Human Race Essay, Research Paper
From: ernst44@hotmail.com To: QUICKPAPERS@TOTALLY.NET Subject: Submit a paperDate: Saturday, October 25, 1997 7:06 AMTitle: LifeCategory: Personal EssayDescription:Body of paper: 5-20-97To anyone out there who really cares. This is the deal:The human race has died. It no longer exists. The last time this happened, God rained on us for forty days and forty nights. Basically, going into as little detail as possible, the human race became so polluted, people became so ethnocentric, caring about no one but themselves, that eventually, somewhere they stopped being human. There are a very few humans left today. I am privileged to think that I am one of them. I used to believe that people, were basically good until they proved not to be. Now I have stopped giving them the benefit of the doubt. I sincerely wish that I could still have some faith in people. But, alas, I cannot. I do not. I have been hurt too much. My main weakness is that I fall in love, well, on a bi-weekly basis. I think that it is because I have never had anyone who really cared for me. I am 16 years old, and I know enough about this world to shake anyones faith. Sometimes faith, in God, is the only thing that keeps me together. Keeps me “here”, wherever this is. I am very religious, in the sense that I would fight the devil at a moments notice. I am not fanatic. Although, sometimes I think that it would be easier if I were. I believe that I am one of the chosen ones. One of the few chosen to try to make this world right again. Most of the chosen ones don’t know that they are chosen. They dismiss it as one thing or another, and usually end up not doing a damn thing to help this world. It’s sad. The state of this entire world is sad. At one point, I even declared independence of the world. I actually defected form the human race. That is about when I realized that the human race had defected from me. I am still human. Its most of the rest of the world that suddenly became decrepit, corrupt, polluted, unjust, and evil. Evil is not a word that I use lightly. I do not use it if I don’t mean it. I do not use and words unless I mean them, especially the words evil, hate, and love. Many a time I have contemplated running, running away, or running to, I don’t know. But what I do know is that if I do run, I wouldn’t do it alone. And I’ve never really gotten the right people to go with. My friends all call me crazy. And they know that a part of me is just a little bit insane. My friends call me Ernst. Hell, everybody calls me Ernst. The full name is Ernst Quixote (kee-ho-tay) de La Mancha. And anybody who knows the musical “The Man of La Mancha” knows that the name is based on a knight. Or rather a man who thought he was a night, long after the age of knights. And its funny that I should assume the name of a man who all thought was insane. As a matter of fact, the narrator calls him “lightened of the burdens of sanity.” That is one of my favorite quotes of all time. Simply because that is simply what I was doing. I was,(am), hiding from the world behind the mask of insanity. Its a good place to hide, not many people stay back here. There are a very few, like humans. One of these people, who is behind the mask, and coincidentally happens to be human, is my best friend Justin. I think he is back here for many of the same reasons I am. It’s just easier. Plain and simple. Justin is awesome. He seems to know what I’m thinking sometimes, and I can tell what he’s thinking too. If it hadn’t been for Justin, I don’t know that I would be where I am today. Hell, I don’t know if I’d be alive. I love him. He is my best friend, my confidant, my sounding board, my shoulder to cry on, my biggest alai, and my worst enemy, somehow all at the same time. Justin, as I write this, there is a lump in my throat, a tightness in my chest, and a hint of a tear in my eye. Justin, I just wanted to say “thank you.” I love you man!In my few days on the earth, I have lived through abuse, divorce, separation, pain , grief, just about every emotion. Even the good ones. I have had my share of good times, but I go through cycles. Mood swings. I go through them on a daily basis. Now I am on sort of a low. A major low. It all happened to me over the last few months, during our schools musical rehearsals, which I am a major part of. I love singing, and acting, and the theater, so musicals are perfect for me. All throughout the musical I was in love with one female cast member or another. There was always this one girl, Breanna, that for some reason, I overlooked. Now I wonder why. I think it’s because I never really got to know her all that well. And I figured out only as I write this, it was because she had a quiet, subtle beauty, that now captivates my eye. By the end of our second night of performance, I knew I was in love. I started to form an informal correspondence with her. It