An Inconvenient Truth: Too Afraid To Try

When reading Heart of Darkness, one can't help but feel frustrated. Frustrated with the main character for seeing such atrocities, and then playing the role of the victim because "no one understood what he was going through". Instead of changing the world and addressing the problem, he cowers away from it because he see's the truth--he sees that this is a problem that leaves him just a little too vulnerable.

In my short story, I've attempted to address what I feel are parasites to society, and provide a new take on them. It is because of my anger and discontent with the book that I felt the need to do something. There are problems in our everyday life that are simply too scary for us to look at, too scary for us to want to think about. . .too scary because they hit just a little too close to home.

In life (and in my short story), we are faced with problems each and everyday, yet we simply acknowledge the problem--if that--and then complain rather than actually attempt to change. While I don't believe that every and any problem can be solved, I do believe that if more tried, there would be more solutions and fewer problems.

I am just like the next person--I get scared and want to run away. I find myself face to face with problems that make me want to run and cry--and sometimes. . .I do. Yet it's because of this fear that I find myself running face first into the problem. If it's so scary for me, it must be just as scary for the next person standing next to me. I may not be able to solve the problem, or make it disappear, but I can at least bring attention and shed light on the monster in the closet.

So here I write again, thousands of problems running in and out of my mind, yet I find myself perplexed by this one inconvenient truth; many will point out the problem, yet there are few to point out solutions. Not  all solutions work, but how can we all be so sure if we have yet to try? At sixteen, I write this from the cliche teenage point of view--I want to change the world. I'm old enough to know the problem, yet young and naive enough to think I can still fix it.