I liked The Wolf of Wall Street...

“Well, Hector, here’s the game plan. You’re gunna bring us two Absolut Martinis, you know how I like them, straight up. And then precisely seven and one-half minutes after that you’re gunna bring us two more. Then, two more after that every five minutes until one of us passes out,” says Mark Hanna, the excessive and delusional stockbroker played by Mathew McConaughey in Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street. McConaughey’s character becomes a role model for Leonardo DiCaprio’s Jordan Belfort who relishes in overindulgence and crude, dumb antics. The movie is filled with moments like this and portrays the undeserving lavish lifestyle that the con-artist-disguised-as-stockbroker Belfort enjoys, and it is a masterpiece.

With (among many other things) a lot of money, 2.8 uses of the F-word per minute, money, the use of nearly every drug imaginable, fast cars, fast women, more money, stripper parties in the workplace, and just simply a shit-ton of money, TWWS is down and dirty fun. The problem is that not everybody sees it that way. This movie isn’t old-fashioned, it doesn’t follow the formula for structure, it’s fast paced 100% of the time, it’s edgy, it’s raunchy, and (generally) those that will pay money to watch a movie about stockbrokers aren’t the biggest fans of raunchy and edgy.

The movie is criticized for its glorification of the immoral and the lack of traditional resolution showing the downfall of someone living this lifestyle. However, with it’s ambiguous ending we are left to decide for ourselves whether or not the illustrious and too-big-to-fail-or-be-punished Jordan Belfort actually changes or not. Just like human nature there is no black or white, there is no single point in which the character has a historic transformation, there is no absolute demise or unending success. Just like real life the movie has a mixture of both. And although not all of us are drug-crazed sex addict con artists, all of us change over time, all of us live through successes and failures, and all of us have the power to turn one into the other. The Wolf of Wall Street isn’t a meaningless celebration of superfluous living, it is a metaphor.

I was bullied...

So the first time I remember being bullied was in first grade. I’ll admit, I was a weird kid. My over-gelled and over-spiked hair represented my dream of one day becoming a member of N’SYNC, the blank pages in my English workbook revealed the fact that my favorite thing to do during lunch was draw layouts of underwater theme parks, and my group of friends during recess told everybody that I was part of the Detective Club we had made up and believed I was on the verge of uncovering the biggest scandal to ever rock the halls of St. Joseph’s Elementary. I was odd, very odd. And my classmates noticed.

It started out during the younger years as just exclusion; people didn’t want to talk to me. However, as I got older in elementary school verbal insults became the norm. Everyday I was told how weird I was, and that I wasn’t normal, and that I was different. I’m grateful it never got physical because it could have been so much worse. And that’s the thing, what I experienced is in all honesty pretty mild compared to what some children have to live with everyday.

Even though my situation was relatively minor, I still to this day struggle with confidence issues. This fact makes me think about what those children whose situations are much worse than the one I went through deal with. Endless physical and psychological abuse for 6 hours a day, 5 days a week, 40 weeks a year, 10 or more years in a row without a doubt causes permanent effects. Sometimes the problem becomes so serious that these children get to the point where they can’t comprehend that there’s another side of life, they see no other way to end the suffering than to end it all.

Suicide is an extremely serious issue and every time an event like this happens it brings the bullying issue to the forefront of the public’s minds and attention. However, the attention fades and the issue becomes just another fad news story. Everybody cares, everybody wants to do something, and then everybody just stops. The problem doesn’t cease to exist with the hype though. Kids still go through hell whether they eventually chose to do something that brings the hype back up or not.

It’s so easy to place blame on whatever you think fosters bullying. Undertrained teachers and administration, poor parenting, and natural tendencies of aggressive children are all among the top causes identified. In reality it’s most likely a combination of all of these things plus others, but fixing them will cause drastic changes spanning over long periods of time. What can change right now, however, is us.

WE can stop bullying. WE can change our actions if we are intentionally crass to others, WE can try to examine if we are unintentionally short with those we don’t necessarily like without realizing it, and if WE see bullying of any form WE can step in. Every insult, every remark, every threat between young people of all ages is another small piece in the ever-growing agony in a bullying victim’s mind. These victims are everywhere, and with some help their lives can become better. We are that help. And that help starts now.

I'm pretty sadistic...

