Creative Non-Fiction Essay - NCTC Students .....................................................................pages

FIRST PRIZE

How to Navigate Being

Jennifer Vidana

What does it mean to navigate? What does it mean to be (as a being)? Seems redundant to go into the definitions, but get a grip reader(s), because we are diving deep.

To navigate something means to coordinate and direct a path, typically in form of a blueprint, or map of the sorts.

Limits- What are limits? Start there. We start somewhere. For what? To finish. Explore that further. What is your purpose? Purpose in terms of the present now is soul-searching, and knowing the true core of oneself. In terms of the future, one’s life purpose serves to help others via natural abilities. What is creativity? What is a thought process? Creativity can be anything from free-range of acts and emotions translated into a form of art, to essentially just marinate in your imagination and use those juices for the betterment of yourself and the world. After all, they are one in the same.

Tenacity is the reason one must repeat until you have acquired full comprehension of perfection as is. You cannot fully understand something until you have gotten a full grip of it. Everyone learns differently, we have been aware of this for some time now. Work with what you got and use your creativity to maneuver your way around things that are best suited to you. The one thing we have control over in being, is the way you choose to react in any given situation and under any circumstances.

Find a way to enjoy surviving, that is what life is. You are guaranteed a perfect balance of willingly enduring trials and tribulations and reaping the benefits of doing so.

At times our gut feeling, or otherwise known as our inner voice, magnetically pulls us to a certain direction in life. These paths can bring heartache or resilience. Sometimes the paths will bring you enlightenment or leave you in the dark, but nonetheless it was tailored just for you. That in itself means the world. Energy never stops and that is all that we are, so be as you are. Pave your own path, and walk it.

We’ll get there. We need structure to succeed, or more so we are beginning to learn this may be a possibility to rejuvenate the Earth once again. We are our biggest critics and it is of the utmost importance to come to terms with this. There is nothing in the world that is thrown at us that we cannot handle. It is in our rights as individuals to express ourselves and defy another person’s beliefs; in fact, it is encouraged. Doing so keeps one grounded when you take from it what you must. Diffuse this situation of its nutrients. Remember, the more you know, the less you know. Not to be rhetoric, but as far as we know, knowing is half the battle. Understanding and embodying such things are when the ball gets rolling. I am a poet, I am an ambitious college student, and I am many others things that follow. As there are many ways for things to be said, there are rights and wrongs, truths and lies. The beauty of it all is that only are we the ones who can choose. “Every action causes a reaction.” Easy rhyming, easy timing. As a writer, and I can call myself a writer, no one is going to care until something is said, done, and then gone. Until then, rinse and repeat.

This message is for those who are slowly but surely awakening.

Do you find yourself asking these exponential, existential questions in a mid-day daze, or in the middle of the night?

Presented below is a real-life human thought process:

Let us get deep, and dark. Literally. Turn off the lights, close your eyes, or do not. Who are we to tell you each other what to do? When you are not reading this, let yourself think freely, intrusive thoughts and all, once you willingly allow the flow, you realize things are not so scary after all. Facing your demons and learning that they are not even as they seem, because they are too misunderstood if you get to know the lost. Classic psychology, classic Little Albert, classical conditioning. Repetitive, hyperbole intended.

Cliches have a word to describe them for a reason...a concept to think about.

Cliches too, seem redundant. How did the word cliche get its name? What is its origin? Why do we constantly say and ask the same things?

Here is a cliche for you “Actions speak louder than words.”

Here is another one “The demanding thing about life is accepting the simplicity of it.”

And another one “The truth will set you free.”

I can go on....

Their repetitiveness is merely a distraction from the truth. We scoff at the idea of clichés. What does it really cost us to apply raw truth to our lives?

At first, the truth will brew unsettling emotions, but it is true that it will eventually set you free. Not everyone experiences pain the same, but pain is not necessarily a measurement either. Alongside happiness, time and being. We are but a spiritual entity undertaking a physical experience and not the other way around. We must not love things and use people, but the other way around.

Is it peace we are searching for? Harmony? Understanding? Knowledge? Does the saying not go, “the more you know, the less you know?” Why do some of us willingly keep chasing that high of “knowing” if we “know” there must me be a come down to follow-up?

The search stops, and we now begin to navigate being. As this is what we were searching all along, how to be, being left to be, and leaving others to be. This is the ultimate state of harmony. Using all energy, good and bad, to transmute the ultimate being of everyone and the world.

Composing this is merely a flow of thoughts to be interpreted by one as they need, want, and or desire. This composition serves no purpose other than using words as energy. We will take from it, that of what will benefit us. Leave the rest to fly away, as a leaf in the wind.

Sincerely, Your Reflection

Understanding

Ashly Morales

I was by no means neglected as a child. I had everything I could’ve wanted, and maybe even more. I was surrounded by friends and their parents, while my own were always hard at work, doing their best to provide for me and my siblings the upbringing they were robbed of. I believed I had the world in my hands. Young, naive, innocent. At the moment, I was happy, and that’s all I needed. But I had transferred schools twice at that point with no idea that a third campus was soon to take me in. I have no remembrance of this, but my mother recently told me of a memory of sometime before the fourth grade she seems to laugh at now.

