A Houdini Complex

Hullo Internet,

I just want to say that the internet is a wonderful place and I am very thankful that it exists. Today, for a Friday, I did not have summer school to attend and it was a nice carefree day to relax. I woke up around eight, worked out, and did homework in a leisure fashion. But the amazing thing was that I felt like I traveled all around the world today and felt very positive about reality and the cosmos. How this happened was I was basically on Youtube for about three hours after accomplishing some things on my to do list. Such tasks included finishing a take home exam, a reading journal, and etc; I took mini-breaks for Youtube and spent literally three hours on the Vlogbrothers Channel because I discovered a playlist called Thoughts from Places.

This plethora of video was a playlist that consisted of the brothers, Hank and John Green if you do not know them. I recommend highly to subscribe and learn so much from them! A brother duo with one being a writer and the other a musician; they are AWESOME! They dedicate messages to each other with each video, alternating between each brother's point-of-view, and they are smart, witty, and totally relateable to watch as they go off on their adventures, living their lives to the fullest!

Anyways, I was watching their playlist Thoughts from Places and learned so much from all of these places. I went to Amsterdam, Small Town America, London, DC, North Carolina, all these places that accumulated across the world. I was given a privilege to watch and observe all these fantastic places where all these odd yet incredible things happen all across the world. Sometimes, it feels like I was part of those places and I might not have to go there myself. (But I would anyway if I get the chance ;) But I learned a lot across this spectrum of people, conditions, awareness of what is happening on the other side of our planet. Watching these videos helped me develop perspective of what is happening at all over the world and how I might one day share it all through the internet. I mean I already have. If you read this, you already have reached the other side of the world for all I know and that is amazing.

We live in a world where we have opportunity. If you have wifi or some way of access to electricity, you have a chance to enter a portal that can expand your mind. You have the choice to make things happen, learn about complete strangers on the other side of the planet by the tips of your fingers, you can make a difference between life and death, and you get the chance to be influenced by all these beautiful, strange, unique, and almost impossible people that you have never met. And that is the beauty of the Internet.

Yes, there was a point to this philosophical post. I think the Internet has become this shelter for people. It has become a powerful tool for the individual. It is like a living, breathing organism in the way that it allows people to learn, to understand, and to love things the more that you stare at them or long for. It could be this massive sphere where we all can connect and link the stories and tales that happen to us in our lives. The internet allows us to evolve and link together our experiences in ways that could change this universe the way it did for me today on Youtube with the Vlogbrothers. I was able to connect to all these places, in a cheesy, atypical way like in any childhood, allowed me to expand my mind without ever leaving my apartment and give me the courage to come up with this post.

The Internet can change things for the better. I know bad things can happen and are capable of doing horrible things for people. If used properly, we can do so much with so much potential to make change and live it up. I think that that is why the Internet exists so we can attach ourselves to what we love and discover what we want to be, understand our identities, and present who we are to the people we love most.

So, I want to remember why we are lucky and given a choice to share our experiences. Blogging helps facilitate it and I hope we can keep this in mind.

Natalie