had been going on for a month or so, and even though I had told her that I was only interested in her as a friend, just the other day, I dropped the bomb on her and told her I loved her, and asked her out. I am still waiting for her reply. I fear that it will be in the definitively negative, I still cling to the hope that the reason that she hasn’t given me a response is because she is still thinking about it. Which gives me the hope that she may say yes. Hope breeding hope. I generally regard hope as a bad thing, because, if you have it, it can be crushed, so if you don’t have it, you can’t get hurt. What’s worse is that one of my best friends, Jessika told me that she had already written the letter, or was going to soon. And still I wait. It may just drive me nuts. 5-21-97Well, as long as I’ve mentioned Jessika, you may as well be brought up to speed. Jessika is my best female friend. She is very sweet, kind, smart, funny, and she shares many of the same ideals as me. The only reason that I haven’t asked her out, is that she’s my cousin. Her and I work well togeather-she likes to play piano, and I like to sing. I am a student of all music. I enjoy singing, and I try to play the piano and the guitar. I believe that music is a gateway to the soul. And that music is spiritual. And while we’re on the subject of spirituality, do you believe in God? You should, I’ve talked with him, (and I only say ‘him’ for the purpose of ease. For all I know ‘he’ may be a she, or more probably, an it.)5-22-97God is an interesting subject for me to talk about. First, I have always believed in God. But it was only about a year and a half ago that I started to go to church. I initially started to go to be with my (then) girlfriend, Danielle. Then something caught hold of me. God recognized that I was falling into a sea of darkness, and evil. Destined for a life of moral obscurity, like so many others out there are. He recognized that I didn’t want to go to Hell. So God extended his hand to me, and one night at a prayer meeting, I was saved. To this day, God is still the major guiding/driving force in my life, as he well should be. Although I do not attend regular church services anymore, I still have not given up on faith. I may have given up on humanity, I may have given up on the world, and I may still lose my faith in many thing I hold dear, I will never lose faith in God. Not in God, not in Love, and not in Music. (And I purposely capitalize each of them because the all mean so much to me.)I believe that the battle of good and evil, the “Battle of Evermore”, Armageddon, will come soon, and I hope that I can fight by the side of Jesus Christ, and God. Fight the forces of evil, and fight the darkest of them all-face to face. As I have said before, I believe that I am one of the chosen ones. Chosen to fight the forces of evil. Justin also believes that I am one of the chosen ones. And I believe that he is chosen. And he knows that he is chosen. My other best friend, Jessika, may also be chosen. Without these two, I do not know how I would make it through the day. In case you were wondering what happened between Breanna and I, well, she wrote back. It was a harsh letter. She said she was mad at me for lying to her about wanting to be “Just friends.” (God! I hate that term.) And that she was scared that I thought of her the way I did. But anyway. I think that as much as her letter hurt me, I was so angry that she couldn’t see that there was someone who would “wrestle the devil” for her, that I wasn’t hurt as much as I thought I should have been. But I fear that the hurt has yet to fully set in. 5-23-97Its a Friday, and I have no school (yay!). Tonight I’m going to my father’s. In case you didn’t pick up on it in my earlier rantings, my parents are divorced. They have been divorced since I was about four or five. It was so long ago, I can hardly tell what exactly remember, and what I’ve been told in the last year. It’s tough for a little kid to go through. My only saving grace is that I was so young, and I hadn’t seen my father very much anyway, that I can’t really recall being extremely hurt. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t easy. I wasn’t glad to know that “Daddy wasn’t going to be living with us anymore.”About seven years ago; wow, it was seven years ago already. I can’t believe it. Time goes by so fast. Anyway, like I was saying, about seven years ago, my mother and I moved in with my now step-father. His God given name is Robert, but everybody calls him Bo. I remember I had such a hard time re-adjusting to the new school, the loss of all my friends, and a strange new place. The school was teaching all the same things I had done last year. I mean I was only in third grade, but I was already bored with school. Fourth grade was absolutely awful. I had a teacher whom I didn’t like, and she didn’t like me. I was a troublemaker. I