Expanding Your Horizons

Is there anything else that you might want to talk about? Any other questions you want me to ask?

If you don’t have any, I- I’m fine. I’ll answer anything though.

Ok, let’s test that. Tell me a deep secret.

Oh that’s a hard one

I know, yeah.

Wait, wait.

It doesn’t have to be dark. It can just be deep. But sometimes it kind of lends itself to that..

That’s hard..

I have no idea what your name is. You can get anything off your chest. How about that? It doesn’t even have to be a secret. Just something you feel like you can’t tell to people who know you. Anything like that. Here’s your chance. You can just yell it into the void.

I think… Probably just how much I struggle with anxiety and speaking to people. All the time I feel like I’m seen as laid back and kind of fun. Actually, some people maybe wouldn’t say I’m laid back, but I’m usually quite outgoing in general, like now. But I think when I’m home and stuff I’m so anxious. I’m constantly second guessing everything I’ve ever said, everything I’ve ever done in my life. My brain does not turn off at all. Things like that. I super struggled. I struggled to fit in back home. I think people back home knew more about it since it was more obvious because it led to me struggling a lot with eating and things like that.

But here I’ve kind of… I feel like that’s one of the reasons why I wanted to come here, because, I feel like I was so stuck on everything back home like anxiety and that bad kind of stuff that I’d be feeling. So when I came here I was… well- not running from my problems, because I feel like you can’t run away from yourself in a sense. So I still deal with it, but I think it’s been a weight off my shoulders.

It’s like a fresh start.

Yeah, because I’ve had anxiety since I was… oh, I remember my first year of high school, I didn’t want to go into classes. I was almost sick before my classes at the thought of it. Yeah.. So coming here, I don’t think people would think that. And I try to keep it down because I don’t like being an anxious mess. But, yeah, as soon as I’m by myself… the thoughts.

The thought.

Yeah.

My issue when it comes to my being anxious is I can’t ever slow down. I can’t go to sleep, I have to be on my phone as long as possible so that I just kind of pass out. I can not just… stop.

Yeah. I hate summer. I hate summer and I hate Christmas break. I hate not having anything to do, because I get scared. If I have nothing to do, I get scared of what my brain is going to start coming up with. Because I’m one of those people that’s like, “I need to keep doing stuff or it’s like I’m gonna fall off ”. I’ll completely fall off and it takes so long to like- the last time I had it pretty bad, I would say it was a good six months before I felt, like, back to normal again. But yeah, I need to read- this is kind of funny, actually. I need to read Wikipedia to go to bed.

Yeah? That’s an interesting strategy. I haven’t heard that one.

I would just think of something I’m interested in, then I would just start reading. I know it’s weird.

No, honestly. It works though.

Yeah…

Whenever I have to read textbooks for class, I fall asleep. I wonder if that might help me, because if I have to read a whole chunk of text, it makes me sleepy.

Actually, it’s a good idea to maybe read class texts. That might actually help me better. But, I’ll just think of something I’m super interested in and then I’ll just look it up. I’m someone that can’t watch movies really well because I can’t hold that attention span, but I’ll read the plot on Wikipedia and I’ll talk to people about it like I’ve seen it.

What’s your favorite, most recent Wikipedia search that you did?

Has to be… I went down a rabbit hole of the 8000 meter peaks. So like Mount Everest and K2 which is right next to it. Then I watched the documentary on it. I can’t do movies. I can do documentaries. I ended up falling down a complete rabbit hole on...

Really? What’s interesting to you, is it just the height or what is it about that?

I think it’s just because it’s something you can’t, like, comprehend. The fact people were risking their lives to see the top of this mountain is insane to me. Knowing all the risks and stuff. I think I like doing things that I just can’t comprehend why someone would do that. So I kind of was reading about it and then I’ll fall down all the little hyperlink rabbit holes that are like, “The 1992 Expedition”.

That’s such a cool mindset, though, to be like, “I can’t wrap my head around this. Let me learn more about it”. That’s admirable. I know you use it to fall asleep, but that mindset is really cool. Props to you for thinking like that.

You’re the first person that says something like that. I think only two people know I do this and they’re like, “you’re so weird for that”. And I’m just like, well, what else am I going to do, because if I sit on TikTok, my brain’s going to rot out of my ears or something. I don’t know how I started doing that. I think it’s just because it made my head quiet. Yeah. That’s a life hack. There you go.

Any final words, final thoughts, wrap it all up?

No. I don’t think so. I don’t have anything inspirational to put here. It’s. ‘Cause I’m just like, “yea, I don’t know anything about myself or anything…” and I think that’s ok.

Yea. The point of all this is connecting with people, and I think not knowing yourself is much more relatable than knowing yourself.

I think people who are so sure of themselves don’t leave themselves enough room to grow. Because if you think you know everything, then you’re going to stop trying to experience everything.

Like your Wikipedia articles.

Yes. My advice is never, never stop reading Wikipedia and donate to them so they can stay open and I can fall asleep with them.

Good advice.