," or say the same sentence for 5 minutes made me think about something. People can really be defined by their music. It shapes who you are and what you're doing at this current time. If you like being associated with the club and the drama of getting Romeo to come home with you, that's exactly what you'll do when you have a minute. I did it. I was there. However, I came across a group of performers one day.. Their lyrics touched me, "Most of all, the world is a place where parts of wholes are described within an overarching paradigm of clarity and accuracy. The context in which makes possible an underlying sense of the way it all fits together, despite our collective tendency not to conceive of it as such." When I heard that, it was a music changer for me.. a life changer. I realized there's a deep side to music that goes beyond just jamming around at the club and getting over that guy who made you feel like crap when you were 17. Not that I didn't already realize a world of music like that was out there, I was just conducting my life in a different manner that, in a way, exempted me from the beauty of music. Traveling alone with my music made me realize that there's a side of life I haven't touched. There's beauty way up on the mountain I just spent 3 hours hiking - enjoy that. There's parts of life that are indescribable and that is just okay. If your life doesn't traverse past the club and alcohol, your music will reflect that. If you can take the time and know the bits and pieces of every band, album, innovation, and song lyrics, your life will reflect that. Take some time and drive alone with your music - reflect on your life.

As for the second one.. Being challenged. A life should be challenged on a daily basis and this is something I firmly believe in. If you're not challenged, you're either living too easily or too lazily. More often than not, it's the latter. This is why I've taken up journalism. It challenges me to find out about the unknown and know as much as I can enough to tell someone else about it. It's how I've always needed my life to be. If I'm not challenged by a situation or person in my life, I grow bored and confused... Sometimes, I even spiral into a depression and refuse to do anything. I've given up countless friendships, relationships, even homework and career choices, just because of the lack of challenge. If I do the same, mundane thing every day, it removes me from who I am and causes me to act out in such a way that's against my character. That's probably why I've embraced my retail positions. They're so painstakingly boring, that I love it when I get there. I'm disgustingly happy and cheery and really get into the role of picture perfect cashier. However, when I'm off the clock, yeah, I'm happy and cheery, but I'm also snarky, rude, and don't care to tell people how it is. I can tell when someone doesn't like to be challenged by the ways they react to my initial challenge. It's almost like I dip into Jack Nicholson's role of Colonel Jessup in A Few Good Men when he screams, "You can't handle the truth!" If you can't handle the challenge, then why am I wasting my time? I've got to move on. Challenge is scary, yes, I'll admit. But without challenge, the United States wouldn't be what it is today... And because of the absence of challenge, the United States has become what it is now. Challenge yourself and don't let anyone stunt that challenge you deserve.


The End.

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(while this may have no potential, I just wanted to say it.)

I also believe in getting weird and sharing it. Get weird and let things remind you of other things. There are smells that remind you of spring, there are smells that pull on the heartstrings of your nostalgia. One of my most favorite smells you'll probably never understand unless you've done this exact thing: I used to play Knights of the Old Republic on the original X-Box in the middle of the night and all the while, I'd press the controller up to my nose and breathe in the plastic casing. Every time I smell that all-too-specific kind of plastic, I'll always remember my nights playing KOTOR. Make a soundtrack for every quarter and listen to it with some consistency. I've found that I can recall what was going on around me way better when a song from a previous soundtrack happens to come on my shuffle.. And it reminds me of all the weird things I did. I can remember the morning I came home from one of the most traumatic trips to the hospital and listening to Bon Iver from 7am to 2pm. Now, every time a specific song comes on, I'll remember that hospital visit. And here I am sharing it with you. Why should I hide it? Why shouldn't you know? What're you going to do beyond know a bit more about my inner mechanisms. Watch a show you never thought in a million years you'd watch. Something underground, Japanese, and short. Let yourself get sucked in and enjoy every drop of weirdness within it. Share those weird feelings with others. Show them an odd experimental band that you've fallen in love with, sit them down in front of an independent film shot in the backwoods of Bumfuck-Nowhere. Tell someone about the odd websites you traversed in the early stages of internet-exploration and what you found there. I used to write constantly on text-based role-playing games. It's how I discovered my love for writing... and because of that weird "gaming" experience I had, here I am today writing to you and for publications. Be weird, share it, find other weirdos. Usually they turn into your best friends.