https://plus.google.com/photos/107188753218772686901/albums/5802205558279121073?authkey=CJmVi9akvJjDBw
Being happy, in a deeply real sense, I think comes with first recognizing who you are and embracing that. Being fake is a bad habit that I believe too many people today have, and so while the level of smiling may be higher than in my parents’ youth, the number of people today who are actually depressed is at a frighteningly high level. The first and second image on my collage sums up the way I feel about how you should go about things; just be real with yourself and others, and you won’t need to chase smiles.
Pokémon is a fantastically steady constant that I have had throughout my life. I don’t know that I was a particularly social person at a younger age, and I’m mostly to myself now, and the game pictured second in my collage is the first one I ever owned. That game helped spark the deep passion I have for video games today, and nothing gives me a rush of nostalgia quite like that game. Wherever I decide to go with my life, I know that I can always take a break from the real world and escape for a while.
I take great pride in my Israeli heritage, and few things are more important to me than that nation’s sovereignty and security. I may be a New Yorker and an American both at heart and on paper, but the home of my ancestors is Israel, and it is important to me that my children have that opportunity open to them. Every member of my extended family and my parents has fought for the Israeli army, and the sacrifices they have all made to keep that nation free I do not take for granted. The fourth and fifth pictures of my collage communicate the importance of politics in my life.
Expanding my knowledge and exploring the world around me is what drives me. I always feel the need to keep moving forward, to becoming a better, more educated person. Art, in whatever form it comes, often inspires me to further pursue that goal I just stated above. The limited amount of traveling that I’ve done over the past few years has only sharpened the passion I have for history and the world around me, and the last image is that of Grindelwald in Switzerland, which I hope to visit sometime soon. The sixth image of Plato and Socrates sums up my love of study and education, and the seventh image is an album cover of a music producer whose work I listen to as I do my own work.
