Bing. Boom. Bang.

I wrote this essay in 10th grade for English class. Our assignment was to write a ten page essay on a topic of your choosing. At the end we had to draw our own conclusions about the topic. Obviously, me being me, I chose to write about the universe, which is no easy task mainly because of the vastness of it all. It's not an easy topic to understand or explain, but I did so, I believe, to the best of my ability. (Mind you I am a 16 year old girl who just had taken her first Astronomy class and fell in both lust and love with all things cosmic as well as fantastic). The weirdness I always felt in me began seeping out my pores with the same satisfaction as the seeing gunk that's cleaned out of your skin with a blackhead mask. The unimaginable images and thoughts in my head were paintbrushed and talked about in the books I took out from the library. My reality and truth started to stretch and expand, and it will continue to. I started watch Neil deGrasse Tyson's Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey and I feel like I talk about some of the same things he does. One point that really sticks out to me is when he talks about other life forms on other planets and how there could be "creatures that inhale hydrogen, instead of oxygen." In my paper I say "inhale helium, instead of oxygen," but basically that means I'm a scientist and as smart as Neil deGrasse Tyson. (Wrote this in 2010, show came out in 2014). Read if you want, it's long but reading is cool once you've watched every possible tv series on Netflix. Oh also it's Montane style, don't really remember what that means but it's not supposed to have a thesis, the conclusion is supposed to come at the end (I think). Also they all have 'of the' in the title.

Of the Universe

Bright flashes of star particles and undetectable radiation flying around; you are alone, but you are not alone. It is empty space, but it is space. It is outer space. It is the universe. It is everything you are not accustomed to. The vacuum of space sucks the air out of your lungs, leaving you literally breathless. Your skin starts to stretch out as if the creator himself were chewing you up and blowing you like a bubble. Your blood starts to boil, leaving it ineffective in transporting oxygen to your body’s cells. The water on your tongue evaporating will be your last standing memory before you slip into unconsciousness. 

When we’re little we can’t visualize the universe. We look up at the sky and see the sun and clouds during the day, the moon and the stars at night. We know there are other planets, we might believe in aliens, but Earth is where we live, Earth is all we know. It is hard to fathom the immensity of the universe, that we are but a speck of dust in the never ending Cosmos. We learn about our solar system, we might know about our galaxy, but is it possible to even grasp other solar systems in all of the other 125 billion galaxies? 

From the earliest of time man has looked to the sky in awe and wonder. The first cave man had to have walked outside and thought “what is life?” Man understood we are a fraction of something larger, the universe. It is comprised of all of the matter and energy in existence.  It contains the planets, the sun, the stars, the Milky Way, and the other galaxies in its ever firm grip.  Away from city lights, on a clear night one can see a misty, glowing band spread out across the sky.  Many myths and legends were shared over centuries to describe the “milky way."

The Khoisan people of the Kalahari desert in southern Africa say that there once were no stars and the night was pitch black. It wasn’t until a girl who was lonely and wanted to visit other people, threw the embers from a fire into the sky and created the Milky Way. 

A Cherokee folktale tells of a dog who stole some cornmeal and was chased away. He ran to the north, spilling the cornmeal along the way. From then on the Milky Way was called Gili Ulisvsdanvyi "The Way the Dog Ran Away.

The Greek name for the Milky Way (Γαλαξίας Galaxias) is derived from the word for milk (γάλα, gala). One legend explains how the Milky Way was created by Heracles, as a baby, secretly sucking Zeus’s wife, Hera’s, milk when she was asleep. Although there were many myths; Galileo was the first to look at this haze with a telescope determining it contained countless stars.  Now we know we are viewing a part of a vast disk that contains billions of stars, that includes our sun, and immense amounts of interstellar dust.  This is our galaxy, which is called the Milky Way.

Aliens, Martians, ET, we’ve all seen these beings depict in movies, TV shows, and books. Greetings, we come in peace. It is all somewhat overdone. But what if other beings really were trying to communicate with us? The fact is the further away they are, the longer it would take for us to receive their signals. So if they are trying to contact us it is possible that we won’t obtain their signal for millions of years. But it’s not just aliens. There is an extremely small chance that out of the 125 billion galaxies that our galaxy, our star, our solar system, and our planet, is the only one harboring intelligent life. While there are extremophiles, organisms living in extreme conditions, living on Mars, and Europa (one of Jupiter’s moons) that's not the type of life I'm talking about. There has to be other humans out there. It is said there are a billion habitable worlds in each of the billion galaxies. They may not look like us, or talk like us, but they have to be out there, somewhere. 

