My Heart Is Breaking

Oh God.

Terrible, horrible things have happened today.

Paris. Lebanon. Baghdad.

I'm currently sitting in a hotel closet in order to not wake up Holly and Kensi and I'm just crying and typing.

And praying.

Assuming my math is right and the news is correct -- and I pray that this number is too high -- two hundred and fifteen people were murdered tonight, between Paris, Lebanon, and Baghdad.

Two hundred and fifteen.

I'm not naive. Well, okay, maybe a little. I am, however, an optimist of the highest degree.

But this? This is... Horrific. Appalling. Sickening, disgusting, tragic.

I'm full of all this rage and fear and grief and.... And I don't know what to do.

Why must it be like this? Why can't people be nice and love each other and realize how beautiful other people can be?

This breaks my optimistic heart. This makes me question hope and sunshine and the fact that people can be good and kind and loving and heroic. This is ugly and shitty and dark and it makes me so, so, sad and helpless and furious and guilty about things like sitting in a closet doing nothing when people have just lost friends and family members and lovers and...

Sometimes this world absolutely sucks.

And I hate that.

I'm just praying that good will come out of this, I guess. That the people in Paris and Lebanon and Baghdad will find love and comfort and help and support. I pray that somehow the death count is far higher than it should be. I pray that no one is left to deal with this alone.

I pray that someone will remember to turn on a light.

Because it has been a very, very dark day.

Hips[ter] Don't Lie (or, How To Be A Hipster)

By Addi Grace, Maclaine Spencer, and Abbey Alderson.

"Say nay to bae."

Roll your pant cuffs at least twice. 

Write poetry.

Play at least one string instrument.

Campfires. Everywhere and anywhere. 

Own a hammock. Take it everywhere.

Wear floral.

Listen to Spotify and 107.3 FM. 

Discuss synonyms for cliche. 

Climb trees.

Save the trees.

Drink organic coffee.

Button the top button on your (obviously floral) shirts.

Use your MacBook or typewriter at Starbucks.

Put in a lot of effort to make it look like you put in no effort at all.

Get defensive when someone actually listens to your kind of music.

Ask them what "lesser-known" songs they know. 

Get annoyed when your coffee shop haunts become "mainstream."

Use Thoreau quotes as all your Instagram captions.

Own ten pairs of sandals. Trim your nails once a year.

All of your shoes should look like you adventured through Tartarus in them. With your hammock and stringed instruments.

Do not go anywhere without a ukelele.

Sports? No.

Say everything in a very aloof and detached manner.

Make hipster music jokes and references.

Blog.

Make lists that make fun of hipsters.

Irony.

Act super exclusive and superior.*

*Okay, mini-rant.

There is being yourself, and there is being a hipster. For some people (Abbey, Maclaine), being hipster and being themselves are the same thing. And I honestly like those people. I like how they're funny, and appreciate literature and poetry and music that most people haven't heard of. 

But I hate how some other people act like they are better than others because they listen to that music, or because they have a big vocabulary, or whatever. 

Be yourself. Do what you love. Be ironic and granola (I really don't understand that term).

But don't think that makes you cooler or better or whatever.

Disagreeing and Hating Are Not the Same

Dear Modern Culture,

Please learn this: Disagreeing and hating are not the same. Seriously.

There is a huge, huge, huge difference between hate and disagreement. I disagree with my family a lot, but that definitely doesn't mean I hate them. I disagree with my friends, but that doesn't mean I hate them.
So how come whenever someone gives an opinion that disagrees with popular belief, they are labelled as "hateful"? I genuinely don't understand this. (But, as I have often pointed out, there's a lot I don't understand about society and the world and modern culture.)

To put this in more understandable terms, Harry Potter hated Snape, Umbridge, and Voldemort.
He often disagreed with Dumbledore, Hermione, and Ron.
See the difference?
Good.

I'm not going to deny that some people can act hateful in the way they express their disagreement, but that is not always, not even often, the case.

So if someone could explain this phenomenon, I'd be grateful.

The End.