| "Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them." William Shakespeare's Hamlet
I know quite a few teenage girls that this phrase reminds me of. I know some from RL, and in particular some from Open Diary. These are girls who more than anything else impress me with their clarity of thought, and their sense of humour. These are also girls who at times write works of almost total despair and cut themselves. It saddens and disturbs me to think how many people live like this, especially since these tend to be the people I can best empathize with. Why is it that so many go through what I have heard countless adults describe as the "best time of your life" at the cost of so much of their confidence and vivacity? Why is it that they emerge with both physical and mental scars, and sometimes not at all?
Maybe it is in part because, when you're not confident of your own ideas, your first impulse is to push away anything that is different. Maybe it's because, when you play a role from day to day, it's harder to remember who you are. Maybe it's because of the walls that shut you in as well as keep things out. Maybe it's because, when you have no answers, it's easier just to to ask no questions.
In this world, you can die of isolation even when you're surrounded.
This was a nodeshell. But it needed to be said. | 
