I'm Sorry

         Many people have regrets, but I am not one of them. I’ve only ever regretted two things in my entire 15 ½ years of living- I didn’t take the phone number of a girl I was in love with freshman year, and I punched a wall, breaking my pinky knuckle. No, other than those two happenstances of my life I have not regretted a single thing. I haven’t regretted telling my drunken father off before leaving the state with my mother, and I certainly don’t regret e-mailing him a year later telling him about how he never acted as a father to me. I do not regret telling a lower class citizen off for mocking me, thus resulting in a concussion. I don’t regret telling a higher class citizen to get off of a pedestal, thus resulting in a concussion. I don’t regret anything that has happened to me and I don’t regret anything that I’ve ever done. I regret nothing and I take the consequences that situations distribute. Despite my pessimism, I’ll never say that I regret having an opinion, and even if my opinion is wrong, I’ll still die for it. It is due to my stoic approach to consequences that leads me to believe that I am my own worst enemy.

         Despite failing, I don’t regret the first semester of this class. Every single time I take a semester at the School of Hard Knox I tend to learn a valuable lesson, and it was during that semester that I learned about motivation. English 10 scholarship was an excellent class for me because it told me what my work load should be for my motivation. It told me what I can do as a hard working student, and it taught me that I cannot rely on my raw talent to carry me through a high-tier class. Very early on in the class, I thought I would be able to pull through the rough with only my talent, “Goal: Semester Grade: C+ to B- is the grade that I will shoot for. I have low expectations for myself so I don’t end up disappointing myself.” I tried to pretend as though I didn’t have any expectations for myself. In all honesty, I really didn’t. I thought that I would just go through the semester and learn little to nothing about elements of plot or grammar beyond what I already knew. I, thankfully, was wrong, “My grammar, as a whole, is almost perfect.” Before, I hadn’t realized that my grammar was only on par with that of a standard writer. Later in the year, I found that I can be so much better and that I can rise up against these simple norms. I had beaten the statistic and looking back, I am quite thrilled with it.

         My grammar has improved to that of a professional level. I can still outmatch many “authors” in battles of grammar. I consider myself high in this aspect for two reasons: one, the only literature I’ve ever really enjoyed reading was classic science fiction writers who wrote in old English. If you didn’t write with correct grammar in old English you were considered a trashy writer; I don’t like to read trashy novels. Earlier on in the year I had still regarded a clause that is not linked to the main sentence to be good taste. I know now that that is an amateur mistake of grammar that is not to be taken seriously, no matter how free-flowing it may sound. My grammar has improved drastically from the beginning of the year to the late end of the year. It has changed in the form of taste and it’s changed in my technique. This grammar has only been a minor influence to my writing as a whole.

         A major influence in my writing and what purpose I provide in my writing is dependent of what humanity’s problem is. I often like to think and ponder about what makes a human tick, and it is through experimentation with friends, family, and people around me that I learned to predict another human’s actions simply by talking to them for a long period of time. My family has even called me a puppetmaster of sorts due to my ability to predict and manipulate other’s emotions to do what I believe is right. Thankfully, I always had benevolent eyes for humanity. I had always thought to look out for humanity. Every fiber of my being and every specialist has told me that humanity is going to ultimately destroy itself. I like to think otherwise, and I’ve spent every second of my life toward going to this goal. However, with this, I have grown to hate humanity. I hate my fellow brethren. I hate you if you have a genome saying that you are human. It is not anything personal; it’s just how you are as a human, it’s just how I am as a human. We’re all inherently flawed- we are self destructive and it that is what is going to bring our downfall as a species and as a civilization. It is this inspiration through humanity’s flaws that made me think of some of my best work.

         My personal writing is fueled by my hatred for humanity. I seek to correct our flaws through my writing- I seek subtle recognition of these flaws in non-hostile means. My early work of November highlighted this new theme in my writings. It was known as “Planet 59”. It was meant to be an experimental project to be written in a month. I wasn’t able to get very far on it, and I do resolve that I will go back to rewrite and polish it. Planet 59 circled around a league of stereotypes, well rounded characters, and an interesting planet of which the crew of a colonization ship are meant to survive on a Planet full of nature not touched by human hands. It was meant to convey the message that weapons are needed, as the crew didn’t have any type of weapons besides shock-batons, which weren’t lethal. It was because of this that humanity wasn’t able to survive on a planet inhabited by hostile living creatures that were, frankly, more large and deadly than humanity could ever hope to be. Later on, I developed a work with the same inherent theme of humanity’s flaws. It was entirely based off of a single word- Pariah. I thought of what it meant, to be an outcast and to be unloved or prejudiced against due to being different. I made that into an entire planet, and I feel as though it could be my one success story in my life. I’ve already completed it, and it’s now in its alpha stage of development. Pariah marks my one fully complete, fully polished project to have undergone testing and undergone actual development until completion. All of my other ideas have promptly been shot down or discarded as being “too long, too boring, and unsellable”. It was these three things that prevented me from getting so much work done.

