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Evan Bailyn on
Thursday, January 19th, 2012 with
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The world is filled with things we cannot control. We put ourselves out there, aware of the risk that bad things might happen, just to give ourselves the opportunity for good things to happen. We hope for the best and try to avoid the undesirable vagaries of nature. But when we depend on people, careers, or events in our lives, we are opening ourselves to possibilities we cannot foresee.
Although it is necessary to confront the randomness of the outside world ...
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Evan Bailyn on
Thursday, January 19th, 2012 with
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It is a small fantasy of mine to become invisible. My desire to be unnoticed usually presents itself when the pressures of life bear down on me so much that I instinctually retreat into my subconscious. When I feel the need to withdraw from reality, some aspect of the environment I am in becomes my secret hideaway. If I am in the bathroom washing up, it is down in the shadows between the bottles of moisturizer, shaving cream, and hair ...
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Evan Bailyn on
Thursday, January 19th, 2012 with
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All of us are under some pressure to do what is right, whether from ourselves, our family, or society. We do our best to stick to the right side of things because we feel immoral doing otherwise. Yet most of the time, we accept this ambiguous word – “right” – simply because we haven’t really thought about it. There will never be a shortage of people to opine on what the right behavior is, and yet very rarely do people ...
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Evan Bailyn on
Thursday, January 19th, 2012 with
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Time is one of the largest ideas we never truly understand. It is a concept of the same magnitude as space and energy, but unlike them, it cannot be physically witnessed; time is simply something we believe in.
Time is, fundamentally, a change of events. We recognize time to have passed only when something changes - a person takes a step, a gust of wind blows, our leg itches. Even the least impactful event, such as the tremor of a hand, ...
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Evan Bailyn on
Thursday, January 19th, 2012 with
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In a society where the vast majority of people act adultlike, it helps to have a fantasy world - a place that nobody can ever see or influence no matter what is happening in your physical environment. Keeping such a place inside you, hidden away from everything else, can greatly counterbalance all the external events that are out of your control. However, even those who regularly use their imaginations to escape often do so in a passive way, minimizing the ...
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Evan Bailyn on
Thursday, January 19th, 2012 with
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One night as I was lying in bed, I saw the place at the end of the earth. It was a hill, blanketed in virgin snow, at twilight. At the edge of my vision, the branches of a pine tree hung calmly, lending their aroma to the cool, comfortable air. On top of the hill was a log cabin with a chimney from which wisps of smoke drifted out into the purple-grey sky.
Beyond the hill was a slope that tapered ...
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Evan Bailyn on
Thursday, January 19th, 2012 with
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Sometimes it strikes me how many lives exist apart from my own. Countless minds produce countless thoughts which never touch my consciousness or make any impact at all on my existence. I wonder how it can be possible for my inner world to be so familiar to me but non-existent to everyone else. Occasionally when I am in a room and somebody leaves, I try to take on their perspective, mentally following them outside and leaving myself behind. I picture ...
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Evan Bailyn on
Thursday, January 19th, 2012 with
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Fate is a concept we all formed a definite opinion on at a young age. Nowadays, we rarely give its existence real consideration, instead using it as a quick explanation for situations we can’t understand, stating “That’s the way it was meant to be.” But is fate real?
Is it immutable that I should be sitting here right now, typing on this computer, with this bottle of water placed exactly as it is on this table in front of me? I ...
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Evan Bailyn on
Thursday, January 19th, 2012 with
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I’ve pondered the grandest of all philosophical questions - the meaning of life - since at least my early teenage years. I’ve also asked a lot of people their opinion on the subject. The most common answers I get are:
- to accumulate as much happiness or pleasure as possible;
- to serve God (or follow God’s plan)
- to prepare for an afterlife
- to attain a high level of spirituality or knowledge
- to make a positive difference in the world
- there is ...
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Evan Bailyn on
Thursday, January 19th, 2012 with
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We all navigate our lives with our senses, stopping only rarely to appreciate how unique and interesting each one is. What is smell, after all? The ability to detect tiny particles that float out from matter and experience them in various chemical categories, such as sweet, fruity, and bitter? And touch? The ability to register the microscopic contours of matter and interpret them as a neurological feeling? When we break down what our senses really are, it becomes possible to ...