Again us, as human beings living on our perfect world of Earth, look but don’t see. We don’t always see abstract things, or think abstract thoughts. Because even though we have adapted to our perfect conditions here, and couldn’t physically live in any other environment, doesn’t mean that there isn’t intelligent life somewhere that has adapted to a completely different environment. Maybe instead of breathing oxygen, they breathe carbon dioxide, or helium and they all have funny, high voices. Or maybe they don’t have voices at all. Maybe they speak in tongues or only communicate in some kind of sign language. We can’t be ignorant and say it’s absolutely impossible. Because there is a good chance it is possible. 

Bing, boom, BANG. The Big Bang. The beginning of it all. The start of the universe. 13.7 billion years ago. How is it possible? How can something as vast as the universe just start? The name of the theory is misleading. There was no ‘big bang’, no explosion. It was an expansion, a continued expansion that is still occurring to this day.  It basically all started with a singularity, a zone that defies physics, something that we can’t explain where it came from or why it appeared. They are thought to exist at the core of a black hole, a black hole being an area of intense gravitational pressure. But theories are not finite. They are just possibilities of what could have happened. And humans know everything right? Wrong. We could have a million Einstein’s hypothesizing and thousands of Galileo’s philosophizing and still never know everything there is to know.  

Looking up at the night sky you see pretty twinkling lights. Light pollution may obstruct your view but no matter where you are the stars are always somewhat there.  When you think of a star you don’t see it as a sun, but essentially that’s what most of them are. Our sun is a star, and most stars we see at night are suns. They have planets orbiting around them; we just can’t see them because they are not as bright. Stars are classified by Oh Be A Fine Girl, Kiss Me, or just O, B, A, F, G, K, and M. They are a lot bigger than you’d expect as well. The biggest known star is 2,000 times bigger than our star, and our Sun is big. It is 875,000 miles across and weighs 2,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg and is extremely dense. If you weigh 110 pounds on Earth, you’d weigh almost 3,000 pounds on the Sun (How).

Stars also aren’t all yellow; they just all appear yellow here from earth. O stars are considered "blue", B stars "blue-white", A stars "white", F stars "yellow-white", G stars "yellow", K stars "orange", and M stars "red." The color of the star has to do with its temperature. O stars are the coolest and M stars are the hottest. Our star is a G2 yellow dwarf; it is absolutely perfect for us. It is in the middle, not too hot that we’d burn up, and not too cold that we’d freeze. 

They begin as clouds of dust and gas, so far away that we’d need 100,000 years to reach them. Gravity gathers hydrogen gas and particles of dust and the clouds grow denser, squeezed tighter the hydrogen heats up to a fantastic 10 million degrees Celsius.  Nuclear fusion turns hydrogen into helium and the fire ignites, a star is born. Stars are much like people. They are born; they age, evolve, and eventually die. A little different from us, stars can live for billions of years. Their aging process has little to do with their environment, and everything to do with their size. Smaller stars burn cool and dim, fading away similar to Tinkerbell, only fairy dust and faith will not revive them. A medium star, like our sun, will burn for some billion years, but when it finally runs out of hydrogen fuel, and gravity grips the core harder the star grows hotter and the outer layers puff out, engulfing nearby planets in its fiery demise. Finally the outer layers blow off into space and a dense, solid core remains. The white dwarf remaining is a dying star. This will be the fate of our star, let’s just hope we’re all long gone by then. As for larger stars, they’re the rebels; they live hot and die young. They burn through their fuel in millions of years (sounds like a long time, but in terms of stars its rather short) and they don’t go quietly. Quite the opposite really. It goes out with a bang called a super nova. Gravity pacts the remains into something far denser than a white dwarf, something called a neutron star. When a star is really massive, they turn straight into black holes. 

Black holes are a surreal thing. We don’t know much about them because for one, they are light years away, and two they are basically invisible. You can’t technically see a black hole because once inside, nothing can escape its gravity; not even light. If you were to get close enough to a black hole, your image would be forever frozen at the edge, while your body would fall in being pulled apart and shredded into your original atoms. Supposedly there is a supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. It is small in size with a radius of less than 6.25 light hours, but it is 'massive' because of the astonishing amount of mass compacted into its small sphere. The next time you star gaze and find the constellation Sagittarius know that you are looking towards the center of the Milky Way. The huge black hole inside Sagittarius A (the name of the black hole) is invisible because light can’t escape, but it is there, modifying star formation at the core of the galaxy and gradually rising in size through the millennia. It could grow by capturing nearby stars, gas and dust and smaller black holes. We are about 25,000 light years away from that so we don’t need to be worried about a colossal black mouth sucking us up like Ramen noodles any time in the near future.