“I’m sick of moving schools, I hate making new friends, I want to stay here.”

She recounted it with a smile like I was nothing more than a child having a tantrum over spilled milk. My tongue was acrid with the taste of an insult readying itself to fire at her. Perhaps the lack of empathy was what welcomed the permanent replacement of a friend in my life — to fill the void my parents should have occupied.

I was 14 when Depression wrapped her hands around my neck. It wasn’t tight enough to suffocate me, but it was enough to hush me whenever I wanted to scream for help. She would sit with me on the darkest of nights, hollow eyes laughing as the weight she pressed on my chest became too much for me to bear. She kept me quiet, and like a trained dog, I obeyed.

I had no sense of self-identity at that age. I was merely a puppet whose strings were being pulled by those around me. If they wanted me to laugh, I did. If they wanted me to agree, they had me hooked. If my supposed friends wanted me to partake in the humiliation of others, well, by no means was I to refuse. I made people that cared about me laugh, so surely, I must have been doing something right. When they wanted me in the conversation, they themselves would be the ones to include me. Other than that, I was a mere toy, kept hidden until I was needed.

I sometimes wish to look back at my middle school years, just to see if I can pinpoint where exactly it all went wrong. Was it when my mother laughed at my dream of becoming an author? It was the first time I had mentioned anything about the dreams I had for my future, and I was humiliated. It’s one of the few memories I have from the time I can’t seem to forget. It could have gone wrong the first time I let the Numb make a home in my skull. I needed a remedy, and to feel pain instead of nothing was too good to be true. Maybe my life fell apart when I realized the lack of originality my being held. I was a puzzle built with, what I believed to be, the best qualities of those around me. A toxic mindset that belittled those around her, offensive, and borderline racist humor...I built my throne upon lies and soon lost sight of who I once was.

Death taunted me at 17. He stood on the road, enticing me, begging me to come closer. And like the desperate idiot I was, I took the bait, only to come face to face with a silver four-door vehicle. It had missed me by a hair. Almost being hit by a car hadn’t alarmed me, it was how unfazed I was by it that drew fear in my chest, squeezing my lungs enough to pull me back to the earth I wished to disappear from. It was ironic, as this happened on my way to therapy, where I should have been getting better. I wasn’t.

I have painted my mother as a villain. In terms of my mental health, she was the worst of them all. I don’t blame her; she has nothing to apologize for. She and my father did their best to raise three children. Is that a crime? No, but my mental health would argue otherwise, and that’s where I feel like the villain.

The progress I’ve made, in my eyes, is remarkable. It’s been almost two years since my first encounter with

Death, and while she does knock on the door sometimes, and I do let her in, I haven’t been tempted to accept her offering. Depression comes along everywhere I go, looming above my head, ready to flatten my joy at every chance she has. I’m at an age where I fully comprehend my parents’ sacrifices, and I thank them for it, but healing comes with time, not understanding.

I feel that, because of my age, people would blame my emotions on teenage angst and rebellion. Would that opinion change if these words didn’t exist?

Food for Thought

Hayden Huber

I was seven years old and the battery of tests was long—maybe three or more hours—and each spanned several days. I don’t recall much about the questions asked but I do remember my mom and dad bringing back Kentucky Fried Chicken. I was easily motivated by food. Frankly, it seemed like a pretty good deal to me. Something was not quite right with me and we didn’t know what so we asked the experts.

For as long as I could remember, I’d constantly be moving, speaking whenever about whatever, always fiddling with something in my hands. I would rush through assignments, only to turn my paper over and start methodically working on a detailed drawing. My teachers would constantly call me out and try to redirect me. On the third day of school, my second-grade teacher called my mom at home.

“I’ve never had a child who had such a hard time with self-control,” Mrs. McClure said. “I think he needs to be held back another year.”

But it wasn’t that I was a bad kid who couldn’t follow the rules, as my mother explained. I just couldn’t keep still. Ever. My diagnosis: Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

And while I wouldn’t characterize my ADHD diagnosis as something that ‘defines’ me, it’s been an integral part of my personality.

One of the many benefits of being an ADHD child: perseverance. I begrudgingly attended all the programs my parents unearthed to help me. There was vision therapy, enrollment in my elementary school’s Multisensory Teaching Approach (MTA) program, study skills coaching with a learning disorder psychologist, a teacher for summertime tutoring. And, man, all that diagnostic testing at Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children. It was a beatdown.

I’m now grateful for the help and, in fact, I’m the Cinderella story. I went from being a struggling and unorganized pupil in elementary school to becoming a consistently high-performing student who makes daily checklists to prioritize all my classes. I’ve also learned to recognize when my inattentiveness is affecting my ability to perform tasks. Through the combination of medication, prioritizing, and hard work, I have been able to adapt. I may not be the smartest kid in the room, but I’m one of the hardest working.

