Polished+writings

MLK Prompt Dr. Martin Luther King gave a famous speech entitled “I Have a Dream.” In this speech, King shared his dream of a world where all people lived in peace and harmony—regardless of their skin color. Write about a dream you have for making the world a better place.

Everyone has a dream of what the “perfect” world would be like. Some people even get the chance to share and implement their ideas. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is a perfect example of this. He expressed his hopes in his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. I, too, have a vision. While I may not have the lovely speech and charisma necessary for many people to listen, I will leave a mark on the world… even if it is only the mark of a young girl with a world of possibilities stretching out before her.I believe that human nature, in and of itself is a light and dark, a spectrum of passion where the violent emotions of hate and love, each, could not exist without the heights of the other. Human nature is a pendulum of balance. Because of this belief, I cannot possibly hope for a world of perfect individuals and constant noble choices, for in my mind, this would be asking for a world of little change, for the good or bad.

So, I will not follow Mr. King’s footsteps in asking for a profound change in human nature. My real passion and hope is to prevent the world from being further destroyed by trying to not be wasteful.Imagine, for a moment, that you are walking down a street filled with cars. On these cars are thin black sheets; solar paneling. On one side of this street is a park. In the middle of this park is a dominating structure. It is a tall, narrow building, and it is an air cleaner. Carbon dioxide is being filtered from the air, and placed deep into the ground, perhaps permanently. There are recycling trash cans lining the street. Go down this road, out of the city and on the outskirts imagine field, where instead of crop harvesting, wind harvesting is taking place instead.

This is my world, my dream. I want to live in a world where plastic is reused and not made and trees aren’t being cut down faster than they can grow. It is my firm belief that the human race is proving to be wasteful of its resources and in the long run, this will harm us. Why should we use gas, or coal when these are severely harming us? Cancer is a huge problem because of the carcinogens we introduce in our need to live in luxury. In some places, air is barely breathable and when it rains, acid, not water, falls. It seems to me that there are so many things we could do to stop this decent, and some people are trying.Perhaps it is overly ambitious and enthusiastic. However, these changes are being implemented by others at this moment. Soon, cars will run on electricity and solar power, and our cities will be powered by clean energy. My dream is to live to see technology working for nature, rather than against it. Maybe it isn’t as noble as Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream, but it is mine and I hope to see its fruition one day.

Influential Event, Time, Person My life is a collection of a million moments: sounds, smells, tastes, feelings. It is like a galaxy of stars: billions that make up a whole. So how can one star affect the whole; how can one memory overpower the others? Maybe a moment can be life changing, maybe not. In the galaxy I am, a black hole has roamed. As I grew up, it grew bigger, until it began to eat at the stars around it, overshadowing memories, life. Perhaps this is hard to understand, this concept of a darkness that eats you from the inside out, as inexorable, unstoppable as the rising and setting of the sun. I have experienced it every day and yet it still baffles me.

It started when I was young, five or six, perhaps earlier. The first warning was a fear. I felt death acutely and it terrified me. Not my own death, no, but the death of my family and friends. This tormented me late in the night; I would have nightmares about fires where I couldn’t get to my parents, or tornadoes that tore up our house. Who knows for sure why, even as a young girl, I was so aware of the fragileness of life. Maybe it was simply because somewhere in me was my own death, waiting. I was a happy child, for the most part, and I didn’t tell anyone about my fears. Completely unaware of the fight waiting in me, I was all innocence and delight..

It was really triggered when we moved. To a young child, it does not seem like a huge thing, leaving everyone you know. I didn’t understand that I wouldn’t know people here. A new aspect of my personality began to show. New people scared me; I was overwhelmingly shy. Loneliness quickly became a familiar emotion. I have always been fairly sensitive, and when I was in middle school, what didn’t help. Friends are made and lost with the changing of the seasons, when you are that age. I would go through phases where I was content to be solitary, and this would baffle my friends sometimes. But a lot of the time, I just felt like I didn’t have enough energy to interact. Never having been a natural socialist, I don’t seem to have a lot of the natural instincts for people that most everyone else has. Without close friends, I fell into the hole and stopped even scrabbling for a handhold. I felt empty and sad.

To some people, this may not make sense. Why would I embrace the darkness? The best I can say is that, sometimes it feels like it is easier to be numb. I became increasingly tired, and angry. To be angry was to feel something and that, I embraced happily. Let me get this straight, by no means was I ever suicidal. The thought never even crossed my mind. If it had, I probably would have connected the dots sooner.

My parents were the ones who first figured it out. They started dropping hints here and there. My mom even told how depression runs on her side of the family. So finally, finally, I understood. It seemed like the strangest thing, because I had only ever heard of depression in conjunction with suicide. I had always thought, I will never be that girl. Also, I didn’t have all of the same outward symptoms; good grades are something I have always taken for granted, because I am fairly smart. However, being smart doesn’t help; having a logical mind just made it worse.

With my parent’s help, I finally began to climb out of the hole. Depression is like an addiction. You can fight it back a million times, but you will always be an addict. I am constantly fighting back, saying to myself, I will live my life. I will not lose myself again. It is a hard battle, but I am happier, and more ready for the future than ever. I.J. I thought your writing was well thought out.