if you want to learn, stop moving.

i'm finally 17, which is nice, it's no 18, but it'll do.
it's summer of grade 11 and now I'm approaching my final year of high school,
it's bittersweet, well it's far more sweet than bitter. It feels good. You see, you grow up, or at least you try, and we try to move faster and faster with every day. It's true what they say we move to fast, it's like nothing can even permeate into us. We won't let anything grasp us, or touch us, with that, we'll never learn. As of late, my method to knowledge is simply slowing down, observing, and appreciating what beauty there is. Any emotions or visuals really penetrate into my soul, and leaves an imprint which I can look back on and really understand. I am still learning of course, and it's so much better than before. I'm at peace with myself, the world, and a trying at understanding "the meaning of life". I'm finding more and more that this question is almost meaningless, and unnecessary. I'm starting to accept that i'll never really know, and I'm pretty okay with that. The pursuit of understanding life after death is fairly simple, I think I just wanted to know I would be okay, I was just looking for a peace that lasts, more than a few hours, or days or weeks. I had lost hope in happiness in this life, and I was searching for happiness beyond it. That's what philosophy, religion, and the lives of many consists of: giving up the idea of omnipresent happiness yet still slightly grasping to it. Well here I am grasping it, I don't need the "idea", because it's here, existing in me everywhere I go. I'm rolling my eyes as I type, I'm so damned grateful to be where I am, who I am, it kills me; it's too good and it's true. When you find peace in this life, you could really care less about the aftermath. If there is a hell, I don't see how logical it could be to send someone perfectly healthy who cares about people, who just wants to help, off to burn, just because they didn't live their life according to a standard book. I don't want to be another slave only one with a blindfold. I don't want to solely accept any one documentation as truth, I don't want to believe life is only suffering, and I won't. I want to go after my dreams, I don't want to wait for something: an act of God or fate to work as a catalyst pushing me through life. I want to push myself through anything life brings my way, and I want to reject any fear that society has worked so hard to instill into me. I'm tired of hearing "No", in most cases who would be the one telling me that I couldn't do something? it would only be someone who's trying to hold me back, be it because they are afraid of being obsolete in my life, or because they'd like to get ahead of me, and who would I be if I listened? I'd be my worst fear, and as I've said I want to reject that. This whole being free thing, it's really working for me. To be young and free, Wild in the most relaxing sense.