Survival of the fittest. In this competition, those with the most knowledge win, those unprepared die. Simply, we need to understand the world because we live in it, and we won't for very long if we don't. However, the answer of "because it's friggin' cool!" also applies. I believe everyone can feel it: The haze of apathy that seems to have settled over everything, a nice warm blanket of doom. And it is doom, as it is that same apathy that will bring about the destruction of the world. From social media to politics to the classroom, no one seems to care to learn anymore. Simply, what is there left to learn about the world? Nothing, according to social media, deluging the young and old with pointless yet addictive information. We pretend to understand what we listen to, but it's just noise. Nothing, according to politics, declaring that the other side is always wrong. No need to learn if you're always in the right. And nothing, according to school, what is supposed to be a church preaching all knowledge that there is to learn. But the congregation doesn't want to be there, and the choir sits in the back pews chatting and fiddling on their phones. We go to school to learn, and to understand ourselves, our communities, our world, our universe. We go to school to learn, but are taught that there is nothing left to understand. The most recent books we read are a century old, and the formulas we are taught have been the same since Newton. Everything important has already been learned, everything original has already been created. Why take the path down the steps to discovery when it has already been tread? That's a stupid question if one has ever existed. There is an infinite number of paths to walk down, an infinite number of discoveries to make, and an infinite number of interpretations of those discoveries. That's the beauty of the search for understanding; it is ultimately fruitless as you can never fully understand something, but the search itself is the most fulfilling thing in life. And on that search, who knows, you might save a couple lives or blow a couple minds, and start those people down a path of their own. But school, and our culture as a whole, doesn't set people down that path. And that, in my personal opinion, is why we're all screwed. It's not the knowledge that we need. What we lack at the moment is the want for that knowledge. And if we don't want that knowledge, we won't work to get it. And if we don't get it, our mistakes will build to the point we self-destruct. And I don't think any of us particularly want to do that. So how do we avoid it? We avoid it by understanding. By understanding the universe, you can better understand your brother, your neighbor, and your enemy. Understanding is also what breeds innovation, the very thing that can get us out of this societal rut. And that's why we need to understand. I consider myself both an artist and a scientist, which are the two things I have been dedicating my life to being. Both of those fields have the potential to inspire, which is my dream: To inspire others, as I myself have been inspired, so hopefully those people go on and change the world in the ways that a single person can't. Through my art I wish to inspire a desire for change, and through my research I will bring about that change. By cutting through the apathy I see all around me, maybe I can reignite that desire to understand, because for me, that desire to understand drives all my passions and my entire life. I need to be an artist so I can understand myself, and I need to be a scientist so I can understand the world; these two necessities, drawn together by the same desire, are my sole reason for existing, and the thing that drives me forwards every day. I hate that others are unable to experience the joy I get from these two passions because of the way we have been raised. I need to understand reality, because that desire for understanding is what pushes me forwards in life. I hope to inspire that desire in others, so they too can feel the purpose it can bring life, and so we can save ourselves from this apathy by living in a world of passion.

Science is rather puzzling for me. And boy, do I love puzzles. Like a puzzle, everything exists in pieces, then combines to make a larger whole; tiny rocks make up a beach, slightly larger rocks make up a solar system, which makes a galaxy, which makes a universe, which makes... We don't know. And that's the point of science! We could simply let everything be what it is, but where's the fun in that? There's so much to understand that you literally can't understand it all. People dedicate their lives to discovering the reasons why the smallest things happen and somehow shift the entire course of humanity in doing so. The thing I find particularly fascinating is how everything connects. Unlike puzzles, there are no limits to the amount of connections that can be made to any one thing. The moldy piece of bread in my cupboard is made of fundamentally the same stuff as crystals, or my dog, or the Coke can on the side of the road. That moldy piece of bread has tiny organisms feeding on it, also made of the same stuff as crystal, etc., etc. But those tiny organisms are much more complicated than the bread they are feeding on; indeed, they are about as complex as humans were years, and years, and years ago. But humans aren't little organisms, or moldy bread, or crystal? Why did a tiny creature like that accidentally growing in my cupboard become a big creature that can contemplate said tiny creature? Then any ex-tiny creature who wanted to could delve into evolution or natural selection or why things would even need to naturally select in the first place. But perhaps natural selection doesn't matter to humans anymore, for we are now intelligent beings with big brains that thrive on the top of the food chain. Except, of course, it does matter. Strangely humans don't encounter it when fighting for food anymore; rather, they find it when fighting for attention or promotions or mates. But why do humans still fight? Perhaps it's biology, perhaps it's... psychology? Delving into why the human mind fights all these years later makes things difficult without comprehending what the brain is in actuality... So perhaps understanding the brain can help us understand the fighting, which can help us understand evolution, which can help us understand the tiny organisms, which can help us understand stuff that makes up everything. The stuff that makes up everything, including the brain. This can go on forever. Rather, It does go on forever. Because even as humans live our lives, these tiny connections piece together to make bigger connections, which piece together to make the rules that dictate our subjective realities. These connections are everywhere, even if we don't notice them, and I'm anticipating spending the rest of my life learning more about these little pieces to the incomplete puzzle that makes up all that there is to know.