My Creed

I believe that it’s a soda, not a pop, that drinking is for when you’re thirsty, and that love, beauty, light, and truth live, hidden in all of us. I believe that there are good people, there are people trying to be good, and that evil is a choice, not a person. I believe that happiness is basking in the company of those that love you, and my happiest moments are those fragments during which I first perceived love—staying up late talking to my little brother, asleep with one friend on each shoulder after a Chicago day-trip, sandwiched between them on the train ride home, listening to them breathing and knowing that I belong there. I believe that home is where you are accepted, where the lights are left on for you at night. Home can be held between my mother’s arms.

I believe that everyone is flawed, that death is a part of life; regret, a waste of time. I believe that the greatest gifts can’t be earned—we’ll always be falling short of deserving them.

I believe that I am overanalytical, I fear that I am crazy, I wonder if I’m creative enough to be an artist for my entire life.

I believe that everyone should be listened to, and my only enemy to that aspiration is time, who spites me for neglecting him. I believe that knowledge is a drink most sublime, and I don’t care if the cup is half empty or half full, I’m drinking the rest of it. I believe that the sky is a gift, and that all living things have value—something to teach, something to give.

All opinions based on reason have merit, and there is rarely a definitive right or wrong unless someone gets hurt. That’s never right. Ever.

I believe that the greatest sin one can commit is to injure another human being, because all human beings are the same at the core and by injuring another, I injure myself. I guess you could say I believe in karma. I believe that human beings are relatively simple—we all want the same things, but the depths of our experiences and how we perceive the world, how we go about attaining what we seek make us too complex for even ourselves to understand. I think that if I try my best to understand others, I might begin to understand myself because lets face it—aside from my name, my statistics there’s not much that I can fully comprehend. I do things because I think they’re right, because my experience has taught me no other way. There’s always something to be learned, life is a gift, and things never go perfectly if you expect them to. Best of all, I believe that anything is possible. Happiness? It’s possible if you want it bad enough. Vanilla ice cream and cocoa pebbles for breakfast? I’ve done it. Anything is possible.