Philosophy :

I tend to really, really enjoy philosophy, especially if it's accompanied by substantial conversation.

As of this moment, I'm currently quite a few pages into Anne Frank's diary. For a thirteen-year-old girl, she is extraordinarily witty and wise. I never thought I'd be laughing aloud along with her sarcastic remarks regarding her (rather unfortunate, at times) roommates, but here I am, choking on laughter while I choke down the rest of my warm, albeit bitter cup of coffee.

I've been thinking lately about how I hope to live, not merely waking up each day and breathing and being consciously aware, but living long enough to make an impact of some kind. I don't mean to be famous (nor do I  desire or crave to be), but instead, hope to do something special, something terrifically important that will, in turn, affect the future in a positive way. Maybe I will one day become a teacher, a professor, a mother, a wife; I hope to become these things, not merely to obtain a status kind of label from society, but to gain new insight, dignity, and perspective by adhering to a lifestyle of lifelong learning.

Anne Frank never had such opportunities, as Death greeted her before she could live to see sixteen. Her life could have been so much more had she lived longer, but alas, it was cut short by nationalism, violence, ignorance, and war.  But in her short years of compiling her many musings, her memoir remains, along with the Bible, one of the most popular pieces of literature in the world. Anne's diary serves as a dwelling place to preserve her spirit; reading it brings her to life. And though her body is gone, I can't help but feel that she will never truly be dead. Anne was a girl, but remains an author, just as I was a girl, but remain her audience. And as I continue to read her words, an unmistakable tingling of kinship brews on between us as she continues to pass on her story, one soul to the next.