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Evan Bailyn on
Thursday, January 19th, 2012 with
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Every day I work hard. I give my time, and more importantly, my emotional energy, to accomplishing things that will increase my security in life. I keep a belief in the back of my mind that if I can just get to a certain level of financial comfort, things will be okay and I can focus on everything I always wanted for myself – family, community, contemplation of life, and the latent creative quests that dwell inside of me. I ...
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Thursday, January 19th, 2012 with
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Having a crush is one of our original human impulses - it is the feeling of seeing in another person characteristics that compliment your being so well that you feel impelled to join their life with yours. It is a strong, passionate longing for a partnership with a person that has something you don’t have and could never possess. It is a magnetic desire for an image of beauty fetched from youth. It is a flood of emotion so mentally ...
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Thursday, January 19th, 2012 with
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The question of whether true love really exists cannot be answered without first clarifying what true love really is. However, the concept of “true love” has already absorbed so many qualities from literature, television, and magazines that it can no longer be approached with any objectivity. Trying to consider true love freshly at this point would be like trying to taste a wine while you are eating a hot dog.
The image that comes to mind when someone mentions true love ...
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Evan Bailyn on
Thursday, January 19th, 2012 with
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Here are some of the more important benchmarks of sexuality that occur in childhood. I’ve tried to be as accurate as possible.
Ages 7 - 8 (Second Grade): Some boys begin to think girls are pretty. First crushes develop, but are kept secret because it is not yet fully acceptable to like girls. Usually, there is no discussion of crushes among friends.
Ages 8 – 9 (Third Grade): Crushes are now acceptable to most cliques, though a few are still uncomfortable with the idea. ...
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Evan Bailyn on
Thursday, January 19th, 2012 with
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Coming from a divorced family, I do not have the privilege of being able to take marriage for granted. The expectation many children have of getting married in their twenties, starting a life with their spouse, and growing old together is not as firmly implanted in my mind. Rather, it is a romantic possibility - something I hope to attain. But I also have many questions about it.
When I was younger, and my dad used to talk about marrying again, ...
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Evan Bailyn on
Thursday, January 19th, 2012 with
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Romance was a whole lot better when we were eleven. Back then, there was so much more to hope for, so much more to wonder and worry about. In the end, all of the hype basically boiled down to one essential question: whether or not someone liked you. If a girl liked you, you were consumed with elation. You were sparkling with specialness. Liking a girl was exciting and mischievious; it meant you thought she was pretty, that you wanted ...
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Evan Bailyn on
Thursday, January 19th, 2012 with
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I have wavered on the question of whether true love really exists since the first time I told a girl I loved her nine years ago. Up until recently, I thought love was an elusive feeling, more of an ideal than a reality, something that could be felt in fragments during a beginning-of-relationship fascination but never achieved in the way shown in novels and movies. With all of my long-term girlfriends, I thought I was in love during the relationship, ...
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Evan Bailyn on
Thursday, January 19th, 2012 with
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I write for you. With every sentence I type, I pass my words through a filter of how I think you’ll react. If your opinion didn’t matter, I wouldn’t be distributing my writing; I would keep to journals, in which I could scribble and dabble and review every few years to see how my identity had evolved. Or, I wouldn’t write at all. Yet there is an excitement which I believe all writers feel in the prospect of creating something ...
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Thursday, January 19th, 2012 with
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Expressing oneself intelligently requires the synergy of many forces. One must harness one’s mental energy into an idea; compare and combine that idea with other available ideas; translate the results into an intelligible form of communication; and express that communication. Most people are able to do all these steps fairly well individually. The problem is holding each step together in one’s mind long enough to use it in the next step and come to a coherent end-product. In other words, ...
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Evan Bailyn on
Thursday, January 19th, 2012 with
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Peter Pan Syndromers are usually painted as grown-ups who cling to their childhood due to a fear of adult responsibility. But emotionally stunted underachievers make up only a small percentage of the Peter Pan population. Dan Kiley, author of the Peter Pan Syndrome concept, never accounted for Peter Pan overachievers: eternal children whose competitive instincts compel them to achieve high standing in the very society that they secretly shun. These people learn how to game the adult world by conforming ...
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