was always in trouble. You know how kids that age are, but I was worse. I was doing to get attention. Fifth grade was just about as bad. I had the opportunity to be advanced in math, with Justin and another student, (Amanda), but, I wasn’t far enough ahead in these stupid little word problem cards we had to do. All I had to do was get to the highest level, the purple level, and I could have started advanced math. But, I had no work ethic, and I never accomplished it. C’est la vie. About the only good memories I had of fifth grade, were those of learning to play chess from Justin. We used to have chess tournaments all the time. Justin was great, he always won. I remember, the first time I beat him. I was so happy. I couldn’t believe that I had beaten “the Master.” Since that day, I have only beaten him a couple of times. The latest time, I would have surely lost. The game had gone back and forth, and in the end, he was closing in on me. But I happened to catch his king in the corner, and moved my rook up. I said simply, “Play again?”Sixth grade started out bad. Over the summer, I learned that our fifth grade social and English teacher had died, and that the sixth grade teacher would move down, and we would get a new teacher. Her name was Mrs. Warner. She and I had a memorable battle. I didn’t like the way she did things, and she didn’t like me for being so adamant in expressing it. I took the attention away from her, and she couldn’t stand it. She actually moved me from the back of the room to the front of the room so I couldn’t “have my lay of the land” to “set things up.”I out smarted her, and she couldn’t take it. Now, Junior High was an altogether different experience. All of the teachers had been warned of how dangerous I was, if I can use that word. After all, I was only 12, I was more like rambunctious. Now I’m downright volital. But anyway, Justin and I terrorized our way through Junior High. Our teachers disliked us because we were totally disrespectful. We thought we knew everything. Now we know better. Now we know everything. In seventh grade I tried out for our school’s musical, “1940’s Radio Hour.” And I made it. I was Biff Baker. Thinking back I know it’s because I’m a guy. It was a great experience. I grew up so much because of it. I would recommend it to anyone. The following year, the only thing that really changed was the musical. Justin and I made a deal. I would join the basketball team, and he would try out for the musical. He didn’t expect to make the cast, but he did, simply because he is a guy. We did “South Pacific,” and it was wonderful. He got the part of “The Professor” (the only on among the group who went to college; perfect for Justin), and I originally had the part of “Stewpot”, the idiot of the group. But, I missed so many rehearsals because of going to my father’s, that I was demoted to a sailor. It was a humbling experience, and because I had come so close to being kicked out of the musical, I learned what I was there for. I was there to have fun. And that’s just what I did. It was probably the most fun I have had doing a musical. And, Justin saw just exactly why I enjoyed doing the musical. And he has been in every one since. 5-26-97It’s been one hell of a weekend. It’s been one hell of a life, to date. I can actually remember a time when nothing mattered. When it was all good. A time when reality was a thing of fantasy. I miss these times. Sometimes, I wish I could get them back. But, I can’t, and I guess that’s how God designed it, so that the memories fade, the good, and the bad. These last few days, I have been dying to get to a keyboard. I have been at my father’s, and I really could have used a creative outlet. It’s so frustrating, going to dad’s. It’s not that I don’t like it, I do. It’s just that it’s such a change from here, that I almost go into shock. It used to be a sort of therapy. I break from the world. But, now I feel that the week is a therapy for the weekend. I used to want to hide from the world. Now, I stand straight in front of the world, and say “Go ahead you scary lookin’ bastard, take your best shot. I’m right here. You’ve tried, but you can’t keep me down.”And I stand side by side with Justin and Jessika. Toe to toe with the world. Some people who know me a little, may be surprised to learn this, but I cry constantly. Anyone who really knows me would know that already. But, since I’ve started writing all my thoughts out, I haven’t cried. Although I feel like crying most of the time I am writing, I do not. I think it’s kind of strange. Do you remember when I said that I thought the pain of Breanna’s rejection hadn’t set in yet. Well it just set in. I feel like I need somebody so bad. I could always have a totally meaningless fling. But, I hate hurting someone when I come to my senses.