         This class taught me that those three things do not have to be true in order for me to function as a motivated, well-oiled machine. I can now pump out great works in the matter of hours. I tend not to do pre-writes for essays, and yet I’ve gotten 98s out of 100s. It was not a matter of lying or fast-talking, either. I simply work best on the go when I believe in myself and have motivation. It is this great essence of motivation that has made me into a better person. I feel as though I could write a book this year, when last year I paled in nervousness. I believe that I can change the world with my writing, if I only wrote enough and had enough time to do so. I believe that there is very little stopping me from setting society in the right direction for a utopian society. It’s been through this class, and the first semester’s crash course of hard Knox that taught me how to pull myself up by the ears and tough it out to the end. However, it was never like this before this year.

         I had been so out of motivation before this year, and I had no way of fixing it. I failed two core classes and 2 electives my freshman year of Highschool. It was partly because I was so used to sailing by on Cs and Bs due to my raw intellectual ability and my ability to fast-talk my way into tests. I figured that it was going to be the same shin-dig over and over again until I was out of college and making video games. As my grades of that year indicated, this was not the case. I was so out of motivation due to the previous years of middleschool in which I was allowed to do nothing and still get Bs and Cs. Motivation killed me. I was unable to do anything- and I mean anything- because I had no motivation to do so. I didn’t find school to be important due to finding it so easy and laughable the years before. I was hit in the face with a ton of intellectual bricks when it came to me that I was unable to fix my grades, and despite me knowing that if I didn’t work hard I’d be reclassified, I still refused to get my act in gear. It’s because of this that I fell into a bigger, even scarier hole.

         Never have I been more depressed than this year. My family always had a depression problem. We each had a chemical imbalance in the brain that would ultimately lead us to our downfall in academics, love, work, and so many other instances. This year, I’ve been racked with depression due to loving things that will never love me back, for wanting things I’ll never be able to have, and for having too big of dreams for society, when I’m completely sure that my expectations shall never be met. My depression is the main reason why I did so horribly this first semester, and it’s the main reason why I’ve done so horribly in highschool altogether. My mind is plagued by none other than my own mind. I’ve had romantic problems since as far as I can remember. When I was in elementary school my idea of Romance was a common one sought by teenagers- just someone to be with for a title. Now, in highschool, I seek a fulfilling romance that is more commonly sought by those who are actually looking for something meaningful. I dislike the ideas of doing petty dating for the sake of “dating”, and I truly want someone who I can be with for a decent amount of time. This year, I found someone who fit that status, but she will never love me, though I may always love her. She knows this, I know this, my best friend, who is currently dating her, knows this. It is the main source of depression and angst that has fueled my insolence for this entire second semester. But alas, the only hindrance I’ve ever really had in my life was my depression; therefore, my only hindrance in my entire life has been myself. It’s because of this that I hate myself. I hate what I am and I wish I could change it, but no matter how much I’ve tried I could not. I can only accept what I am and take life in stride. I can only accept that I am human and that I am a hypocrite. This is what has caused me to become depressed. It’s completely on me.

         That’s why everything that’s happened to me has and always will be my fault. The last semester can be completely pinned on me. The fact that I couldn’t get straight Bs this year is completely my fault. The fact that I hate humanity and am so intolerant of its flaws are completely my fault, it is my own intolerance that does not allow me to leave happily. It is my own faults and my own ideals that shackle me to depression. It is my odd imbalance of emotions that only allows me to experience love, hate, happiness, and sadness. Most of the time it’s in a contradictory stance, which, too, is my fault! Each grade I’ve taken, each essay I’ve lied through, each and every F-bomb I’ve dropped in front of teacher has and always will be my fault. Which makes it all the worse in this retrospective, as I know that anything that happens to me, anything that could possibly be conceived by Karma or any other “greater power” will be given to me due to the fact that I deserve it. Completely and understandably, I deserve any type of punishment that comes my way, which makes my depression all the worse. When I punch a wall in a complete angsty, hormonal rage and break my pinky, what hurts the most is looking back on it and saying “I deserved it.”

         It is because of my self-loathing and it is because of my complete understanding of myself that I am sorry. I am sorry for everything I’ve done to those around me. I’m sorry for myself- to a mild extent- on what damage I’ve done to my future by being depressed and mopey for no good reason. I’m sorry that I can’t get over a girl whom I’ve loved. I’m sorry that I let my subconscious control me, when my conscious can only make commentary. I’m sorry that I let down my mother by having two failing grades this semester. I’m sorry to my 20 readers online, who I had been unable to write for due to my crippling depression. I’m sorry to the world, for not being able to finish a work this year. I’m sorry to my teachers, for not giving them the true, unbridled respect that they deserve. I’m sorry about everything I’ve done this past semester. However, they are my actions, and I’ll look back upon anything that has ever happened to me, and I shall say a total of three words: “I deserved it.”