The Changing World Essay

Analytical Essay:

      In the words of Chinese Philosopher, Lao Tzu “Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them; that only creates sorrow.”  Life has a multitude of change, which most of the time is almost unavoidable. Something leads to change, then the person affected by the change  is left to process what happened. It is not the easiest thing to do, especially if the change is formidable. The fact of the matter is, Bartle is almost forced into a changing world. Things happen that aren’t always ideal, and the more one thinks about it, man is merely a small piece in an even bigger picture, and no matter how hard one tries, the reaction is never going to be a good one.

Things happen all the time. It’s a fact of life people have come to accept. It’s not always good, but it isn’t always terrible. Kevin Powers explores this in his book, The Yellow Birds, a story set through the duration of the Iraq war. “And you can’t explain it, but, it’s just, like, fuck you, but then you signed up to go so it’s all your fault, really, because you went on purpose so you are in the end, doubly fucked, so why not find a spot and curl up and die and let’s make it as painless as possible because you really are a coward.” Some of the worst things that can happen to someone is dealt by the person themselves. Often times dealing with a sudden change  is carried out with the best intentions in mind, however, as quickly as the world can change, so can everything in it, and the ultimate reaction to all this can be pretty shocking. The world isn’t a nice place, especially if one gets too caught up in all the small things.

Reacting to change can almost be fitted into stages. Someone can either react with some deal of emotion, or with none at all. In this circumstance, its more or less a personal struggle, rather than something against whatever change is occurring. “The closer I got to reconstructing him in my mind, the more the picture I was trying to recreate receded.” This quote, taken from Bartle, describes his process of attempting to recollect his memories after coming home from the war. When things slowly begin breaking down, and Bartle begins attempting to process what  happened, everything else begins distancing from whoever him . This is dangerous in an ever changing world, because when someone finds themselves so caught up in previous events and ideas, they’re almost slipping away from what's actually going on, ignoring whatever change may be happening.

Sometimes after situations such as this, one becomes desensitized with the rest of the world. Forgetting everything else in favor their own feelings. “At one time you could of asked me if I thought the snow meant something. I would’ve said yes. I might have thought there was some significance to the fact that there had been snow on the day that Murph had come into my life and snow on the day I willed myself into the one that had been taken from him.” Once things begin changing, it almost seems like nothing else begins to matter.Bartle’s world changes after the death of his best friend. Small things, things that he never really paid much attention to slowly became a trigger to him. Things he barely looked at became something of detachment.

Kevin Powers associates most of his writing toward generating a genuine recollection of what happens during wartime. That being said, the relationship between both past experiences in real life, and through the war, are almost parallel toward the idea of change. I've always had a certain level of comfort with the dark part of the human experience. It hasn't had an attraction, but it has certainly had a fascination.”

Change often brings a variety of difference into a situation, and these experiences aren’t always so bright. The dark part of human experiences that the author is talking about relates back to how one can react to the change in the rest of the world.

Works Cited for Analytical Essay:

Powers, Kevin. The Yellow Birds: A Novel. New York: Little, Brown, 2012. Print.

Lewis, Tim. "Fiction: Meet The Author." TheGuardian.com. The Guardian, 23 June 2013. Web. 11 Jan. 2015. <www.theguardian.com%2Fbooks%2F2013%2Fjun%2F23%2Fkevin-powers-interview-yellow-birds>

Narrative

In my opinion the real world is terrible, and I’d rather not deal with it at all.   Considering the fact that I’m always one incident away from full blown insanity, I try to change whenever I feel necessary, rather than changing with the rest of the world. Life is too short to try and keep up with small things. You’re either moving whenever things feel right, or you’re caught up in something you’ll end up forgetting later.

And that’s how I figured out I was manic-depressive.

For me,the  only real worldly changes that have to be looked out for are whether or not someone is still going to be there five years from now or how badly an episode is going to affect anyone else. I can’t react to a constantly changing world, because that’s another source of anxiety and bad feelings in and of itself, so I’d rather not worry about something thats going to cause me pain in the end.

Then there are small moments that aren’t the epitome of being completely miserable. Those idealistic pieces of memorabilia aren’t easily found, but once they do, everything changes, and for one day, everything feels alright, and in those moments, you can feel amazing. You can do anything, and nothing can make you feel any less real. That’s called mania.

But hey, who said it’s not okay to feel subsequently human?

I digress, really, depending on how bad the situation, sometimes things are easier to bounce back from, but as a whole, to put it lightly, life has quite literally made me it’s bitch, and there’s nothing I can do about it. The insanity was never my fault, but it didn’t bother me anyway.

Let the rest of the world change, I’m perfectly fine in my own little bubble.

But you wanted to know how it feels like, right? Waking up in the morning realizing you’re the very thing that makes you hate your own reflection, and every ounce of love someone ever had for you is now gone because you’re unstable, and cut up arms are always prettier than soft ones.

Let’s reiterate one last time. I’m finished with the rest of the world. Things can change, but I won’t.

But’s that’s just my illness talking.

And that’s also what happens during the lower parts of the depression, which is almost like the ‘world,’ changing me, if that makes any sense. I react differently to certain things than others do. I say things that other people may find unusual. This is because I had to grow up much faster then most people.

It’s no one’s real fault, because when you’re born, your parents aren’t, (hopefully,) sitting around you saying how much they’d like to see you suffer. But sometimes someone does something stupid. And that stupidity grows into something much larger, and because you’re already impressionable, you’re holding all of that in, until you reach a certain age and look back at your life. Then you realize that something went wrong, and that you’re no longer the only thing you’re supposed to keep safe. Because sometimes, those monsters that your parents told you never existed, suddenly become real. And they’re everywhere, but nobody can make them go away. And the rest of the world sits back and judges you for not being able to let go of things that aren’t real to them.

But you really aren’t crazy. It’s the world’s way of protecting yourself. It keeps you safe, even if you’re doing stupid things. You learn that you’re actually not a good person, and because of that, nobody loves you. And you know what? It’s okay to feel these things. You just can’t hurt yourself over them, or life sucks even more than it used to. You’re actually a half decent person when you’re not threatening to kill yourself every five minutes.

You just can’t let the monsters of the world tell you otherwise.