Progression of my Brain: Philosophies throughout the Years

Video games are...

• My life. (Age 8)
  
• Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter; Battletoads and Double Dragon. (Age 9)
  
• Squaresoft RPGs and turn-based battles.(Age 12)
• Late night Super Smash Brothers tourneys. (Age 17)
• Escape devices through which I live alternate identities, i.e. The Sims, Oblivion. (Age 20)
  
• An art form and, thanks to Yahtzee, artifacts worthy of criticism and praise. (Age 22)
  

Music is...

• Mom's lullaby. (Age 2)
  
• Road trip mix tapes—ABBA, Beethoven, Bee Gees, Chicago. (Age 6)
• Old (here, current) school R&B—The Fugees, Boyz II Men, TLC. (Age 8)
  
• Emo—Dashboard Confessional, Bright Eyes, Something Corporate. (Age 13)
  
• Punk rock—Yellowcard, Linkin Park, Avril Lavigne. (Age 14)
• Break beats and techno—Kaskada, Robert Miles, Bobby Byrd. (Age 17)
  
• Classical—Nobuo Uematsu, Mozart, Yasunori Mitsuda. (Age 18)
  
• Japanese—Nujabes, m-flo. (Age 19)
  
• Eighties rock—Blur, Journey, Boston; Death Cab for Cutie; John Legend. (Age 20)
  
• Flight of the Conchords; Guitar virtuosity—Tommy Emmanuel, Andy McKee. (Age 21)
  
• The Beatles; Indie rock—Local Natives, Fleet Foxes. (Age 22)
  

School is...

• Life. (Age 7)
• A distraction from cartoons and video games. (Age 10)
• Dodgeball and flag-football (Age 13).
  
• JROTC. (Age 14)
• From a distance, the primary means to financial stability. On closer inspection, a breeding ground for pretentious intellectuals and social elitists; petri dish of the tech industry; just another business. (Age 19)
  
• A great place to meet fun and interesting people; my personal library and playground. (Age 22)

Girls are...

• Icky. (Age 5)
  
• Targets of harassment and fart jokes. (Age 7)
  
• Cute. (Age 13)
• Beautiful goddesses. (Age 16)
  
• Unattainable. (Age 18)
  
• Unrelenting, needy, self-righteous, self-serving twats. (Age 21)
• Intuitive but moody creatures; Nature's bees, burdened with the responsibility of labor; God's gift to nature and men...and lesbians; future mothers of our children (Age 22)
  

Religion is...

• Going to church and eating crispy slices of bread. (Age 6)
  
• Jesus. (Age 7)
  
• Forty beads and sixty minutes. (Age 10)
  
• Twenty-six pages. (Age 12)
  
• No longer important at a public high school. (Age 14)
  
• Illogical; based on superstition and unreliable sources. (Age 16)
  
• Guidelines miserable people use to make sense of a painful, stressful life. (Age 18)
  
• The reason why my parents and I fight. (Age 19)
  
• What gets my mom through the day. (Age 20)
  
• From a cultural perspective, unique; in its own way, a science and a magic; belief worth respecting. (Age 22)
  

Love is:

• Mom. (Age 4)
  
• A power that conquers all. (Age 8)
• Corinthians 13. (Age 14)
  
• A Hallmark marketing device. (Age 16)
• Often unrequited; short-lived. (Age 19)
  
• The chemical incentive for a biological imperative. (Age 21)
  
• A breeze of energy—something for which you should be grateful when it comes and accepting when it leaves; my family's concern; and her smile. (Age 22)
  

Life is...

• Street hockey. (Age 6)
  
• School. (Age 7)
  
• Video games and school. (Age 8)
  
• Skateboarding and sleeping in class. (Age 16)
  
• Breakdancing...and sleeping in class. (Age 17)
• Love. (Age 18)
  
• The end result of universal happenings upon happenings, the origins of which we will probably never truly understand, the occurrences of which have endlessly relative meanings and interpretation. (Age 21)
• Best kept simple. (Age 22)