The Big World

Every journey begins with a single step. It is up to you, and only you, to choose your first step.

[intothelegends]

Power and Strength

Many people get confused about the difference between the two, or if there is any to even begin with. Here is the way I see it:

Power is winning the fight. Strength is getting up after losing it.

Both are important, crucial; but you can only get true power through strength.

[intothelegends]

Resonance.

Resonance.

Respect. What does it mean? What does it represent? This word has been thrown around for millennia and most people do not know or understand it nearly as well as they think they do. Today, I will share with you what I think of this word, and what it means. And, much more importantly, what it does.

Over one hundred billion people have lived on this planet, Earth. One hundred billion of the most fascinating creatures that have ever lived in our known universe. Each of them has been classified and judged by their own race, labeled before they even get a chance to prove themselves. But do these labels really do or mean anything?

A person has an incredibly powerful ability called choice. Humanity has been able to strengthen this the most out of every living being on the planet, and yet we restrain ourselves by it. For every single possible outcome, there is an infinitesimal amount of choices, but we only come up with a few. We restrain ourselves because some of these ideas seem outrageous, preposterous. We have this notion called impossibility that we cling to every day, but does this even exist? Is the impossible impossible?

We define ourselves with limits. We believe that some tasks are just out of reach. Yet despite this, we manage to amaze ourselves every day. Not very long ago we thought it was impossible to transport via flight, and even more so to do large scale transportation; but we do. We thought we could not go into space, but we did. We set these limits not as something to look at, but something to reach. We set ourselves impossible tasks because we can. We have moved farther than we could ever believe, and are going beyond that. We are living the impossible. We are living the possible.

So how does this tie in with respect? We say we live in a limited space, and yet we can expand this space, what does this mean? Simply put, we have no limits aside from one, and this one has been beat before: time. We are born, we live, and we die; yet many have lived on. Early philosophers such as Plato, Socrates, Aristotle are still alive today through their teachings. We stand beside rulers as we learn about what they did, and we ride beside the heroes of ancient times. These people are still alive despite them dying thousands of years ago. They live on. Unfortunately, there are many who do not. Billions of names and stories lost throughout lifetime, forgotten forever. But are they really gone?

These names were called both good and evil, but what is good and evil? To one side, their leader is good, but to the other that same leader is evil. One name that stands out most is one owned by a certain German artist, Adolf Hitler. The majority of the world saw him as evil, yet some still saw him as good. He was trying to bring his country back into greatness, but through the death and torment of millions. But is he evil? Yes, he killed millions, but he did not do it to kill millions. As I said, he was trying to bring his country back into greatness much more than was his desire to kill. Let me iterate this strongly, although, this is no excuse for what he did. But still, what am I getting to? If a man was possible of convincing himself that a great evil is what is right, what is stopping that same man from convincing himself a great good is right?

As I said, every person has a power inside them, a potential if you would. It is possible of both great good and evil, so which is chosen? In order to answer this, I will look at history and keep it short. Over the centuries, rulers have gotten more powerful and benevolent. There are rulers who tend to believe they have more power than they actually do, and care less for their people (namely North Korea). But no one sees these rulers as great leaders, but rather as oppressors. Simply put, as time goes on, leaders become more good.

What does this all have to do with respect? Why am I skirting around the topic? Every person has this potential inside of them, and just because of this, every person is capable of doing greater things. In the current times, some people refer to respect as being earned, but I disagree. Just by the fact that any living person is capable of being a hero, I give every single person the most amount of respect I possibly can. Every person is equal in my eyes, regardless of what they have done, are doing, or will do. Every single person is possible of great change, even if it is not needed. Every person can be a hero. Every person matters. Every person has love, hope, understanding, knowledge, beauty, good, evil, greatness, heroism, strength, sadness, happiness, and millions of others. Every person may not be the same, but this does not mean they should not be treated as different.

  Before moving on, I would like to say something that some people may eventually ask. Many of my writings may seem not thought out, or missing points. This is done on purpose. Everything I write, I write as if I am talking to another person. I do not go back and change what I wrote, everything I write is as I am thinking it. I do this because I want people to ask questions, to challenge me (which is why I put #challengeme in the tags). Through this, we can learn better together as a whole, and have a better understanding of what we discussed.

[intothelegends]

Reality

There are a lot of people in the world who need to be reminded of how big the world is and how small they are. However, there are more, so many more, that need to be reminded of how big they are, and how much of an impact they can have on the world.

[intothelegends]

Who you are is NOT in your heart.

Who you are is NOT in your heart.

           It has been said or suggested many times, but is this true? When you are down, feel conflicted, you may go to another person. They will give you a small smile, and place a hand on your chest above your heart. They will look you in the eye, and tell you that who you are is inside there (your heart), not up there (pointing at your head).

           The word that is stressed in this saying is who, and who has counterparts that we all went over in elementary school: who, what, when, where, why, and how. So the only question that remains is, who are you? And where are you?

           The who part is relative. To you, you are who you believe you are and nothing more. Unfortunately, it cannot be that simple. Many people try to hide who they are, and because of that, others see them differently. Depending on that person, they may or may not like you, but the fact remains is that you are unique. Your identity is what you make it, it is up to you to decide whether or not to show it.

           What is what would be your identity, your label if you will. In the current culture, labeling has been under fire. Many people do not like this word, as they sometimes, unfortunately, assume it means someone else labeling them. This is not the case. Similar to who, you set up how other people see you. You control your body image (to a point), you control how you act in front of others, you control what you say... Everything is in your control.

