currently searching for the deeper meaning...

Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner is a heartbreaking story set in a country on its way to complete destruction. While I haven't even reached the half-way point of the book, I can already begin to draw stark comparisons between my upbringing and Amir and Hassan's. The differences in my culture and lifestyle versus theirs made me reconsider what a human being's freedom truly means. Is freedom simply the allowance to carry out our lives in whatever way we see fit? Or is it the following of incredibly strict laws and rules that end up keeping us safe from harm? In the United States, we're lucky enough to have fairly understandable and basic restrictions to our lifestyle (for the most part). We are ticketed for speeding because it puts others in harms way. We are thrown in jail for murder because we're deemed a threat to society and are isolated from the general population with their wellbeing in mind. Yet it's almost odd to think that countries with people just ...

Most of us don't actively try to gossip. Sometimes, our friends can annoy us or a petty argument can lead to a snide comment behind their back; even the best of us are guilty of it. In nearly all settings throughout life, drama and gossip prevail- but what causes some of us to thrive off of it? We all seem to have that one friend who always seems to know everybody's business all the time. They have "the tea" are sipping "the tea" and spilling "the tea"- an overly used moniker for drama . It's like other people's personal lives are their lifeblood. Perhaps they're just a chatty person, or they have too much free time. But chances are that whoever this person is in your life is NOT a 17th century puritan caught in the middle of a witch hunt. This may seem like an odd comparison, but your gossip loving friend and this ancient puritan probably have more in common than you think. We've currently only reached the end of Act 1 of The ...