Ethan Wickham Blog Post: My Mind

Here is the first blog post from our Social Media intern, Ethan Wickham. He is a writing student at USM, and we have decided that we would like him to post some of his writings on this page. We hope you will enjoy them and will continue reading both Ron Breazeale’s blogs and Ethan’s as well.

There is a place in my mind that I must enter. Wherever it is in my mind, I must enter. The world has become too intoxicating for me. I look around and everything tells me to run, so I do what they request. I ignore problems and pain. This gives me peace. I feel I’m able to live daily again. It’s an amazing feeling that I never want to let go of. So I never do. Time passes, and it becomes harder and harder to ignore the world. The place in my mind is shrinking from the weight of the world. I must find a new place to go. Somewhere, the world can’t find me. I can’t see the world. I refuse to see the world. It’s all too much. I will find a new place to hide that shelters me. Further into my mind I go and I begin to lose myself even more. 

However, I start to notice that the further I ignore the world, the worse the problems become. This thought scares me, and so I retreat back into my mind, but the thought is ever lingering in my head. I feel “shouldn’t someone be doing something? I can’t be the only one who notices these problems. So why is nothing being done?” The thought becomes so uncomfortable that I almost forget to hide. I begin to think about what’s going on, and then I realize that the world has become too harsh and everyone has turned away from it. Leaving harmful people to continue to do harmful things. People have decided that it’s too hard to fight and life’s too short to suffer for something better. There are still people who do fight, and everyone supports their fight, but no one wants to join. The constant mental anguish that comes with a fight doesn’t seem to be worth the struggle. 

Through this thought, I have realized what I’ve been doing is wrong. I, like many other people, have become complacent. In protecting myself against stress and trouble, I have caused the problems only to grow. The issues then become so enormous that when they become unavoidable, they seem unstoppable, so we continue hiding in our minds. The truth I have found is that the world is not a cruel place to run from. The world is an ever-evolving place that can be changed. There is nothing that can be set in stone, and so people can always make something better. Reality can become the dream with time.