It’s naive of humans to create art while our planet is dying. Sometimes I look at a sculpture and I wonder what else the building material could have been used for. I turn the pages of a book and see the tree being cut down, the forests shrinking, the animals being forced to move. At the same time, I’m drawn to art instead of practicality too. I wonder if this makes me irresponsible.
 

Faith is just desperation, but desperation for something larger than ourselves is noble. The idea that a large man with a beard is sitting in the sky watching over me comes from my own need to feel important, I think. But the idea that I have a responsibility to something beyond what I see, touch, and hear isn’t stupid.
 

Fear is common because it is easy. I’d rather have an excuse to avoid something than grow enough to confront it. The shortest solution to a problem is to stay afraid of it and let it be.
 

It’s optimistic that we plan for the future when we could die at any moment. Maybe I’ll never make it to college, but I certainly live my life assuming that I will. There’s hope in that.
 

Death’s inevitability is what gives life meaning. I don’t know if I would feel pressure to accomplish something valuable if I didn’t know my opportunity to do so would end.
 

Maybe I (unwisely) want to publish these thoughts because I think it will keep me permanent. Some things are probably better kept private, but recklessness is attractive. Hey, mom! It’s probably weird that you’re seeing me post thoughts on the internet, but I guess I have the urge to feel heard. I’m fifteen years old, I’m supposed to be stupid sometimes, right?
 

Is the way I write myself genuine or do I try to sound intelligent? Is my questioning my own integrity a last-ditch effort to appear more aware of the way I sound? Why do I care about what readers think of what I present to them? I don’t think I know my real motives for anything, much less for writing. Do things I do come from me, or from how I know other people will respond to them? I have no idea whether I have an inherent personality or if I am just a collage of attributes I’ve collected from people I love.
 

I might drive down a tunnel forever, if only for a sense of progress. There’s comfort in knowing you’re going somewhere if you never have to actually get there.
 

Beauty is detail, not pain. There’s no cruelty in real beauty; there is only meticulous focus and cosmic intricacy and the desire to create something compelling.
 

I wish love were clarity. Sometimes the only thing I know about my love for people is that it’s there.
 

If I can make my universe poetic, maybe my existence can be, too. I like the idea that I am perpetually caught between stars and roots, each stretching to reach a destination they can’t specify.
 

The dark settles my stomach. The spotlight can make me nervous, so it makes sense that invisibility would bring calm. Darkness doesn’t seem like a blanket, but it is a sense of peace.

I don’t think I know how lucky I am. And I’m not sure that I ever can.

I wish I loved the world more than I do. I want to have more appreciation for the things around me. I want to see rivers in the cracks of a phone screen or oceans in someone’s eyes, but sometimes life moves too fast to be especially lovable.
 

I don’t know what I’m chasing, but I’d like to think I’m pursuing something. Maybe if I keep running after it, it could show me what it is.
 

Love is visceral. It’s the only thing I know that is completely irrational, completely selfless, and completely out of my control. I don’t know why I’m so willing to fight for something I don’t understand, but I know that I am.
 

It’s natural to look for extra meaning. Doesn’t everyone what their life to have significance? I don’t think there's anything wrong with living in a little fantasy.
 

Sometimes things echo without coming back. Things, and also people.
 

Easy doesn’t mean wrong. And difficult doesn’t mean right. Not everything is worth a battle. Not everything needs one.
 

I always miss things before I leave them. Anticipating sadness is a pointless habit.
 

I’m sick of the teen-angst melodrama too, but I can’t seem to rip myself away from it. I don’t know if I would spend time reading what I’m writing right now. All I know is that thoughts are churning in my head and I want to put them somewhere, and I don’t think these sentences are only mine.