there's a lack of color here

I admit that I spend way too much time on the internet. A lot of people do, however, that it doesn't make me a poster child for internet addiction.

We all have our reasons for spending hours, days, weeks, and eventually the rest of our lives surfriding the trojan infested waves of the worldwide web. Some people do it to connect with other people, usually in the forms of tacky social networking sites that I often find myself logging in to, or in some cases to participate in multiplayer online role-playing games like the World of Warcraft (a game that my brother passionately swears by along with twelve million others). Some people do it to affirm their existence. Some people do it to share their beautiful talents (which either inspire people, or drive them to depression usually following the realization that they will never be as good). Some people do it because they don't have a life.

I spend way too much time on the internet, because I don't have a life. That much I know.

Because presently, in my physical, actual life, nothing interesting ever comes up. Everything that goes down is almost always something that never, not even in a lifetime will I find relatable. I have been pushed into the midst, not unlike the way the unruly bull has been tamed into accepting his place in the herd. I am in the inside, not just looking out, but wanting, desperately to get there. Sure. I know exactly what I sound like right now: a self-interested, arrogant snob who thinks everyone else is boring. That is probably true. But sometimes it's nice to try something wild and crazy like breaking free from the traditional perspective of passing judgment.

In my perspective, it's like being reacquainted with my old self. It's like looking back at that fourteen year old kid experiencing her first zit outbreak of many, and who felt like drawing the curtains close for that long, long nap that she ardently wished she'd never have to wake up from. Not because of the zit, well, not solely because of the zit, but mostly because the world, at that age, seemed like a big, strange, scary place of Nos and contradictions.

Well, I am twenty-two now. I still like taking naps. The world is still a big, strange, scary

place of Nos and contradictions. And I still find myself wishing I could draw the curtains close on the world every now and then.

It's never because of the reason that I think I am better than all things Earthly. But always because in my many dealings with the world, I have found that it doesn't hold much interest for the likes of me.

The world likes couture; I am black shirt and faded jeans. The world breeds the desire to be famous; I enjoy being in the background. The world adores the mainstream; I breathe independence. The world says Shut Up; I tell stories. The world craves perfection; I color outside the lines. The world supports the belief that one god is better than the other; I aspire to get to know all of them. The world teaches us to think in black and white; I think in bursting colors of irregularity. The world says Make No Mistakes; I am always messing up.

What's amazing about the internet, is that sometimes I get really lucky and chance upon people who make me think that being a tad bit different is something special and that it should make me proud. Just like Dr. Seuss, Johnny Depp or Kermit the Frog.

And like Jean-Jacques Rousseau who inspires me with the thought that, "I may not be better than other people, but at least I'm different."

It can feel really good to know that departing from the crowd, no matter how effectively it can isolate someone from the world, is being appreciated and celebrated. And even if it only seems to exist in the cyberspace and is probably as fictional as Obi-Wan Kenobi, it still brings genuine comfort. It makes one feel like great things can still happen, even if you're that one bruised apple in a basket of beautiful ones. That one apple that nobody ever picks.

In such moments of riding the rolling and thundering waves of the internet, I admonish myself severely for not being in a constant state of vigilance.

If I don't watch it, I might just find myself making the grave mistake of believing the pipe dream of the foolishest of fools - that there might be hope for the fourteen year olds, and the oddballs of the world after all.