Radioactive

Hello Internet!

It's been awhile since I wrote but there's a thing I've been thinking a lot lately and even though it's not really my normal school/teenage life post, I thought I could share it with ya'll. And if you or I do not have "Radioactive" by Imagine Dragons stuck in our heads by the end of this, I believe I will have failed at my ultimate mission to get catchy songs stuck in everyone's heads all the time and it will be a grave day in the blogosphere.

But I've been thinking about radioactivity from a different angle since my mother had a radioactive iodine treatment as the final stage of her thyroidectemy (Is that the right term for it? Probably not, Google put that unfriendly red line underneath it. Oh well.) and I've thought more about radioactivity recently than I have even studying for any radioactive decay chemistry test. Here are the things that have been swirling round in my mind for a few days.

Radioactivity. Sounds scary, right? Good, because it should be.

Radioactive chemicals can and will kill you. (Cheerful, I know. I try) If Fukishima, Chernobyl, and Marie Curie have taught us anything it's that radioactivity messes up things. The Fukishima reactor fiasco is starting to be blamed for poorer health conditions in Japan and potentially deadly microorganisms in the ocean that may have mutated due to the radioactive leak. Chernobyl has been vacant for 30+? years (I didn't fact check, whatever) and probably will still be unsuitable for humans for 30 more years. One day it's a thriving factory with hundreds, maybe thousands of workers and the next it it a ghost town. Marie Curie's journals are still kept in a vault underneath France's Bibliotheque National (fact checked that because I knew I would get it wrong :D) with 2 foot thick metal walls and anyone who views them must don a full body hazmat suit. Curie died in 1934 so those papers are at least 80 years old and are still too dangerous to be stored and viewed normally. Dang.

But then again, radioactivity can give us strength we could have never dreamed of, at least in the comic books. (Sorry, I just had to. I'm in Arrow withdrawals. Why Netflix did you delay Season 2's release date?!? But I digress) Spider-Man was bit by a radioactive spider, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Yes, they totally qualify as superheroes) were exposed to radioactive chemicals. The Fantastic Four, The Hulk, Daredevil and many other heroes began as normal people exposed to radiation. And they became great, using their differences to help others and learn about themselves.

Yes, I know this is sort of a ludicrous argument but I'd like to think that the curious and intelligent can find meaning in even the most ludicrous of arguments.

So what I got from these strange musings about deadly toxins was yes, things in this world can hurt us, and that hurt can be slow and linger for years and years. And it is so easy to just stay away from things that hurt us and be okay. But if we do that, we miss out on the opportunity to create or to discover something new. Sure, sometimes we can make mistakes, get hurt, change because of the things we encounter but they make us stronger and teach us about what we can do to make it right or make it better.

So maybe radioactive isn't as bad as we think. Maybe we all just need to explore a little more. And if you mess it up, hey, you might just get super powers.

This post is either super insightful or absolutely ridiculous. I can't tell yet. You be the judge.

Have an excellent hour and a half left of September 15th,
Colleen