Today, as I review the psychologist’s write-up, I am amazed at how the diagnostic conclusions accurately, and surprisingly, foreshadow how my personality and idiosyncrasies have developed and shaped me into the person that I am today. The following is an excerpt from my Neuropsychological Evaluation, dated 09/15/2010: “He is either under aroused by dull, repetitive tasks or hyperaroused by interesting ones, which explains the situational variability. To counteract this, he may perform quickly to ‘rev up’ the situation and make it more stimulating in order to complete it.”

The assessment was dead-on. My constant need for movement, my extensive need for detail, and desire for creative outlets were all addressed in this ten-year-old report. Whether consciously or subconsciously, I gravitate toward these in my study habits and have found success in doing so.

Yes, I still struggle daily with managing my ADHD. That said, I’ve learned to thrive given the circumstances outside of my control. I am excited about the next chapter of my life. And while my ADHD might not be who I am, I know that it had a hand in who I am today and who I will become in the future. And despite all the years of testing and the struggles I had to endure in order to get to where I am now, it was all worth it. Besides, I got Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Dear God

Arrey Tang Enow

Dear God,

I am called little Johnny, but did I get a choice to choose what I’ll like to be called, did I get a choice to choose my gender and family, did I get a choice to choose what race and family status I will be born into to? Of course my opinion wasn’t asked. I was just sent into this world, not knowing what to expect, and I was forced to abide and dwell in circumstances I did not bargain for. I was born a black man and into a low income community, where there was no guarantee that I would ever escape this bondage. My dad is in prison, I never got the chance to meet him because he is serving a long sentence a crime he did not commit but he was at the wrong place at the wrong time. My mom is a maid, struggling day and night to ensure that my younger brother and I do not ever go hungry or lack the necessities of life. She barely gets any rest, always caring and sacrificing for us, God bless her heart.

Growing up was not easy. Other kids bullied me because I had no father around me. I haven’t really had a father figure and I am still trying to figure out what being a man is like, as my dad was never around to teach me. At school, I met some guys who would often beat me up and bully me because I refused to join their gang and indulge in their drug selling acts. I had recently graduated high school with honors and I had applied to one of the top universities in the country. But my application want really important to them because of my race and financial status. There aren’t really any scholarship opportunities open to me during my time and since I didn’t play sports, I wasn’t given a chance. I am into aeronautics and I really want to know how it works but I don’t have the opportunity to do so.

Recently I heard one of my female neighbors scream because her ex boyfriend tried to steal her baby from her. I rushed to her place and tried to save her and her baby and I had my younger brother follow me along. When we got there we were able to save her baby and tried to stop him but he resisted. So we called 911. After the police officers arrived they yelled at us and pointed a gun at us and asked us to lie down with our hands behind our backs and we were handcuffed. We were barely even given a chance to explain what had happened if the lady we tried to help didn’t come to our defense. This is not the first time I have had such encounter with the police. I’ve been pulled over by the police so many times and I have barely been able to escape their torture.

Talking about torture my neighbor Darnell, a guy I grew up with was recently shot by the police as some paranoid white woman called the cops as he was taking a stroll down the street and walked past her house as nothing was ever done about his case. This is one out of so many circumstances I have had to face. I wish I had a chance to be born different. Maybe in some other country under a different race, gender or family circumstances. Some where in which my skin color would not matter in getting a decent job. Some where in which I can easily climb the hierarchical ladder without my gender being put as a factor. Some where in which I can grow and reach my full potential, some where in which my fellow black men are treated with respect and are given an equal opportunity to climb the ladder.

Some people may say that we are no longer under the times of segregation, but racism and discrimination is a great problem my current society still faces. There’s are a lot of stereotypes. Just because I keep dreads to display my culture people tend to avoid me and think I am unsafe around them and I am a criminal. Mum just got I’ll and I have had to take up a full time job to help pay her hospital bills. They say she

has a benign carcinoma I hope it is curable and I don’t have to lose her. The hospital bills are already at about $30,000 and they keep on increasing day after day. The job of providing for my mum and my younger brother who is currently under age to get a job has fallen on me. I’m charged with all this responsibility that I do not know how to handle. I am always stressed out at work and I am having a hard time focusing. The income I made is not even enough to cater for both of them and I am currently in debt. I don’t think I can continue doing this for the rest of my life because the income is too little. I want to go to college so I can make something out of myself and escape this hood that generations of my family have been trapped in. They said they desegregated us and have tried to give us equal rights, but little has been done to help us escape from this bondage generations of us have been trapped by. We haven’t have any programs to alleviate our standards of living. And they have failed to mentally uncondition us from all the negative mentality of inferiority and and that we can never amount to nothing. This are mentalities we have held for generations, and till nothing is done mentally by counseling and giving the black community encouraging incentives like scholarships and awards for black people our community will always remain backward.

Look at the percentage of black students in prestigious schools, they are negligible, We are often trapped in crimes because they say an idle mind is the devil’s workshop. When will our society change. When we things ever be equal? Though we have partially fulfilled Martin Luther’s vision, this society still has a long way to go. It’s a pity that the richest black man in the world not even an American comes in at number 162 in the world. Just to show how backwards our community is. There’s a lot of change we have to make and a lot of progress to be made. That’s why I am writing his letter to you God. I wish I was born different but I guess it is too late. Hoping to hear from you son.

Yours Sincerely Little Johnny