When I Was Young...

 

When I was young (7th Grade), I was confident that I could capture the essence of myself in a book length autobiography.  I never got around to penning that memoir, and it is probably a good thing. I have since learned that I am too complex to capture fully in any medium, regardless of the context or size.  At the same time, my views constantly change with age, life experiences, etc.  In that way, I really am not the same person today that I was 5 years ago, and probably will be much different in another 5 years.  I am certainly not special; I think almost everyone reading this passage would agree with me.  With that said, I still try to capture pieces of "me" in short snippets in a diary, in blog posts, in articles, in message board and Facebook posts, in photos and other multimedia renderings, and via other means.

 

When I was young, I believed that my society was a meritocracy.  I thought that television shows contained the best actors; the songs playing on the radio were the best ones available; etc.  I realized later on that while meritocratic values do influence our country's corporations, schools, societal organizations, contests, etc., other factors, such as luck, marketing ability, looks, etc. play a significant role as well.  Nonetheless, I think that the "me" of today would agree with my naive, younger self in stating that I'd rather live in today's society than, say, in any part of the world during the Middle Ages.  :-)

When I was young, I was focused on the present.  I didn't worry too much about the past or the future.  I also was not as aware of how my actions impacted others.  The me of today is much more self-aware.