The last time I did something like that, I was such a Don Juan, that the girl fell head over heels in love with me. And, basically, I dumped her because I was in love with someone else. Naturally, someone who didn’t give two shits about me. I was really hard in love with Holly. But she just didn’t want anything to do with me. Her mother is the nicest person in the world. Linda and I can almost communicate without talking. What I want is someone to talk to, someone who cares, someone to love. I know I’m still young, but I’ve had to grow up so fast that, now, I feel ready for a commitment. The major problem with this is: The only people I can really communicate with are Justin and Jessika. I don’t mean to unload my emotional crap onto you, but this is my way of getting myself to feel better. Like I said before, the hurt just set in. And I don’t know any other way of dealing with it. If I can’t talk, I write. I have only had one serious relationship in my life. Her name was Danielle.(Still is.) I had been friends with her for like, three years. I liked her when we first met, and then we became friends. For three years I harbored feelings for her. And so did Justin. But, neither of us had the guts to tell her. One night on the phone with her, she said something about Justin being concerned about her, and I said “Why not? Justin loves you just about as much as I do.” And she was stunned. It basically passed over. But a week or two later, I went totally nuts and wrote her a huge love letter. Soon after that, we started going out. We went out (on and off) for about eight months. We were engaged. Then, after my birthday party, while I was staying at her house, she told me that she still loved me, but that she wanted to start seeing another guy. She kept saying that nothing was going to change between us. She kept talking to me like I was a baby. I loved her so much that I couldn’t stand the thought of her being unhappy. Basically she used me. She started out sincere, but ended up using me for several months. She broke up with me, God, at least fifteen times. Each time I told her that I would change. Now that I think about it, most of the time she was mad at me, it was just as much her fault as mine. She played me like a harp from hell. She knew she could get me to do anything she wanted by threat. The threat of her leaving me. She could have gotten me to do anything anyway. I would have done anything for her, simply because I loved her. And I guess a part of me still loves her. Because love is forever. And I know I still love the woman she used to be. We knew each other inside and out. We could talk about anything. And that’s what I want. Someone on the same wavelength. The world is a very cruel place. That’s why Justin invented his own universe. It’s called Shabada. “The Realm of Shabada”-has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?The closest thing (in this universe), to Shabada, is fire. Fire does what it wants, you cannot control it, you cannot predict it, and, it takes just the right conditions for it to exist. There are only (as of now) three inhabitance of Shabada. Or rather, only three people in which Shabada exists.(Shabada exists only in cyberspace, on disk, and in the minds of those who believe.) Those three people: Justin, Jessika, and myself. Shabada is a place like nothing you’ve ever experienced before. It is a place where everything that makes the world the world doesn’t exist. Now, as far as Shabada is concerned, anything and everything that has to be said can be said in a dot. (.)It can be a simple “hello” or it can be the entire works of Shakespere. And only we know. All Shabadians have to dance. It’s a rule. The criteria for becoming a member of the Sabadaian Nation are:1.) You have to not suck. (This is where most people fail.)2.) You have to have an intimate knowledge of Shabada. (Taught to you by a member of Shabada-and what is written, here or anywhere, about Shabada, does not count.)3.) You must dance. And, above all: You must be approved by the Shabadaian council. Then, and only then, do you get your symbol. . 5-27-97I enjoy writing. It helps me to keep my sanity, the very little of it I have left. I have a very humble feeling right now. It feels good to not feel bad, for a change. That may sound elementary, redundant, or even stupid. But think about it. It is plain, simple and logical. That’s more than can be said of most of the things in this world. This world, as much as it scares me, shocks me more than anything. There is so much that is bad, it makes you think there is no good left. What we, mankind, has done to this world, is phenomenal. We are the only being who is stupid enough to pollute our only home. You don’t see a cow by the side of the road, dumping a ton of fertilizer in a river do you?On top of that, man has not only steadily killed off everything in its way, its killed itself along the way. I think, every time I see someone smoking a cigarette, “My God. There