But what if black holes aren’t just lightless masses? What if they were like a wormhole and when you fell into a black hole, you’d fall into another universe. What if instead of being pulled into a million pieces, you were pushed out a white hole that is on the other side? What if there was a multiverse or parallel universes? Think of it like through the looking glass where Alice falls through the mirror into another dimension. It could be crazy with Cheshire cats and mad hatters, or it could be exactly like Earth. Lewis Carrol said, “Begin at the beginning and go on until you come to the end: then stop.” This is quite the logical statement, but also extremely complex at the same time. 

X, Y, Z, and time. The four dimensions we know of. String theorists agree that other dimensions do exist. Are our brains capable of imagining other dimensions even if they can’t be seen? There are thought to be no fewer than ten, which would mean that there are six that we not yet know of. We understand 2-D, 3-D, and somewhat time, but in order to wrap our head around this theory we need to become comfortable with this idea. Our minds may never be able to encompass this. Not unless some four-dimensional life-form pulls us from our three-dimensional Spaceland and gives us a view of the universe from its perspective. 

As time passes things change, people change, the world changes. The same goes for the universe. It is like a human going through different stages throughout their life. The universe started with the Primordial Age, starting with the Big Bang and the birth of time and existence. This stage lasted only 350 thousand and we are not 13.7 billion years into the second age, and its only just beginning. We are now living in the Stelliferous Era that hasn’t just brought us the stars and the planets, but also every single speck of matter in the universe.  In a mere million of years from now, a snap of the finger, this age will come to an end. And if it came in with a Bang, it sure as hell is leaving with one. The degenerate Age will come next, when the last stars burn and die. When the planets fall from their orbits and in the darkness of space matter begins to decay. After a truly unfathomable length of time, black holes will be the only thing remaining. A fourth age that far exceeds any time that has ever gone before will take its place. But even black holes cant last forever. Little by little their thermal energy will leak away until ultimately they too will disappear. So what does this mean for the future of time? Does the death of our universe mean time is destined to run out, or is time really eternal without end? Even as the final black hole evaporates, a final fifth age is beginning, the age of the photon in which time finally fragments into total disorder. When all that remains of our cosmos are invisible, indestructible, low energy light particles (Five). This theory would link time to being eternal. Looking at the big picture the time that we feel passing, the time we know and trust, may be something of an illusion, an illusion that allows us to make sense of our place in this tiny corner of the cosmos.

It is inevitable that life on Earth will end eventually but we should really stop and think how lucky we have it here and how great Earth is for our specific type of life. First of all Earth is the perfect distance away from both the Sun and the Moon. It perfectly lines up with the Sun during a solar eclipse and perfectly lines up with the Moon during a lunar eclipse. If the Earth were anywhere else in the solar system that would not at all be possible. If it were any closer to the Sun it would be too hot, any further, too cold. And our Moon is just right as well. It affects our ocean tides, gave us our stable axial tilt, and contains many valuable metals on its surface. We have an atmosphere. That might not sound like something special and helpful but it is absolutely crucial for our safety. Our atmosphere protects us from the suns harmful rays, and a lot of space junk that come flying at Earth because most of it gets burned up while entering the atmosphere. The gravity on Earth is strong enough to hold onto the atmosphere, but not too strong that we aren’t able to lift up out feet. We not only have the Oxygen we need in order to live, we have living plants constantly producing it for us. We don’t have to do any of the work other than breathe in and out the fresh air that surrounds us. We have an abundance of free water in solid, liquid, and gas forms. And we live in conditions were food can stably grow and flourish. 

The universe is a strange and mysterious place. We will never have all of the answers to our burning questions. We will never fully understand why the universe is the way it is, the immensity of it all. But maybe that’s okay? Maybe that’s the whole point of the universe. We slowly figure things out, find true what we thought false; find false what we thought true. We clear up misconceptions. We gradually put together this thing we call life like a never ending jigsaw puzzle with a missing piece.  Maybe this whole time we’ve been desperately looking, desperately searching for the meaning of life when it’s been right in front of us the whole time. Maybe the whole meaning, the whole purpose of life, is for us to figure out the purpose of life. And the universe is here to guide us, point us in the right direction. 

Feelings are never bad and emotions are never scary

I've had this written for  about a week but now it's finally ready...

