You Know You're a Speechie When...

You know you're a speechie when...

1. You realize that you are apart of the unofficial fraternity of the coolest geeks on the planet.
2. You discover that the skills you've acquired have a potential shelf life of a thousand lifetimes.
3. You unconsciously begin to speak with a conviction that few have and find yourself no longer taking pleasure in trivial conversation.
4. You realize that the new found eloquence of your mind and your mouth will buy you more opportunity than all the money you can earn in the thousand life times of your skill set's shelf life combined.
5. You find your mind open and your heart receptive to all people, most concepts, more understanding, a little criticism, fewer judgments, and no tolerance policies for living in mediocrity.

This is how you know that you are a philosopher of the common era.

A lover of knowledge with an incessant thirst for wisdom: The discernment to know how and when to apply that knowledge to actions resulting in a life of purpose.

These are the tell tale signs of the movers and shakers

The civilly disobedient rule breakers

The individuals you put on your "people to watch" lists

The few that witness the awesome and instead of saying "I wish", make note of their awe stricken state, and let their hearts make manifest future success with a resounding, "I'll do that too one day."

An Unexpected Lesson, A Satisfying Day

With each day I attempt to glean a bit of wisdom or knowledge from something that happened in order to make it a day that I deem worthwhile. I want to take something away from all of my experiences and on days when I do not feel I've succeeded I feel as though I've wasted 24 hours of my precious, God given time. I almost consider days like this sinful because I only have a little time and I cannot get it back when wasted. 
Today was one of those wasted days until around 7 pm. I got a call from a friend asking a small favor. After courtesies I asked how she was doing and the conversation turned to talk of boredom and opportunity. She, being from the city, was incredibly bored with our lackluster surroundings. I was the opportunist. The city in which we currently live is small and has the cultural diversity of a sinkhole, but where there is lack of eventfulness and stimulation, opportunity arises. In cities like Chicago, there is incredible opportunity for entertainment and exchange/interaction of ideas. There is always mental stimulation. When that is taken away, there is a door opened that breathes whispers of change and chance for creation. Where there is lack, there is an occasion worth taking advantage of to fill a void with one's own ideas without competition or comparison. Just as in terrestrial drought, starvation of the mind is debilitating and can have long lasting side effects. Filling such a void through creative means not only makes for a much needed metaphysical precipitation, but it demands an instigation of novel and unique culture if the creative solution can remain in an atmosphere of maintenance. In such a case, the drought becomes insignificant in the wake of earnest minds bringing their own precipitation to water the sprouting idea.
 Having grown up in cultural desolation, I realized this truth beforehand, but what I gleaned from her contribution was that my depravity had become a pathogen of thought. It consumed the minds of the vast majority of people I interacted with and it had been in my system long enough to blind me. I attempt to be open and non-judgmental but my environment forbade me from recuperating from my disease. I felt convicted, realizing that I had committed a crime which most in my environment share guilt for. I so wish that my judgment had not been quick. She reminded me to be careful. She reminded me of something that I've said myself. Most people do the best they can with what they've been given: the actions they take, just manifestations of their personality and learned responses to external stimuli. Whether those responses are right or wrong is of little importance, the significance lies in the fact that most people feel that they have to behave in that certain way, they consciously or unconsciously expect a particular outcome because of their action, and they either believe they are correct in their justification without a shadow of doubt, or they see no other options. 
This reality hit me hard enough to take me aback and make my consciousness aware of my hypocrisy. I, who tell others not to judge, passed judgment too quickly and laughed at those who more than likely are doing the best they know how with the hand they've been dealt. Instead of ridicule, my reaction should have been to ask why. 
Why did they do what they did and what has happened in their lives to teach them that their rationale was sound? Ignorance is never a laughable subject in any context. React with intelligence and refrain from jest. Educate instead with the light of perspective and knowledge passed their ignorance taking into consideration that someone loved you enough to educate you in the same way. Let not knowledge be confused with intellect and become a denominator of people into groups of exclusivity. Erase your boundaries and realize that everyone has something that THEY can teach YOU.

I Think It's Funny

Life sometimes hands you an amalgamation of situations and you honestly have to sit back and reevaluate them with that 20/20 hindsight thing, that everyone desperately wishes were clairvoyance, and laugh. 

