sensory overload &^#@*($^@

Don't have the mental or physical capacity to pick up a pen and flip to a page and make markings on a piece of paper, so I decided to cave into the technological epidemic that is slowly choking our nation and our world.

I remember my Speech and Debate class in Humboldt. I hated it, but I loved it. Well I guess I loved the people...they were characters. There was this big, Seth Rogen-ish guy who was always sweaty and wore big shoes. He shuffled his feet a lot and had a lack of saliva when he talked. He always cleared his throat and had a shaky voice when he spoke, but he still had a lot of confidence because he loved his subject. He spoke about windmills.

There was another boy—you could tell his life hadn't been easy up to this point. He had thin hair, he was frail and sickly looking, and always wore a hat. He rode a BMX bike, and dressed in baggy clothes, but he looked everyone in the eye when he talked to them. His gestures were graceful and he did a good job at pacing, but not frantically. He appealed to all of us; he was our generation's “every man”. His best friend had died in a drunk driving accident, which made his voice rich in emotion and warning. He spoke of unjust death.

The class brown-noser was this small asian girl. Not a strand of her hair was ever out of place, she sat with perfect posture, and wrote in flawless scrawl. Her presentations were over-educational, and she was the kind of student who went over the top, making us all look like assholes because our power points didn't have depressing YouTube videos or impressing graphics. Still, through all of this, she stared at many of the students with otherworldly understanding. Like she understood you, and admired you, no matter who you were. She spoke of dolphins.

I loved this boy. He was extremely tall and lanky, all arms and legs. He brewed his own beer, and wore blue jeans with legs that seemed to have to be custom-lengthened. His shirts hung on him funny, and they were mostly odd-colored polos, and one Vanilla Ice shirt he donned a few times. Giant coke bottle glasses hung on his nose, and under the lenses sat giant brown eyes. His tousled brown hair lay messily atop his head, and he spoke with an almost-lisp. He had a rich, friendly voice, and when he moved, each limb followed at its own leisure. He showed us a map of where he was from, a little island off of Alaska, where technology wasn't a huge part of life; their entertainment was mostly the spoken word, and now he is slowly watching it die in today's world. He spoke of radio.

What I see when I think of this boy is the memory of when he first spoke. He was in front of the class, clutching onto his note-cards, and he was violently shaking. From his shoulders, especially to his fingers, even down to his legs and knees. When he walked, he had to make sure his foot landed on the ground correctly, that's how bad his shakes were. We all watched him in well-masked horror, afraid that he would pass out. But he still cracked jokes, and smiled. He was small in stature, his smiles were hidden in a furry beard and had a head full of black curls, usually hidden under a fedora. His voice was soft, but commanding. He spoke of honeybees.

I remember these people most.

It's chance encounters like these that make me think about how long I will remember things. How your mind prioritizes things. I can't remember what I wore YESTERDAY, but I still remember minute details about people I haven't even had conversations with. Maybe there are things these perfect strangers have taught me that I haven't realized yet, and that's why my memory is keeping them around. I wonder if they remember me.

And I wonder if I am like that to anyone. I have come to believe that we are all here not to live for ourselves, but to live for each other. In the way that our actions and decisions and personalities teach others things, which is more important than learning for ourselves. And in the way that meeting new people is opening yourself up to another possible lesson, to some sort of insight that you will in turn duplicate, teaching it to someone else. And so forth.

I have come to believe that having a conversation with someone will teach me more than a textbook ever will.