committing suicide.” It’s like they’re to stupid to know what they’re doing to themselves. It really eats away at me. The world eats away at me. Okay, okay, that’s enough of that. It’s a Tuesday. “Mad About You” night. It is tied for my favorite show. I started watching it around the time that Danni and I broke up. It filled the emotional void in my life. I guess I still watch it for the emotion. I once actually said I wanted to be Paul Buchman. Now, maybe I don’t want to be Paul Buchman anymore, but, I do want someone as close to me as Paul and Jamie are. I’ve always been a dreamer. And I always will be. I still play make-believe. And I probably always will. More people need to pretend. It would help the world to relax. It would take some of the pressure off of succeeding, off of making money, gaining fame, off of beating the other guy. I don’t mean living in your own fantasy world, like some people do. When people do that they tend to ignore the problems of the world. I think that’s how we’ve gotten into this position in the first place. All of our parents took the sixties off. By the time they came down off of the ten year high, they looked around and realized it wasn’t the world they knew. This is our only home. There is no other place to go. The Eagles song “The Last Resort” captures this beautifully. One line says: “Who will provide the grand design, of what is yours and what is mine. ‘Cause there is no mare new frontier, we have got to make it here. To satisfy our endless needs, and justify our bloody deeds, in the name of destiny. And in the name of god.”It’s a great song. You should listen to it. Not just hear it, listen to it. Many people listen to music all the time, but they listen to it passively. They hear the music, and sing the words, often not knowing what they mean. Really listen to your music, whatever it is, and hear more than you knew was there. Let your subconscious flow freely, unrestricted. I let my subconscious run most to all of my life. My three parts of the brain, (the Id, the Ego, and the Super Ego) have all teamed up and made a fourth section of my brain, an ultra-subconscious, called the “Super Id”, and it basically rules my life. I even let it drive. I drive in a zone most of the time, my Super Id hard at work. I actually drive better that way. (Later)It’s about nine o’clock now. My writing has become an obsession. I go to school, and I can’t wait ’till I get home, to type. I never know what I’m going to write, I just know that I’m going to wright. Like now, I’m just babbling, (so what’s new?)A thought just occurred to me. I haven’t told you about Chrissy yet have I? How vacant of me. Chrissy is one of my friends. I used to regard her as my best female friend. But it seems that we have grown slightly apart. It all started at the prom. We went together, as friends. While there, something happened, (unbeknownst to me), and she was mad at me for a while. I remember telling mom that I didn’t care if Chrissy was mad at me or not. I said “I don’t care enough to get hurt. That’s how I stay one step ahead of the game.” And I remember telling Jessika that I lied to my mother. I did care. Not a whole hell of a lot, but I still did care. Well, recently, (just in the last couple of days), I just started talking to her. She seemed to be okay with it. We have started to get close again. Chrissy has a hang-up. She is very much like me, in the sense that we both fall in love hard. She has had a crush on one guy, who admittedly I do not like. He used her bad. He would use her again in a second too, given half a chance. But, she has had some will power, and not talked to him in a while. She even knows how many days it has been. She claims she is over him, and doesn’t want anything to do with him. I figure, if she is counting the days, then it must be important enough to her to waste energy on. I also remember, during the musical, I consoled her a lot. Which was fine. And she would console me. Then one day, she was going on about him, and the girl I really, really liked at the time was around. After I had herd her play the piano, I came out near Chrissy, and said, “Do you know how frustrating it is…” (I never got to finish.)Chrissy broke in saying “Yeah, yeah, love of your life, yadda, yadda, yadda, I’ve heard it all before.” Then, in the next breath, asks me what to do about her love life. Like I hadn’t heard enough of that already!At first I blew it off. But then, I realized what she had done. She totally didn’t care about what was going on with me, she just cared about herself, and what she should do. I never really came out and said anything to her, and Chrissy, I’m sorry it had to come out this way, but that was when I realized that she wasn’t my best friend. But, we are still friends. As a matter of fact, she is one of the few girls I’ve gone out with, and still been friends with. As a matter of fact, the only two ex’s I’m still friends with are the two that I went out with twice each. I wonder if its just a coincidence.