My feelings are very intense right now, so much that it's kind of hard to process enough to put into words to say out loud, actively into the universe. If you know me at all, like literally at least enough to see the glitter puked on my face, you'd know my obvious stance on the current president elect. I do not support him, and I can't understand how anyone with a conscience can support him. Now I'm not here to bash conservatives, or even bash the president elect himself; I'm here to discuss how I feel about it. I'm here to discuss how (I believe to my understanding) other ppl feel about it. Because over the last few weeks I've been suppressing my feelings more than usual, but I'm also starting to come to terms with the importance of feelings and the drastic need for emotion. Feelings are never bad and emotions are never scary. My problem is I either feel everything too deeply, or not at all. It is either my Herculean strength, or my Achilles heel depending on the situation. In our countries current situation I'm feeling deeply to the point I can't talk about it. I can't form adequate sentences in my mind or even thoughts for that matter. I'm feeling gloomy and cloudy, but I know the sun is starting to peak out. I'm desperately trying to numb my anger and fear and redirect that energy into something positive. I want to march, I want to shout, I want what's right to be heard loud and clear. Because what's happening in our country right now is not right. It's not just. It is callous. It is ruthless. It is hatred dug back up from the deepest crevices of our nation. Both parties are at fault here, I know that. I fully understand the hypocrisy in my hate for trump while preaching love trumps hate. I know it's there but it's tough not to be. It's tough to sit back and respect peoples opinions, when their opinions disrespect someone's life. It's tough to sit back and accept that while not all of the president elects supporters are racists, bigots, sexists, ableists, xenophobic, homophobic, transphobic, etc. they're throwing their support at a person who is in fact a racist, bigot, sexist, ableist, xenophobic, homophobic, transphobic, etc. and they can't seem to understand the harm in that. His supporters can't seem to understand the fear because they have never personally felt it. "Privilege is when you think something is not a problem, because it is not a problem to you personally." The problem with this line of thinking is that we're all one. With each other, with nature, with the universe. If the Earth goes aflame we're all burning with it. So why alienate, subordinate, and hate a group of people? A word I see floating around a lot lately is "dramatic." Us "snowflake millennials" are just being sooo dramatic because we didn't get our way. First of all Tomi you are the definition of privilege so please hop off the swivel chair from your high paying tv gig you received almost right after you graduated college and stop oversimplifying real issues and real emotions. You don't understand how marginalized groups feel because you are not apart of one other than being a woman, but you're a white woman so it barely counts. But regardless, when did being dramatic become negative? Where did this negative connotation come from because it is no where in the definition... When you google the word it says "relating to drama" and "sudden, striking." It never once says it should be used as an insult. I found a great article on line about it and it said calling someone dramatic "emphasizes a negative connotation to how you think they should be feeling rather than how they are actually feeling." He goes on to say that it is telling the person a lot of misconceptions. You're telling them they're just acting or looking for attention. But this completely counteracts the message we like to shove down people's throats of being themselves. He beautifully says, "Since when is it bad to be able to feel things so greatly because your heart is bigger than the cruelty of the world?" The answer is it's not. Feelings are never bad and emotions are never scary. What is scary is the fact that there even is cruelty in the world. What is scary is the fact that the world is scary. And we don't need a leader to make it even scarier for anyone. We don't need a leader that talks about his daughter like she is a thing rather than a person. We don't need a leader who wants to put up walls to divide while we are fighting every day to break down barriers. We don't need a leader who makes fun of disabled people as if they don't matter just as much as him. We don't need him as a leader. I am scared. My friends are scared. People all over the world are scared and I can hear their tears and feel their pain because they are my tears and my pain. I love so strongly and feel so unapologetically that I cannot justify our president elects actions. Our president elects words. That rip through my core and ache me all over. Feelings are never bad and emotions are never scary but I feel bad and I am scared and it is not dramatic and it is not unwarranted. I just hope Trump supporters can understand that.

