bruce nonfic blog

Does your life leave you enough time to relax? Throughout the past few semesters, my school and after school schedule has been hectic. Between constant sports practice, academic work, clubs, and extracurricular commitments, I’d often find myself pushing my sleep schedule later to accommodate the heightened workload. Weeks at a time would blur by in routines, weekends spent catching up on sleep and assignments. If my life were organized into a Google Calendar, there would only be one six-hour part of the day devoid of events, between one and seven AM: sleep. Despite this hectic schedule, I rarely felt as though I were overworking myself, nor did I feel as though I had no time to relax. Perhaps I am a workaholic, but there was an enriching essence within the work itself that motivated me to continue doing all the different activities I was doing. Over time, the work stopped feeling like work, and activities themselves became the breaks when I stopped taking them too seriously. Take dista...

 Do you like being alone? As an extrovert, I love talking to people. From friends I’ve known since elementary school to the stranger sitting next to me on the plane, each person is an opportunity for conversation, to share stories with, to learn from. Thus, throughout the first two years of high school, I strongly disliked being alone. Being alone meant that I couldn’t find anyone else to talk to. The world around me felt boring without people around. During the rare times I was alone, I didn’t know what to do. I’d often turn to social media and the internet to enter some semblance of a social setting.  I’d often watch various forms of media for hours on end, mindlessly, with the purpose of passing the time. Listening to a 20-minute video essay on YouTube felt better than sitting alone, reading a book, or starting a problem set. Over time, my avoidance of being alone gradually diminished. It began with running. During the times I’d run alone over the weekend, I found the sound...