           To make sense, I will go over how next. As I said in what, you are in control and only you. Yes, there are people who have mental illnesses. But what it comes down to is your will. I believe that the human body has no limits besides time, and this is because of our will. [For the sake of time, I will go over this very soon in a different post, but for now I will leave it at this.]

           Next is when and where. Many people believe they cannot truly be able to express themselves to their fullest potential unless they are the right person at the right time. Many times in their lives, however, they have been. Hesitation is a very human reaction to anything, and it is often our downfall.

           Before moving onto why, where are all these w's? To keep it short, I will go over an experience I had once. I was having a bad day, a really, REALLY, bade day. I went for a walk to a local park, and sat down on a bench. Of course, it was raining, so I felt like I did not need to hold back as people would not be able to see me cry. I was wrong. An older man sat down on the bench next to me, after seeing me cry, and asked me what was wrong. At this point, I didn't care anymore. I told him that I had no idea that I was. Sometimes I said some things, when I meant the other. Because of this, I thought I had hurt people. I felt like I was losing control because I did not know who I was. The old man smiled at me, and took my hand. He placed it on my head and said "This is who you are." He then moved my hand down to my heart and smiled. "And this, is why you are you.

[intothelegends]

What is a hero?

What is a hero?

           Recently, I have been watching a lot of "Restore your faith in Humanity" videos on YouTube. The main reason for this being that sometimes I get off track of what I would call my "goal", but that is a post for another time. So the main question that I got from these videos is, what or who is a hero?

           Dictionary.com defines a hero by: a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities. I italicized some words that I would like to discuss a little more in depth.

           First, we have courage. This word is often confused with bravery, so I will go over both at the same time. Whenever I myself think of the meanings of these two words, I always think of what Gandalf (played my Sir Ian McKellen) said in The Hobbit movie trilogy. He said something along the lines of bravery being the ability to take a life, whereas courage was the ability to know when to not take a life. What this means is that bravery is the ability to do something, while courage is the ability to know when to do something. This is how I perceive the difference between courage and bravery. Many of the people in the videos I watched showed both courage and bravery. One that stood out the most to me was a video where an ex-cop was at a gas station when a car had run into one of the pumps. At first, he ran away. Now, many people may think this is cowardice, but it really is not. A fire started immediately, and gasoline is flammable and explosive. If he had run to the car the instant it crashed, there would have been a very good chance that he could have been injured or killed. Instead, he waited a moment and checked to see if anyone was actually inside the car. This is when he took action.

           Before continuing with the video, I would like to go over the next word, ability. This one is actually pretty straightforward. To have distinguished ability, means that you have worked towards something that you have played out. Instead of having luck and being the right person at the right time, you were the wrong person at the right time. Despite being the wrong person, you were still the person to act, you were the person with the ability to act. So in a way, you were the wrong person, and at the same time the right person.

           The last word is nobility. Now, this may have set people off when they first saw it, but this is more of an interpretation. Nobility does NOT have to do with royalty in this case. To put it simply, a noble person is one who understands more than just knows. They don't just do things because they were told, they do it because they thought it was right.

           Now the final question is that do I agree with this definition? The short answer is no, and I will explain why. I have met few people who I would call heroic, and I will tell of one that sticks out to me the most. To keep him anonymous, I will call him Mr. Smith, my tenth grade physical education teacher. I was enrolled in a class called "Senior fitness", despite being a sophomore. The class itself was supposed to be at par in difficulty with normal educational classes, rather than just a usual PE class. It was more difficult, but that is not why I remember it as I did. Mr. Smith encouraged us to do what we were capable of, and to push our own boundaries. At the time, I was overweight, and I was one of his favorites. He always used me as examples, and I didn't like him for that. One day, he did not show up. Another gym teacher told us that the previous day after school, Mr. Smith was driving home and he was hit by a drunk driver. He was beat up pretty bad, and the gym teacher did not know when he would come back. A week later, Mr. Smith came back with a broken arm and some broken ribs. He told us that the driver was coming out of a hospital rehabilitation center after drinking his fill, and then crashed into him. When we asked him if he was mad, he said no. He said he was thankful that he was the one he hit, as he drove a big truck. The car next to him was another student, who would have been far more injured than himself. The student was injured as well, but not nearly as much as he was. We asked if he was taking legal action against the driver, and he said no. He said he only wished for the man to give up drinking, and that he would pay for any repairs.

           This stunned us. The rest of the semester went on and he got better. A year later, I had him as a gym teacher again, and asked him how he felt about the incident now. He told me that the driver was in rehab, and hadn't been drinking for ten months. He then said that he had been visiting the man weekly, to check up on him. They are now good friends. I asked him why, and he said because he felt it was the right thing to do. This is one of the moments that changed my viewpoint on life.

           To finish up with the other video I was talking of earlier, the ex-cop dragged the person out of the crashed car. The fire had grown, and so had the risk. Despite this, he felt that the right thing to do was to save this person, regardless of the consequences.

           A new hero is revealed every day. A majority of you reading this have already been considered a hero. Now, what do I believe a hero is? A hero is anyone who is capable of seeing what is right, and then having the courage to carry it out, regardless of the consequences. Next time you see someone who you may think needs your help, consider this. A hero is inside everyone, it is up to you to decide what hero you will be.