To the White Privleged Girl Who Doesn't Think We Need Feminism

I'm really happy to read that you don't believe we need feminism, but that's only because YOU don't. Women in the US do have a lot of rights... but what about everywhere else??? What about in India where women are being brutalized with acid by their own husbands? What about the women that comprise two thirds of all illiterate adults worldwide? What about the 125 million girls and women who live in the 29 countries that still practice female genital mutilation? What about the little girls in Yemen who are forced to marry men decades older than them and if the refuse are beaten, imprisoned, or murdered? The list goes on and on... I'm really glad when you wrote your article you were only thinking about yourself and all your other white, blonde friends, but this is a global issue. I also think before you write an article bashing feminism, or anything for that matter you should at least Google the word to understand the true definition, not just what you believe it means. Merriam-Webster dictionary defines feminism as: the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunisties. No where in there does it say "women are superior to men" or "women want to go Planet of the Apes on men and wipe out the whole male population." That is not at all what feminism is about. And yes of course their are radical feminist that believe that, but there are radicals in any group, that's always to be expected. But radical right wing groups don't discredit the whole Republican Party, therefore neither should "feminazi's." (Which by the way is incredibly offensive.) You also really like to group all feminist together like we're some kind of cult robots who all think exactly the same way. I'm not really sure why you even brought up chivalry because that has nothing to do with feminism. Not all feminists believe it's "old fashioned" for a male to pick up a check or fix a flat tire. I'm sure there are some feminist out there that believe that, but you can't just overgeneralize like that to prove a point. I actually do agree with you when you say male and females are different both mentally and physically, but I think that's very obvious. I would say though if there was a 220 pound women who wanted to try out to be in the NFL I don't see why she shouldn't be able to. Remember not all women are fragile and 110 pounds. Now when you discuss women in the work force again, you are only thinking about white women. Us white women make 78 cents to a males dollar, while minority's only make 64 cents. But that's not you're problem right? Out of 178 countries surveyed in 2015, only 18 of them didn't have some form of legal segregation against women, and the US wasn't one of them. And what about the women who live in the 18 countries where they need their husbands permission to work? The fact that you think "feeling the need to put down the opposite gender for every problem you endure" is what feminist do, just proves how ignorant you are. Again, I agree with you when you say it's ok to be vulnerable and that men and women are meant to compliment each other because they are. And as expected in your conclusion you say "I don't believe that being a female entitles me to put down men or claim to be the 'dominant' gender." But again, that's not at all what feminism is about. At all. Ever. It is simply about equality for EVERYONE. So by saying we don't need feminism you are saying we don't need equality...

(My last concern is that you say that there is just men and women when gender is not on a binary scale, but that's an issue for another time.)

If you want to take a look at the article I am referring to here it is.

Are My Mental Health Issues Showing?

I’ve learned and been through a lot since I last posted. The smorgasbord of mental health issues I melted into weaved its web inside my brain and somehow gained full control. I'm in the process of gaining back the controller that is my life, but it's a lot easier said than done. Depression feels a lot like a thief in your body stealing your motivation, concentration, appreciation, and a lot of other "tion" words (since the suffix does mean state or quality). Basically your whole mental state is diminished and your headspace is not in a safe place (rhyming is fun). If you are anything like me, your thoughts eat away at you and make you feel like shit. And even though everyone around you claims you sparkle like the fuckin sun, it doesn't matter. Literally nothing anyone says or does matters, because you don't feel like you matter. I'm not saying they aren't doing the right thing-- I know everyone desperately wants to help me.. it's just that you can't accept help until you accept yourself.

For me it’s not just depression either, it’s also anxiety onset by my broken ankle. The silly thing is I never understood anxiety so I always said I didn’t have it… turns out I really struggle with it. Whenever I’d get anxious I’d tell myself I was being dramatic, that no one was looking at me-- no one cares. But sometimes that isn’t enough. Sometimes it’s far too difficult to get yourself out of that headspace in a healthy way. Looking back at my blog I realize I wrote a post about hating that people would stare at me while I was on crutches-- now I know that was Mr. fuckin anxiety grabbing me by the balls.

Lots of mental health issues often combine to form one big super issue, like a rubber band ball.. the problem gets bigger and bigger. What my doctors originally thought was ADHD is now seeming like it's bipolar disorder, which is a terrifying thing to accept let alone type out for the world to finally see. I often feel violated by my own body, like it has turned against me… I ended up hospitalized for a week right after Christmas because my thoughts became evil, instead of the loving friend they are supposed to be. And that happens a lot. To a lot of people.. so I’m not afraid to admit it. You go through physical therapy when you break a bone (which I know from experience), you go through chemotherapy when you have cancer, and when your brain is broken you go through group therapy, or cognitive therapy, or whatever therapy is right for you. Therapy is therapy. There is absolutely no reason for mental health issues to be stigmatized.

Why do we force ourselves into a silent struggle when we are well aware that other people feel the exact same way.. that other people are hurting in the exact same way we are? It doesn’t make sense to me and I hope to see that change one day. But for now all we can do is talk, and learn, and grow and tell ourselves what we’re feeling inside is okay. That the emotions we so badly wish to reject are essential in feeling the good. It’s difficult to untrain your mind something you’ve been taught but it’s not impossible. The word itself says “I’m possible!!” (Audrey Hepburn <3)