(?)In case you’re wondering, the other girl, is Malinda Hayes. We are still good friends, and at one time, I regarded her as my best female friend too. But our lifestyles are too different for anything other than an ordinary friendship. Ordinary friendship. Isn’t that an oxymoron? I believe any bond someone could have with an emotionally intense, moderately insane, very strange person such as me, is anything but ordinary. As would be any person who would take time out of their lives to think about me. Friends are a strange lot, don’t you think? What is it that brings two or more people together to share in each other’s lives? And there are those who don’t want friends. The hermits, and , and , and ,you know the type, the person who could care less about what anyone thought about them. And as strange as the concept of friendship is, I believe that people who don’t want friends, those who think they don’t need them, are even more strange. As I sit here, in the dark, I wonder about things. Big things, like pollution, government corruption, (isn’t that redundant?), starvation. And I wonder about little things, like school, what to wear tomorrow, if I have any clean underwear, (maybe that should go with the big things.)I think about this great big world, and wonder what my place in it is. And If that place will be far away from my loved ones, family and friends. Sometimes it scares me. Sometimes it doesn’t. Occasionally I laugh. Often I cry. But, I know, with God as my guiding light, I’ll steer clear of the rocks, or build a ship that will take the abuse, of this world we live in. Goodnight. 5-28-97A while ago, I came up with the philosophical question: If the world were ending, and God told you could take all the family members and any five non0fomily members you wanted, who would they be. My five people are: 1) Justin 2) Miss Nasci (our musical director) 3) Linda Tatnall (The assistant musical director, and my good friend.) 4)Chrissy 5) Bernadette Boula. Chrissy updated it to seven people, so I guess my other two would be: 6) Breanna 7)Tammy Clark. I don’t think you’ve met Bernadette or Tammy yet. Tammy is a senior this year. God! I’m going to miss her. She did the musical this year. She sort of came of came out of nowhere. She hadn’t done a musical since her eighth grade year. And when she tried out, everyone was so surprised at her talent. She ended up getting the lead female role opposite me, and it was a blast!We had so much fun. We had a lot of choreographer, and so that meant coming in earlier than the rest of the cast sometimes. She didn’t seem to mind a bit. We had a lot of kissing in the musical to do to. I really didn’t mind that much. The people in the audience said that our kisses looked real, unlike the other kissing done by other cast members. (In case you were wondering, it wasn’t real But I think I bit her once, if that counts.)We got to know each other pretty well in the three months we worked together. I even had a thing for her for a while, but she was going out with someone for most of the musical. She was shy when the musical started out, but as anyone who knows the typical musical cast member can tell you, you can’t survive the musical being shy. Tammy has always been pretty religious. But lately she has been straying from the straight and narrow path. I think she is just going through a phase. I hope to God that it’s only a phase. I want to see her again, and if not again in this life, hopefully in the afterlife, in heaven. Tammy, if you ever read this: I love ya girl. Now, on to Bernadette. Bernadette is my kind of nut. She is very pretty, smart, funny, and does a lot of the same oddball things that I do. We rarely see each other, except in math class, and then her, Chrissy, and I all sit together and talk. All of the guys in our grade, and most of the guys in the grades around us have had , or have a crush on Bernadette. At this moment, it is hard to say which category I fit into. I almost think that she could be a member of Shabada. The only hang-up is that she tends to hang out with people who thing they’re above you. But she’s not like that. She’s cool. Now, If you’re wondering why Jessika isn’t on this list of people, then you suck. In case you didn’t catch it the first time, Jessika’s my cousin. Pay attention, there’s going to be a quiz later. Who would your five people be? (Or, maybe your seven people.) If you’re having a hard time narrowing it down to just seven people, feel lucky that you are blessed with that many friends. They’re hard to come by. Even harder to keep. So feel fortunate. I have, for some reason, been in an anti-typically good mood for most of the day. Today Jessika and I got togethThis paper was written by Ernie Darrah and they can be reached at ernst44@hotmail.com.