So I think I might be pretty sadistic. If you see me on the side of the road or in the lobby of a hotel, I’m pretty damn normal. But if you see my Grand Theft Auto character on the side of the road or in the lobby of a hotel, he is most likely stabbing a bystander in the face with a knife. I don’t know why I feel the urge to do such horrible things to innocent citizens just trying to carry on with their daily lives, but I do. Shooting a rocket into a line at a fast food restaurant, coasting down a hill on a bike and seeing how many drivers I can shoot before I stop, or landing a helicopter with blades spinning at full speed on a family picnic in the park all sound like enjoyable and perfectly normal pastimes to me when playing the game.

The worst I ever felt while playing GTA was when I had to shoot a pet bulldog that was chasing after me. I had just blew up his owner’s car (and therefore his owner as well) and he started sprinting towards me with the cutest vengeful rage his short little legs could handle.  I tried to run away, I really did, I wanted to leave him behind in his sadness and not make his situation any worse. But then he jumped me. He bit my arm and pulled me to the ground with his bodyweight. So, as soon as my character got up and would respond to the controls again, I shot him the face. He whimpered as he became motionless and I teared up as I became moralless.

And I try to make myself feel better by justifying my actions based of the things I didn’t do. I didn’t kill that gas station cashier, I only robbed him. I didn’t ignore that woman who was crying for help because of a purse thief. I killed the thief and kept the purse, but I didn’t ignore her.  And that construction worker I just plowed over in order to make that sick jump? Hey, I honked, he had a warning.

I used to be smarter on the Internet...

So I’m pretty sure my Internet usage has devolved over time.  It used to consist of current event articles, research relating to school projects, articles about brands I was interested in, the occasional illegal movie on YouTube that played in like 56p, local news articles, and other miscellaneous articles…basically I used to read a lot of fucking articles. I went through a Neopet and AIM phase in like 6^th grade but I like to think of my middle school years and the beginning years of High School as the somewhat intellectual times of my Internet surfing history.

And then I discovered Reddit. For those unfamiliar, Reddit is a site where users post links and others can vote those links up or down. It results in a running list of the most popular and best things the community thinks you can find on the Internet at any given moment, and let me tell you it is insanely addictive. Taking a five-minute homework break? Reddit. Bored on a car ride? Reddit. Pooping? Reddit for like an hour. Because that’s the thing, you can never just look at a couple links, you have to see what comes up next, you have to laugh at just one more picture of a cute puppy, you absolutely need to read another meme. It’s addictive, it’s a drug, and before you know it you’ve spent the last two hours mindlessly exploring all corners of the Internet and that paper you were working on is due in twenty minutes. But it’s worth it.

It’s not fair to completely blame Reddit and it’s funny cat videos for my slow degradation into mindless and useless surfing. I think it’s also just become so much easier to access fun and entertaining content online because there’s simply becoming so much more of it. With that overabundance of entertainment comes an overwhelming responsibility to ignore it. There are times when you just can’t indulge in that Vine of that black girl smashing the oven door by sliding into it after she lost her footing on a Crisco coated floor. Unfortunately you have to work sometimes, and it really sucks.

I have a love/hate relationship with Christmas music...

So I have a love/hate relationship with Christmas music. First of all, they start playing it on like the 5^th of July. It didn’t used to be like that, but every year it seems that Christmas just starts earlier and earlier and you have to make a conscious effort to avoid it if you don’t want the spirit it used to bring you to slowly become associated with the patriotism of Labor Day.

Once you’ve spent six months trying not to be in the Christmas spirit, it’s finally Black Friday (which is a whole different thing to complain about) and the season has begun. You turn to one of the four radio stations that decides every year it should play the music 24/7 and you’re so pumped, so excited for some Nat King Cole, or Andy Williams, or even Michael Bublé but no, you know what you get? You get some Mariah Carey bullshit or Wham!’s version of Last Christmas that makes your ears melt from an 80s overload.

The options have gotten better recently with things like Spotify and music on Youtube where you can pick exactly what you want to listen to. And when you find those right songs it’s almost unbelievable how quickly they can get you in the holiday spirit and genuinely make you feel like a child again waiting to see what Santa left under the tree.  There’s something about music in general that can bring you back to the situation that your mind associates with it. I’m not sure how the two become connected, but the feelings, emotions, and ideals all rush right back into your head as soon as those first few notes are played. That’s why Fergie’s London Bridge brings me right back to my alarm going off letting me know it’s time to get up and go to sixth grade.

The right Christmas music is magical; it defines the season and makes your mind remember that this time of year actually is special. Whether your preferred sounds of the season include Dean Martin or Justin Bieber, I hope they bring you as much holiday cheer as they bring me. But can we all agree not to have holiday cheer while carving a Jack-O-Lantern? One holiday at a time, please.