In Our Hands

 

I'm not an environmentalist. Really, I'm not. I crank up the heating when I get cold, take fifteen-minute showers, eat from non-recyclable containers, and don't let it mellow. But I do appreciate a good wakeup call now and again, just to remind myself how precious our little blue planet really is.

To live in an environmentally-friendly world would not mean going full-out organic vegan mode, or collecting rainwater for our bi-weekly showers. Cars would not go extinct and contact with other nations would not be lost; likewise, people would not become forest-dwellers, relying on nothing but the energy of the Sun God.

There are thousands of developing ideas from all over the world and from all sorts of different people feeling remorseful of the way the Earth is treated. Some are in effect already, such as harvest of solar power, sales of partially or fully electric cars, bans on plastic bags, and use of energy-saving light bulbs. The terrifying environmentalist advertisements bombarding the public today contain figures that are true, but conclusions that could not be any more false. It's not all doom and gloom, people! Humans need power and resources, and that is the price we pay for having the most evolved brain of all species on the planet. Now it is up to us to use those brains and differentiate between what is right and what is wrong, and take the appropriate measures to be active, conscious citizens of the world. For now, while we wait for truly brilliant environmentally-friendly ideas to emerge, the least we can do is switch off the lights when not needed. It really is the easiest thing we will do all day.

A Weighty Question

A Year in Quotations: 46/365

Opinion: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

There is only so far you can scroll on Tumblr before you come across an artfully sun-bleached photo with a quote by Stephen Chbosky slapped across its face. The Perks of Being a Wallflower has become somewhat of an unofficial badge of hipsterism. And yesterday, I discovered that I really wasn't into the new generation style.
I understand why this book is so important to a large of teenagers and young adults. Depression, anxiety, and the drama of growing up are all presented through the eyes of a socially awkward but secretly brilliant 15-year old boy. Many teens today feel lost and abandoned, with no one understanding them or willing to make things better. Charlie, the main character, embodies those people and we are given a view into his life, where he starts at a new school without friends, mixes with the cool kids, tries drugs and smokes for a while, falls in what he calls love, and discovers new truths about life in the meantime. The entire book is composed of letters to "Dear friend", with the date being August 1991 to August 1992. I could have been fooled into thinking that Charlie was 12 years old, based on his blunt and simple writing style. But this adds to the hipster nature of the novel.
I felt there was an overdose of drugs, abuse, sexual molestation, suicide, mental health issues, abortion, and any other experience typically linked to teenagers. This was all addressed within a few pages, and was, quite frankly, overwhelming. I don't know if there really was so much going on in 1992, or if Charlie just lived in a shitty neighborhood. In addition, Charlie came across as mentally or emotionally handicapped, considering his inability to place a name onto any emotion he had, besides "sad". He constantly broke down in tears and wasn't able to identify a rape while witnessing it. In addition, what 15-year old boy doesn't know what masturbation is?
The supporting characters are what made the book almost bearable for me. The characterization was interesting, and I felt like these people were real, in contrast to Charlie, who really was a wallflower. I am looking forward to see how the individual quirks of Charlie's friends translate onto the screen.
What really stood out were the simple truths of the quotes on those sun-bleached photos when I came across them in the novel. Because you don't have to know the storyline to understand, and some of them are truly beautiful.
All in all, I wouldn't recommend this book to optimistic, happy-go-lucky people like myself, but it would be a treasure to those who are struggling with their teenage experience.