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"I want you to imagine that you're listening to some random song and you see a little picture on the right-hand side that looks pretty familiar. Say you click on it and what you see is something that will change your entire life. Imagine if you clicked on the video, and you realize that somebody posted a video of you and labeled it, 'The World's Ugliest Woman or Man.' Think for a second: how would you feel?"

- Lizzie Velasquez, TEDxYouth @ Austin, TX.

Tumblr.

 There's always diamonds in the rough.

"Au Cinema" by Lianne la Havas has been haunting my ears for nearly weeks at a time, and I think it's about time it's used in this entry.

I don't know if people of "higher publicity" even bother to read every single means of social networking forwarded at them, but I contacted Lizzie and made it a point to speak of her video, which I stumbled over, courtesy of Tumblr.

Not too long ago, I was having a rather important conversation with my mother. She inquired if I'd ever been bullied in my life. Truthfully, I've been fortunate enough to be surrounded by people who were stable enough themselves to not attribute to any negative behavior. I can't say that I'd wish it happened, nor do I truly count my blessings, but I take it as it is. Eventually, someone "badder and better" will come along and pose a challenge. I will merely "make my enemy my footstool," as my mother often recounts of a major staple in her ethics.

Lizzie here did the same thing.

If you didn't care to watch the video for whatever reason, it's okay. I had the same, initial reaction most people would. However, I tuned into her words after her hook and saw that she was even more of a genuine and nice person, a better motivational-ist than I. I listened to her story and watched her as she went through her range of emotions and levels of her story. I learned to respect her and found that I had an admiration for both she and her parents.

Good parenting is not about providing for your child but should also incorporate teaching your children lessons that will be able to uphold them and useful for the children to support their self.

Lizzie found the fork in the road: "I could either choose happiness or I could choose to give up."

She chose happiness.

My conversation also garnered another piece of advice, and that was not to share business with everyone. There are certain things that need to be censored and there are secrets in the world that need to be upheld as secrets. I'm learning what those things are, though I aim to maintain a level of honesty and relative understanding to whatever the circumstances may provide.

There are many things I don't know in my life. I don't know how some people can get up in the morning and do something they hate every waking moment of their lives. I don't understand how they can do it for the people they love and manage to straighten their backs, keeping their nose to the grind. I don't know how people get up so many times after being beaten into the dirt, after being torn limb from limb and leeched of all hope and resolve by the environment in which they thrive. I don't understand how the fire in them rekindles each time, with greater vigor - with greater drive.

I don't know how people can fabricate such hatred, such animosity towards something or someone they do not know. I cannot understand how a notion of bullying is feasible when everyone - everyone - understands the distinction between "morally just" and "morally unjust." No matter the moral or ethic system, there's also an innate, physical reaction garnered from the things we do when we interact with other people: some of it gives us pleasure and others give us discomfort. I suppose there could be a fault in judgement of that sensation, but after the age of six, an individual's capacity for ethical distinction is engaged (Shaw & Wainryb, 2006). The worst bullying happens after that point and has an indeterminable ending point.

There's a line between humor wherein you laugh together and humor wherein an individual is the object of entertainment.

It's simply asinine and shouldn't be as big of a deal as it is. There are so many commercials and advertisements to stop bullying, programs in elementary schools to advocate a positive space, though ignorance reigns in the nooks and crannies of blanketing efforts.

It's not a war that needs to be fought in our schools, it's a matter of filial coherence that needs to be nurtured and amended in homes.

 Lizzie also spoke of utilizing what people said about her, every hateful and disgusting remark on the YouTube video, as fuel to her fire. It was incentive to prove them wrong and she did what she knew how to do. She made it her best and dedicated everything she had to speaking, to writing and sharing her story, even to developing herself as a person.

When I went to find her contact information, I found many images of her with friends, with celebrities that complimented her greatly. It provided more detail and visual of what the video was too scenic to capture, and after hearing her story, I wasn't bothered in the slightest. I actually envied the people who got to take pictures with her because I wished to meet her in person and just talk, befriend her.

That's what I did with one of my friends who's practically a sister to me now, Nicole Pastore.

"The most beautiful diamonds come from the dirtiest lumps of coal."

I saw that written on a wall. It isn't verbatim, I don't think, but it's the closest to what I remember. And it applies here better than anywhere else, I believe.

I don't know if you'd want to watch it again, but it's definitely worth your time. If you want to share it with your friends, family, school, strangers, the works by all means. I believe strongly that Lizzie would love it if more people felt beautiful knowing that other people have been through so much that we could never comprehend, yet they still feel like one of the greatest people on the planet.

It's probably because they are.

Thank you, Lizzie.

<3 ~ Monty.

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