Why?
A lot on my mind, this past week, month, year, etc.
I truly believe I have found some peace of mind on this whole romance issue. That's a fairly bold statement, considering the heart-wrenching melodrama that one of my recent posts positively reeked of. I've always thought that never finding romance and leading a life of involuntary solitude and celibacy was one of the worst things that could possibly happen to someone. It's really not, honestly. As I told my friend in an e-mail, there are plenty of people who are married, or in a relationship, or whatever who are miserable, and there are people who have nothing who are happy, or who do wonderful things for the world.
It took a long time for me to mentally graduate high school, but yet I feel like I finally have moved beyond that. Dating, social standing, and other concerns seem cheaper and pettier by the day. Not that they've disappeared, those little wounds never fully go away. I feel like they're being transformed into something else though. A desire to stop the cycle that perpetuates them.
What do I mean? Well, I keep thinking back to high school. I think of all the vain, snotty people, and all the aggressive kids that targeted me, and all of the kids that always got into trouble and never did well. I find myself genuinely and honestly worried about them. It's not fair. From the age of 5 onward, anyone who didn't pay attention, slacked off, talked to much or generally caused trouble was marked for death. They were "bad". They got disapproving stares from teachers, repeated verbal lashings for their transgressions, and nasty comments on report cards. And for what? Because standardized curriculum and testing couldn't plumb the depths of who they were? Because neurotic rule-makers could not take the chance of treating children like human beings? Because teachers were too tired or unmotivated to try to reach these kids? Are these kids terrible people because they didn't study and got into fights? Why didn't someone try to find out what they were interested in? If they weren't interested in anything, why didn't they try to find out why? Why did they just suspend people for fighting instead of asking them why they were doing it? And what about the good kids? Were they really all that smart, creative, and diligent? Or were they just more clever, more manipulative than the others? What about me? Was I really a good kid, or just well-behaved? I now consider myself a genuinely good person with a lot of value, but a lot of that has come from personal reflection. But would that personal reflection have even sprung from anything if I didn't have some sense of being "good" ingrained in me, "good" in this case being synonomous with "well-behaved"? Was I really good, or was I just quiet?
I guess after four years of being in a truly intellectual and educational environment, I want to go back and ask some honest questions about the twelve years that preceded college. I think we all need to. Kids are being churned through the machinery of our schools daily, so that they can be spit out into their proper places in a dysfunctional society. We all need to change. We need new ways of looking at ourselves, at each other.
I may or may not write again in this blog in the near future. There's so much to say and think about that a blog couldn't possibly hold. Here's to hoping it all finds it's way into something productive.
I truly believe I have found some peace of mind on this whole romance issue. That's a fairly bold statement, considering the heart-wrenching melodrama that one of my recent posts positively reeked of. I've always thought that never finding romance and leading a life of involuntary solitude and celibacy was one of the worst things that could possibly happen to someone. It's really not, honestly. As I told my friend in an e-mail, there are plenty of people who are married, or in a relationship, or whatever who are miserable, and there are people who have nothing who are happy, or who do wonderful things for the world.
It took a long time for me to mentally graduate high school, but yet I feel like I finally have moved beyond that. Dating, social standing, and other concerns seem cheaper and pettier by the day. Not that they've disappeared, those little wounds never fully go away. I feel like they're being transformed into something else though. A desire to stop the cycle that perpetuates them.
What do I mean? Well, I keep thinking back to high school. I think of all the vain, snotty people, and all the aggressive kids that targeted me, and all of the kids that always got into trouble and never did well. I find myself genuinely and honestly worried about them. It's not fair. From the age of 5 onward, anyone who didn't pay attention, slacked off, talked to much or generally caused trouble was marked for death. They were "bad". They got disapproving stares from teachers, repeated verbal lashings for their transgressions, and nasty comments on report cards. And for what? Because standardized curriculum and testing couldn't plumb the depths of who they were? Because neurotic rule-makers could not take the chance of treating children like human beings? Because teachers were too tired or unmotivated to try to reach these kids? Are these kids terrible people because they didn't study and got into fights? Why didn't someone try to find out what they were interested in? If they weren't interested in anything, why didn't they try to find out why? Why did they just suspend people for fighting instead of asking them why they were doing it? And what about the good kids? Were they really all that smart, creative, and diligent? Or were they just more clever, more manipulative than the others? What about me? Was I really a good kid, or just well-behaved? I now consider myself a genuinely good person with a lot of value, but a lot of that has come from personal reflection. But would that personal reflection have even sprung from anything if I didn't have some sense of being "good" ingrained in me, "good" in this case being synonomous with "well-behaved"? Was I really good, or was I just quiet?
I guess after four years of being in a truly intellectual and educational environment, I want to go back and ask some honest questions about the twelve years that preceded college. I think we all need to. Kids are being churned through the machinery of our schools daily, so that they can be spit out into their proper places in a dysfunctional society. We all need to change. We need new ways of looking at ourselves, at each other.
I may or may not write again in this blog in the near future. There's so much to say and think about that a blog couldn't possibly hold. Here's to hoping it all finds it's way into something productive.
posted by Justin @ 8:30 AM
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