Don't Kill "To Kill a Mockingbird"

Cultures die as new ones are born. Fads ripple across our history in a manner of decades. Moments come with impact and slowly drift out of reality. The only way to touch what it was is if they are preserved somehow.

What would happen if we all focused on this moment, right now? Sometimes we are told to do that. To do the right thing now and not worry about its effects tomorrow. Sometimes that is a good point.

But what would that mean? 

It could and often is dangerous. And has gotten many a people in trouble. 

We live in now. We don’t need to focus on it any more than to know that what we are doing is the right thing. But the past affects our every step- we may consciously think “this has happened before… if I do what I did last time I will end up where I did last time.” Or maybe

we subconsciously take the next step in one direction because some innate sense is telling us the other way has hurt us before. What we do also effects the next moment. The entire reason we take the next step. If the next decision you make doesn’t affect the next moment you live… where are you living? The eighty-second dimension? So in reality, 'livinig in the moment' does not even exist.

“To Kill a Mockingbird” brings us our past. It shows who America is, whether or not we want that past to have affected us. Because the fact is, the past does affect us. Not to mention we live in the ‘modern’ time.  I’m not saying we do not need to know what is going on, but that comes with living here. We know what is going on. I don't personally need a modern book for that. I can just read the news. We don’t live in the 1930s through the depression, we can only read about it.

In "To Kill a Mockingbird" we follow one of the most loveable and blunt characters of all time- six to eight year old Scout. To me, at least, she is an example of "becoming as a little child" and trust. Though she is careful with how she takes the world, she trusts those that are deserving of her trust. Like Mr. Dolphus Raymond says about Dill when he comes out of a courthouse crying because of the unfairness, "Things haven't caught up with that one's instinct yet. … Cry about the [crap] white people give colored folks, without even stopping to think that they're people, too." In this book, Harper Lee is able to touch our child side like no other book I have ever read.

 

Another wonderful thing about "To Kill a Mockingbird" is how we are traveling with Scout to make connections and learn things as she would. For example, one of the central themes of the book is 'to walk in another's shoes'. Scout shows us this with both Mayella and Boo Radley.

I can't imagine this not being part of school curriculum. It is a classic that has allowed so many to connect with each other- even to the older folks that also read it in high school.

"These are a few of my favorite things..."

Lists, lists. Did you know making lists is one of my favorite things to do? 

Whenever I am excited about something, I make a list pertaining to it in some way. Like trips? Whenever I don't have anything better to do, and I'm really excited for a trip, I make packing lists over and over and then carry them with me just in case I think of something to put on it. 

On Sunday, I always write a list of what I need to do the next week. Or in school, when I get frustrated with something, I write a list of good things. I like lists! 

I have this notebook that is just dedicated to lists and I carry it around most everywhere.

However... oh nevermind. I'm not going to pretend it's not fun to sit here and write lists about myself. Conceded. Maybe. Fine. Half the things I didn't realize before...  But it's nice to even list out to just yourself what YOU think. It's not even like a list to just make sure that everyone knows exactly who you are and how you think. It's just a sort of - heya! This is what I am like! Take it or leave it!

...Or not... uh...

This is not just a list to tell me to remember to find a place for my teddy bear in my backpack before I get in the bus. And now all you can see too! :D


10 Things I know to be true:

1.       People deserve the benefit of the doubt more than you think.

2.       Music touches more than your vocal chords can tell

3.       Dancing is a lot harder than it looks. That’s why it’s dancing. Apparently it’s supposed to look easy. That’s the art of it. I just look like a drowning Hippo.

4.       There are some things that you will never be able to understand… at least in this life. And that's okay.

5.    The Gospel is true. That means Joseph Smith was a true prophet, the Book of Mormon is a true prophet, Christ lives, and we can all have hope.

6.       Do don’t actually float when you jump off of something with an umbrella, but if you have a broomstick and a stick from your backyard, you can escape to Hogwarts. Not to mention that big rock next to your garden? It's a dragon egg.

7.       It is so easy to distract yourself now a days, yet it is so hard to focus.

8.       There are somethings that you think will never be evil, yet somehow someone figures out how to make it so. 

9.       You aren't going to be able to convince everyone you are right.

10.   You are not right as often as you think you are. Hence why people tend to get in fights. 

10 Things I can’t live without

Okay. I know that I could live without these. But you know!

1. My violin/MUSIC
2. My journal
3. Flowers
4. My fingers

Who remembers these books?

5. My water bottle
6. My desk
7. Books
8. Hugs
9. Soft and fluffy things
10. PAPER. I LOVE PAPER. 



10 Things I should have learned by now

1. How to focus.

2. How to keep my stupid room clean.

3. How to wake up in the morning.

4. How to get rid of these stupid headaches! Arg!

5. The song that is Suzuki book ten on the violin! Plus "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" :)

6. How to get a job :)

7. How to dance. 

8. Anything politics.

9. What these random terms are that I don't know that everyone else my age tells me that I don't want to know... (Or is it that they shouldn't know it? :D)

10. How to actually shut up once and a while :)

Quick mini lesson on how to play violin:
1- both of these guys are holding their bows badly. When you hold a bow like this,
it gets the oils from your hands on the bow, and makes it so it can't play. At all.
 I know from experience!
2- see how the devil is holding the violin? BLEH. You can't play like that.
You wouldn't even hold a violin like that when you are in resting position.
What is he doing? Thumping his chest with his violin?
Very manly, devil.

10 of my Greatest Fears (*dramatic music-bum bum buuuummm!!!)

1. Throwing up. Worst. Sensation. EVER.

2. The... being that is hiding in the dark of the basement that I can't see.

3. Running out of pencils and paper in the world.

4. Failing.

5. The death of anyone I know well.

6. Scorpions. Creepiest thing alive! Give me all the spiders you want! 

7. Hurting someone while driving. 

8. Hurting someone PERIOD.

9. Getting lost in Walmart. Do you know what that would say about my sanity?!

10. Loosing my memory. That. Would. Be. HORRIBLE.



10 Things, places, people etc, that make me the most happy

1. That smell that comes in the summer... It's this sweet smell that is only here. It comes around the beginning of the summer. I just have to sit in the evening cool and let it's sweetness cover me.

2. Bryce Canyon

3. The mountains. 'Nuf said.

4. Idaho

5. My family- Especially my immediate family. It's going to be hard to part with my bros, regardless how annoyed I've been with them before. But not just my bros, but my extended family too. I have a cousin that you cannot part me from. Even though she lives in Arizona.

6. My friends- THEY ROCK.

7. Pretzels. Sometimes when they are covered in chocolate. They are the best.

8. Arizona- who cannot love a place they have called home? Regardless what anyone says, Arizona is GORGEOUS. Sometimes really hot. But I love it.

9. My violin. My creation tool! Love it! Well, this plus music in general. I think I'd be one depressed person without music. Nothing to listen to, analyze, or create. Writing almost falls under this category too...

10. Accomplishing what I need too. But also accomplishing what I want to. Which usually falls under need to as well.



10 Places I will visit before I die

1. Grenoble, France. Home isn't home without missing it later.

2. While I'm in France I may as well visit Italy :)


3. The beach

4. The mountains. Over and over and over again!

5. Virginia. But also D.C. 

6. Wherever I'm living in the future I guess... (this is hard! I'm content...)

7. New York

8. Arizona

9. My brothers houses when they are married and have kids so my kids can play with them and us adults can talk about things that the kids think are important, but really we are just laughing at our own dumb jokes.

10. The mailbox.

Moral of the story? Lists can change the world!

Not really!

...Whoo!