I run through the house stopping behind a corner, painting and catching my breath.
I hear a bark and the bestial noise of something.

The creature has caught my scent 

I run for the door, my feet in their socks pounding on the floor beneath me.
I hear the claws of something scratching on the wooded floor behind me on all fours as I rush for the door.
I run out of it and close it with no time to spare.

The Noises of the creature sounding through the door, cursing in its fury.

I run to the backyard in an attempt to escape the beast and remain somewhere close to warn people passing by.
I hear the back door open. I pause. I hear a scratching noise on the patio and the door being closed.
I turn towards the door. the creature has lunged off the porch and is charging me.

Someone has let it out.

I try to run away but the creature is too fast and soon over takes me.
It tugs at the bottom of my pants and attempts to haul me away.
I, now forfeiting say:

Good girl, you caught me, 
I pat my dog on the head 

She seems to grin in triumph.

Why do We fear the Dark?

Is it the actual dark that we fear, the nightmares and demons that lurk in the shadows of the fairy tails we were told as kids.

OR IS IT THE UNKNOWN THAT WE ARE REALLY AFRAID OF?

We cannot see what is in the dark, so we have nothing to expect.

Is it the fact that the darkness of the closet at night is the reason that you pull your head under your sheets.
Is the unknown the reason that you creep down the hall, slowly, looking in every crevice just to find your way to the bathroom.

OR IS IT THE FACT THAT THE DEEP TERRORS OF THE MIND BECOME CLOSEST TO MANIFESTING THEMSELVES AT NIGHT?

A quick look in the corner, and a jacket could appear as the robe of a shadowy ghost. The sound of a branch tapping on the window, that of a bloodthirsty vampire begging to enter. The house settling into its foundations becoming the sound of a maniac, walking, slowly through the house.

Trying new things can be like the dark of the night. One can not see clearly ahead of them, but can get a general picture. The fears of the mind can blow the severity out of proportion such as: "If I talk in front of the class, the students may laugh at me and the teacher may ask for me to never step in front of the class again." 

These are the ghosts, vampires, and maniacs of the brain. It is very unlikely that they will manifest themselves in real life, but the fantasies may bind you from reaching for higher things.  

A man goes to a doctor and requests to have a cure to his sickness. The doctor asks the man a series of questions. The man answers truthfully to some, and lies to others. The doctor makes a diagnosis and gives the man a prescription. The man follows the prescription. He begins to feel better at first but his condition falls. He becomes incredibly sick. He returns to the doctor, complaining of the pains and the sickness he is now feeling. The doctor accuses the man of lying to him on their first visit. The man denies this at first, saying that it was not his fault and the doctor was a "quack" and accuses the doctor of malpractice. He eventually confesses upon finding out that if it is true and he did lie and he continues to lie, he will die of the disease and chemical imbalances in his body. The doctor performs painful surgery on the man. Pain that ripped him to his very core, and made him experience the very bowls of hell. He afterwards was placed on even more strict medication and, through much pain, recovered from his chemical imbalance, and then his sickness.

When we wish to receive honest and true help, we must be honest and true. The more honest we are, the more accurate and helpful the advice. Lying may either not help the ailment, or may even make the problem worse than it is, causing the process of change to be even worse. 

Coriolanus Snow- "Hope, it is the only thing stronger than fear"

What is hope?

hope is the feeling you get when that girl texts you back
hope is the feeling when your report card has all As
hope is the feeling when there is snow outside and you wonder if school could be canceled
(unless you live in Utah in which case it could be as cold as Antarctica and you would be learning about Calculus later that day)
hope is the light at the end of the tunnel
the last bullet in your gun
the time when you are driving so fast toward an intersection and you are praying that the light stays green just a few seconds longer

fear is the other side of the hope coin.
fear is what keeps people from acting
hope is what forces them to act

fear is what keeps heads down
hope raises people up

fear creates survival
hope helps people to live

fear is the oppressor.
hope is the liberator!

Somethings people need to be at a place to experience:

If I was to walk up to someone and tell them of a song, to play it with only my mouth, they would not beable to appretiate it because it would sound like this:

Duh! Duh! DUUUUUUUHHHHH!
Duh! Duh! Duh! Duh! Duh-Duh-Duh-Duh-Duh-Duh-Duh-Duh-Duh-DUUUUUHHHH!

Reading the song tune is even worse! You can't relate or know how the song goes, you can only imagine, or make fun of me for typing like a complete idiot (the song was supposed to be Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture.)

We can't relate to others experiences very easily either.

We can read about them, which may cause us to view the experience as strange. We can get close to the experience, which may cause us to better appreciate the experience, but we can not fully understand until we experienced it.