So, here's the beginning of a list of things (mostly events) that in retrospect make me laugh:

The final weeks of my junior year, I finally figured out that the chant (Call) P-I-R (Response) A-T-E together spells P-I-R-A-T-E lol. Took me 3 years to figure that out for some reason. I always thought that the PIR part of the chant stood for performance-in-the-round, a term that any self respecting speechie in the state of Illinois would recognize at the drop of a hat. (For those non speechies who are reading this, Performance-in-the-round is an IHSA group event performed at state series competition alongside the 14 Individual Events categories.)

Speaking of 14, the day before my 14th birthday my mother almost felt the compulsion to kill me :) I, being the occasionally impulsive person that I am, decided that it would be ok to disappear for about an hour without telling anyone that I was leaving the house. Of course this decision did not sit well with my parents. My mother was on the verge of calling the police when she called my dad at work. My  dad, being the ridiculously awesome person he is, advised my mom to check at my neighbor's house before calling the police. Of course that's where I was. I enjoy the conversations I have with my neighbors, what can I say?! Anyway, as I was walking out of my neighbor's front door exchanging final guffaws and chuckles with my friends , my mother was barreling across the street in a state of panic that can only be described as a justified, maternal worry induced panic attack from hell seeing as she had been clueless to my location for the passed hour or so. Being a good mother, she quickly assumed the ridiculous worst case scenario, that I was of course dead or kidnapped, to be the ONLY alternatives to my not being at my neighbor's house. Thus, the fact that she was about to go into a stress induced coma was completely reasonable. When our eyes met, I saw  her face soften. Soon after that, whatever that soft thing behind her eyes was snapped was snapped in half by a warmongering, bloodthirsty, she-hulk commando and  the death grimace of a mother feeling her 3 days of labor might all be in vain soon reared it's ugly head. I knew that my life was in danger. She lunged at me with the force of a 1000 remembered labor contractions propelling her hands straight at my head. I took of with the force of a thousand screaming little girls propelling me towards my room, where I could lock the door. On the way to my room I cut my legs in the thorn bush I ran through, but I made it in one piece. After my dad got home my parents isolated themselves in their room for the rest of the night. They were so mad they barely spoke to me. They were angry mostly because I had scared them so badly. I can't blame them for withholding my presents from me on my birthday or not holding back as much as they usually did for my birthday wake up spanking hahaha. I definitely learned my lesson.

Squirrel Hockey is probably one of the most intense sports unknown to most of mankind haha. A squirrel managed to break into our house one day through our chimney. He got the shock of his life  when my parents, my aunt and I resorted to trying to incrementally shoo the squirrel out the door by passing it from one person with a broom and or billiards cue stick to another like a hockey puck. We didn't succeed. The squirrel displayed his final act of defiance after over an hour of chasing by climbing up into the coils of our refrigerator and refusing to move. Feeling defeated, my mom, my aunt and I decided to give up. Then my dad picked up the refrigerator and put it outside for the night for the squirrel to take his time in climbing out triumphant.

These are just a few of the many humorous tales in the life and times of Josh Magee. More to come soon. 

America the Beautiful part 1/50

Traveling is like a good song on a bad day. 


I love driving through all of the states, watching how the land changes,


Feeling effervescent about making the transition of attitude between each one.

I haven't been to many out of the fifty, but each one has it's own separate personality yet and still they all have a subtle continuity that weaves them all together into the tapestry that is this country.


 I plan to visit every single one of them eventually. It may take me quite awhile to finish this series seeing as I plan on writing about all 50 states but eventually. It'll happen.


Circumstance has lead me to Wisconsin and I must comment on my perception of her persona. 


Wisconsin is so..... sweet.
Sweet,


Sweet like,


 The tiniest drop of honey on your tongue,


Like a cup of milk in the morning,


Like having a glass of water and feeling it travel all the way down and settle in your stomach, 


When your body is that fresh linen out of the dryer warm and the water is sooooooooo cool;


 Not ice cold, but just cool enough that your breath condenses and floats out of the glass while you drink.


There must grow fields of red poppies on the far side of some hill I couldn't see over 


Or they must be scattered throughout all the gardens there, 


Hidden among the brightest flowers so as no one will notice their hypnotic aura.


Wisconsin greets you kindly with a graceful smile and an extended hand. 


Her skin is soft and cool to the touch.


She glows with a translucence that allows one to observe her apparent vitality and undying loyalty to those who choose to befriend her.


I plan on visiting her often in the future.