The Power of Pizza

Beauty is a thing with wings, flying high, beautiful, and blind in the sky until it isn't so high anymore, or flying so much as crashing headfirst into the ground. When you really think about it, that's high school. Hell, that's life. You don't normally see the beauty in it though, do you? Well, most people don’t. Joseph B. Wirthlin once said, “The more often we see the things around us—even the beautiful and wonderful things—the more they become invisible to us. That is why we often take for granted the beauty of this world: The flowers, the trees, the birds, the clouds—even those we love. Because we see things so often, we see them less and less.”

Now, would you really agree with that? Most people don’t want to admit that they don’t; that’s completely fine. I, in part, disagree with Wirthlin, openly and unapologetically. Just because you see it so much that you don’t see it, doesn’t make the things you see once in a lifetime any less beautiful. Things like the world’s largest pizza pie—I’m sure a lot of you can agree that pizza is a very ordinary, yet beautiful thing. But just imagine seeing the world’s largest pizza pie as it cooks in an oven. Imagine the fresh smell, and the warmth radiating from the pie as whoever is making it takes it out. Beautiful, right? Unhealthy, maybe, but nonetheless beautiful. A lot of people might just leave it at that, but it’s a giant pizza! You can’t simply admire it can you? Well, you can, but would you want to?

This is where the real beauty comes in. You’d be so damn surprised to know it comes from right between your own two ears. Inside that skull is where creativity thrives; much of it is subconscious and stays locked up, but what’s scary is that more of what remains locked up in the dustiest filing cabinets up there is what we think others would mock us for. If anyone were to make the decision as to what you would do next, how many of you would say you would eat as much of it as you can? Most of you, probably. I don’t blame you, either. There are so many other things you could do with a pie that big. If it were a giant deep dish pizza with extra cheese, you could swim in the cheese and eat it as you swim. If you wanted, you could make a cheese angel instead of a snow angel. There are virtually no limits to the things your imagination could come up with, so go ahead and take a dip in that deep dish of pizza deliciousness if that’s what your imagination so desires.

Now, keep in mind that pizza is a metaphor. I make metaphors all the time to help myself see the better side of things. If you really gave me the time to think about it, I could probably find similarities between things like an exploding star that’s 57,931,514,389.218 light years away and a new species of bees the size of elephants to make the choice between a federally investigated former secretary of state and a seemingly temperamental, apparently racist cheese puff for president seem lighter.

Believe it or not, that’s how I’ve survived so far through high school… If you really can say that I'm surviving. Not by swimming through giant pizzas, or by making such extreme comparisons, no, but by using the creativity and intellect I’m so blessed to have. Somehow, I find new ways to get around and over and under every obstacle I get. Sometimes the ideas I have are more of a Hail Mary, but they are, nonetheless, ideas that help me get through each day. So, if you ever find yourself wondering where the beauty is in this world, just remember there are two places to look: First is in your own mind, and second is in the power of pizza, because, not only is it an amazing food that’s a blessing to have, but pizza was also my Hail Mary this time.