endless exploration

Kids learn everything from their parents. If our parents speak in a certain dialect, we, as very young children, develop the same way of speaking. The same goes for racism. According to Mahzarin Banaji, a renowned Harvard University psychologist, race preferences develop and become accepted embraced in children at the age of 3 in the matter of days. Days. In Song of Solomon, Guitar Bains hates white people. He associates sweets with white people, and it “makes him sick.” In fact, he doesn't even like to smell it. Even the brief mention of a baked Alaska makes him throw up. He emerges after his little episode with eyes “teary from the effort of dry heaving,” and suggests that he and Milkman get some weed, since “that's one thing [he] can have” (Morrison 62). Why is this Guitar’s reaction to something most people would be happy to eat? Because it makes him “think of dead people. And white people.” When asked how long he's been like this, Guitar explains how his dad has been ...

"Tell me something about yourself." Does anyone else get extremely anxious when asked this question? I mean, it's so simple yet broad that your entire life literally flashes before your eyes as you rack your brain for a response. There are tons of things I could say; what my hobbies are, what my favorite genre of books, movies and music are, where I'm from, my astrology sign, etc. So how do you provide a simple answer to a simplistic but complex question? Why is it so hard to provide a clear-cut definition of ourselves? There's so much that composes your identity and others will identify you based on your physical traits or how you present yourself, whether that be the color of your skin, the way you dress yourself, etc. And though your external features indeed say a lot about you, self-identification comes from yourself.  In order to have a foundation for self-improvement and growth, you have to understand yourself and how your mind and body work together. Kn...

Fashion is a way for females and males  people to channel their creativity and express themselves in whichever manner they'd like to. If a boy is wearing a shirt that is "too feminine," so what? If a girl is wearing pants that are "too masculine," so what? In recent years, massive fashion brands have been breaking these boundaries, encouraging individuals to wear whatever the hell they want, encouraging a sense of identity and self-admiration. After all, clothing is just a piece of colored fabric cut in a certain way to fit a certain shape. The above photo depicts Jaden Smith wearing a skirt, a piece of clothing commonly characterized to women. But look at his confidence, and how effortlessly he's rocking that skirt. Men can certainly wear women's clothing while maintaining their masculinity, something that many men are insecure about.  Here we have Harry Styles wearing a women's Marc Jacobs tropical print shirt. MEN DON'T HAVE TO B...

Some people don't want you to achieve your goals, to grow as an intelligent and insightful person. Believe it or not, even those who give you big, wide grins want you held back. It can be hard to tell, however, which one of your friends hate to see you succeed, and when you finally do, you lie to yourself that they really do want the best for you; it hurts when discovering someone who you've spoke so highly of isn't who you thought they were. As Fitzgerald puts it, it can be “invariably saddening to look through new eyes at things upon which you have expended your own powers of adjustment.” In other words, it's disappointing when your judgement about something turns out to be wrong when you look at it from a different perspective. Whether that be a friendship, relationship, or even a career pathway, there are different sides to everything. But in order to reach your full potential, it's important to cut ties off with those who hold you down and befriend those who ge...