On December 2nd, I had the privilege to attend TEDxIthaca College. The X stands for an independently organized TED event. In simpler words, this basically means a collection of students, professors, psychologists, or simply Ithaca citizens all applied to speak at this conference a year in advance.

Out of more than 400 applicants, only 16 speakers were selected. My girlfriend was one of them.

Because of that, I was accepted as an “attendee” and got to sit in a “debut” audience of nearly one hundred people from 8:30 AM-3:00 PM.

Before I want to go any farther, I just want to reiterate how eternally grateful I am to have the opportunity to attend a conference like this. Not many people in their lifetime can probably say they’ve seen a Ted Talk live.

For those of you who don’t know, a Ted Talk is an average length speech that brings up new ideas, innovations, and topics that may be harder for one to speak about in regular conversation. Some of the themes vary from politics to mental health to something like invisible disabilities such as dyslexia.

In the nearly six hours of speeches I listened to I was inspired, had thoughts provoked, and was overall over the moon on how talented of speakers people in our world are.

Right off the bat, I was being taught ways to be productive, how to keep myself happy, active, and how in the end all we are is 100% human.

A strong feminist woman spoke about the poppy syndrome and how women are uncomfortable with their counterparts becoming more successful than them. While women should empower each other, we just kick each other down. She brought up points such as “we cannot hate people close up.”

It’s so easy to look at a girl when she walks in the room and hate her for how she looks, how she dresses. But once we put a name to her face, a personality to her eyes, we cannot hate her, because she’s a woman, a human, just like all the rest of us.

One of my favorite talks pertained to sexuality and the media and how important it is to portray LGBTQ+ characters for teens and youth. The speaker said, “You can’t be what you can’t see.”

That’s so incredibly beautiful for how impossibly true it is. How is someone ever supposed to figure out their identity if they have nothing to base it off of? How will they know it exists? How will they know what they’re feeling is valid?

I know I may have just rattled off a bunch of randomized ideas. But after that Ted Talk my mind is buzzing with creativity, inspiration, and I guess there’s no way to share that but through further conversation.

I would definitely recommend attending a Ted Talk at least once in your life, you won’t regret it.