Think.

As I explained in my first entry, the last thing I wanted to do when starting a blog was to put myself on a schedule and add even more stress to the headache and heartache that comes with being a senior in college. It doesn't make much sense to me to put so much pressure on primarily a hobby that I'm making no money on, especially when I have so many other seemingly important things to direct my focus towards. Business trips to Wall Street and the MLB Winter Meetings in Nashville, graduate school applications, job interviews- blog entries just don't measure up on the same long-term scale.

However, although I don't have a quota that I need to fill, I did plan to write a little bit more often than once a semester. At this pace, my blog is going to die a short-lived and underdeveloped trilogy... So to combat that, I'm sitting down (again restless at 2AM), punching the keys on my computer, and waiting until my brain decides that the endless and aimless mental wandering just isn't as valuable as a good night's sleep.

So let's jump into it. In following the same theme of my first entry, I am going to continue to write about the things I think about most, no matter how serious or how silly. And how much more fitting could it be to think about... thinking.

That's right: thinking.

I'm not talking about taking time for yourself and pondering about your life. I'm not talking about the stressful and inescapable thoughts of the future, your potential career and family, or that sort of thing. I'm talking about critical thinking. Taking an idea, rolling it around in your head, and weighing how much it makes sense to you, how closely you agree with it, and how right or wrong you think it is.

"I think, therefore I am." Ever heard that one? Probably not, because it comes from some irrelevant and unknown Frenchman named Descartes that proved over and over that he didn't know what he was talking about. Right? I wish everyone could relate to this quote as closely as I can.

Critically thinking has been a natural, yet important part of my life since a somewhat early age, and it would make the most sense to start when I was a real young'n. However, I'm a fairly firm believer that childhood is pretty meaningless in this context. Sounds dark, right? Let me explain.

When you think about life, there are a seemingly infinite number of outcomes, shaped by a seemingly more infinite amount of factors, decisions, accidents, and happenings of mere chance that shape these said outcomes. When you place it in the grand scheme of things, childhood is somewhat weightless; the decisions you make don't have a huge amount of influence on who you ultimately become. Mainly, this is because your parents are still making most of your decisions for you.

Now, I don't mean to say that there aren't things that can happen in childhood that shape the rest of your life. I also don't mean to say that environment is unaffecting. And I really don't mean to say that childhood isn't valuable. I'm just saying that the idea of childhood is pretty standard for the average American.

Learning develops through a standard K-12 system. Kids socialize through this same system, but also through sports, clubs, and other things of that sort. Creativity grows through art, music, simply reading and watching television- you get my point. There is a model.

Now, the interesting part is the unique spin that parents apply to that model. Think of it as an instructor assigning an open-ended project where the student is to paint a picture, say a sunset (typical, I know). Of course, if you are following me, the instructor is society, the student represents a parent, and the painting that is created is a child.

When the student is finished, they will have a completed painting of a sunset. Some could have used more orange. Some could have been rounder or better shaped. Some will be prettier than others based on the attention they were given, the time the student invested, and the overall painting (parenting) ability of the student. But, if the student did a good job, then his or her masterpiece will fit in nicely with the rest of the other paintings in the collection and the instructor will be pleased.

The paintings are then compared and graded, picked apart and criticized. Ultimately, they are put on the wall or in a museum, they are recycled, or they meet some other random end.  And so ends childhood...

In my brain, childhood isn't really a period. It doesn't end at 13, when the newly added "teen" at the end of your age means new self-entitled enlightenment. It doesn't end when someone heads to high school or gets their first car, and begins to accept the new responsibilities and freedoms that accompany these things. I don't think childhood even ends at 18 or 21 when we're told it's all over and it's time to grow up. After all, you probably know many adults that are mere children when it comes to their decision-making and thought processes.

In my brain, childhood is a mindset. You still agree with and believe in everything that your parents and teachers pass on to you. You don't question things. You don't think.

My time came when I entered middle school and found myself surrounded with kids who weren't all that similar to the ones I was accustomed to being around. After all, I went to an elementary school with roughly 200 kids (this is tiny compared to a lot of people I've met at Mizzou from the Chicago area, Texas, and the Northeast). My elementary school classmates and I were all in the same Cub Scout packs, we played on the same baseball, soccer, and basketball teams, and the closeness of our parents sometimes made us uneasy. Therefore, when I entered middle school, surrounded by new people, new upbringings, and teachers who preached this new idea that we were now "young adults", I embraced it.

Maybe it was premature, because my parents and I butted heads on things that I probably didn't understand and wouldn't understand until late high school or college. Nonetheless, it happened, and I'm glad it happened because I like to think it gave me a head start. By the time I was officially a "grown up", I was well equipped. I was willing and able to advise my friends about things going on in their lives, and confident enough in my thoughts to share them in a blog (actually quite terrifying, if you've ever considered it).

Now, as I close in on college graduation and find myself honing in on what I truly think of as an adult, thinking has become comforting. We live in a world where politicians, businesses, the media, and thought leaders tell us what to think. I'm a firm believer that humans are inherently good (thank you for the 11th grade literature archetype, Mrs. Mann), but it would be foolish to not acknowledge the self-serving biases of these said people.

It's up to you to decide what you think is right and wrong, and good and bad. There are some universal wrongs, like meth and cancer and terrorism and murder, but the majority of things are up to you to decide. Think about war. Think about the universe. Think about religion. Think about the social things ruffling the feathers of people all over the country and even outside of it.

If I could ever influence the entirety of the world to do one thing, it would be to think. We're all the same until we start to think critically for ourselves, and chances are no one sees things exactly the way you see them. Don't allow the system to treat you like a child. Think.