Just as how people feel differently about life depending on        how they live, people feel differently about death:

There were two old men sitting together in a  room. The hour was late and the night quiet. 

The Grim Reaper then emerged from the shadows. He said that their time was up, that they would all die that night and would be able to say some last things that the reaper would tell their families. 

The first man was addressed. He screamed and yelled and cried for his life. He was terrified of the reaper, he told him to crawl back into the very pit that it had spawned out of! The Grim Reaper gave its skeleton smile to the man, and in a calm voice said, "No man can escape death. All must be judged and are subject to my scythe." A flicker of the scythe and the man dissolved into shadow. 

The second man was about to be addressed, when a third man, younger and foolish walked into the room. He asked the Grim Reaper what he was doing there. The Reaper stated with caution that the man should leave. The Young man, not one to listen to the counsel of others, said that he would not leave. That he was his own person and he would do whatever he wanted to at the moment he wanted to do it. The reaper who was tired of this man toying and annoying him, scythed him down too.

The Grim Reaper, now exasperated, turned to the second man again. The second man, old and wise, held his head high and expressed to the Reaper that he had lived his whole life for this moment. That he was ready to take on the next adventure, the one of death. The Reaper put his arm over the shoulder of the man, and disappeared into the shadows of the night. Leaving the quiet and darkness of the night.

The first man represents the person who was not ready for death. He has lived his life in a poor manner and was never ready for the day of reckoning to come. 

The Third man represents the people who toy with death, who mock it and its power. These people do whatever they want and expect no consequences. Because of this, death may claim them earlier than others.

The Second man is who we should be. Living our life in mind of the moment when we will die. Knowing that we will all die, but because we do not die yet we can not leave life unfulfilled. We must walk with death willingly and at our correct time and not be taken begging for mercy.

school looked at in summary:

7:30- left for school
7:45- went to the first class
9:13- second class
10:47-third class
12:12- lunch
12:55-last class
2:15- went home

A day looked into more depth:

7:30- began walking to school, taking careful care to bundle up against the winter winds and snow
7:45- went to the first class, ready to hand in a paper that had been worked on for three hours the night before (much to the annoyance of your parents)
9:13- second class, not quite ready, you forgot to do your homework in this class because you were working so hard on the homework for the first class. Your heart races when you found out that it was due, and doesn't stop until everyone else hands it in except for you.
10:47- third class, trying to stop my stomach from growling and looking at the clock with obsessive rapidness, visions of subway and mcdonald's dancing in your head
12:12- FOOD!!!!! FOOD AND FREEDOM FROM TEXTBOOKS, TESTS AND REPORTS!!!
12:55- last class. Ahhh, yes, the test was today wasn't it......I'll try not to fail it too badly
2:15- went home (more like ran home screaming "FREE AT LAST!!! FREE AT LAST!!!")

"The only thing there is to fear is fear itself," Franklin Roosevelt

But we do fear. even though we shouldn't, that what happens just happens and that there is nothing that we can do about it. We fear death, even though it is inevitable. We fear hurricanes, even though we live in the middle of the desert. We fear other countries, even though they are on the other side of the earth.

Fears are un-rational.

This fact does not stop us from being scared. Scared of Ferocious evil animated robots. Scared of Flying extraterrestrials among royalty, or any other senseless things that obviously don't exist (which means we don't have proof).

Fear is what forces armies to turn and surrender

Fear is what makes people take the path of least resistance

Fear is what makes us wait to act

Fear is what tears down civilization. It's what turns a good and civilized person into a ravenous beast, clawing its way to the top of the food chain of life.

I am silent.

I listen to a mix of the rain pouring down outside and the radio playing.
I try to tie in the beat of the song with the beat the windshield wipers play with the dashboard. I become frustrated when it doesn't work.

I am on my way to an appointment.

I am driving through the rain and tapping the beat unto the car's steering wheel with the one hand that I have on it. I use my other hand to grab a root beer in my drink container and take a drink.

I try to maneuver my way through the cars so that I can be on time. Its hard because everyone wants to move slowly with the rain,

But not me,

I rush things. I want to get the jobs done now, so that the time I could spend relaxing is time when I have nothing else left to do.

I wonder if this is the best thing to do,

Should I enjoy life all the time? Or just when I have nothing else to do? Should I enjoy the trip back from my appointment in the car, or should I enjoy the journey getting to the appointment too?

Bricks do a lot of things

They build shelter

They build prisons

They create a way to move up in life (stairs)

They create a downward path too

They can build (either using it as the material or the tool by smacking it into a nail because you are too lazy to find a hammer)

They can contain fires and people, waters and forces

They can break windows and buildings, disrupt water and stillness

Bricks can create order

Bricks can create chaos

Bricks are just what we make them to be.