Belief

This is actually an essay that I had to create for my English class. I liked the concept of writing a "This i believe essay" that I decided to post it online.

I believe in the power of belief. Belief in itself, pure and alone, is one of the few things that all humans have in common; it is a remarkable relatable thing to acquire. There are opinions and values and morals and they may all differ the way beliefs do, but everyone has one thing in common when it comes to beliefs: they have them, they live by them, the wallow in them, and they use them in times of virtue, grace, grief, and confusion. The belief in something, whether it be healthy or unhealthy, beneficial or harmful, normal or socially unacceptable, drives the beholder to do the things they do and say the things they say and run their lives in the directions they choose. Without them, the world would be nothing.                                   

  I think that beliefs can be the center of all progress. Bill Gates designed Microsoft because he believed in something. I would think he believed in convenience and computers and spell check and that the collaboration of all 3 of these ideas would change the world forever. And it did. Without the belief in himself and the belief in the potential of a commercially operable and historically significant object Thomas Edison wouldn't have created the light bulb. I would be writing these words with a stick in the dark without the aid of these two men as well as countless other men and women who created and believed in everything that made it possible for me to write this words, for me to use these words, for the creation of these words.

I think that beliefs can be the center of all evils. Early morning September 11, 2001 at 8:46 a.m the first of the 4 consecutive American terrorists attacks were launched. It took the lives of nearly 3,000, injured more than 6,000 and emotional scarred at the least 314,462,000 people who call America home. It resulted in numerous changes to the political, economical, and cultural views of Americans. This all emerged from a group of people that had dangerous beliefs. Without the formation of these thoughts and without the strong passion to live by them and die for them the way terrorists had, there would be no significance to the date of September 11th.
Without beliefs, nothing would be created or destroyed. Chris McCandless was a shining example of a man who had alternative beliefs and lived by them in life and in death. As a wealthy intelligent young man, he adopted a socially unheard of lifestyle by abandoning wealth and all its perks and living as a hitchhiker/ explorer. I think he was unhappy and adopted a great belief in the words “So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one piece of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future.” And so he cut ties with his family and lived on his own, loosening the chains of conformity and romantically adopting this theory that normality was overrated and the only way to live was freely: that life was not something you planned. And as a result, he died in the arms of soil. Many considered him to be insane. But he wasn’t. I have grown up with primarily conservative parents but I understood him and his need to embrace the freedom that the world has given every human being. I felt, at that moment reading the book “Into the wild”, a biography based solely on McCandless, that his strong belief in this “living by and for the land” led him to have miraculous adventures, difficult hardships, and ultimately death. He died in servitude to his own mind.

It’s fuel. Beliefs fuel. They burn and sometimes this fuel results in greatness, amusement, ideas, progression. And sometimes this fuel results in destruction, in deaths, in chaos. Anything created by the human race would not exist today without that one person who believed. Anything destroyed by the human race would not be gone today without that one person who believed. It all derives from belief. And that is mine.