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NOTE *Sorry, there are no paragraphs, it's just one long essay. ~Noah
Underestimated, jaded, worn out, and pretty much sick of the world we have been brought up in, sick of the undeserving authority we are taught to submit to. I don't mean to support teenage angst and angry bitch ranting, which are common stereotypes of us "kids." I don't mean to project the, "Oh woe is me, life is so hard, I can't survive, nobody understands me" attitude. What I'm getting at here is, we are not stupid. As the youth of today, we've seen more, heard more, overcome more than any generation in the past, and frankly, the adults seem to be losing control of us. Parents are not a bad thing, that is not what I am trying to reveal. Authority is not a bad thing. What is a bad thing, is authority that does not deserve to hold it's position as the elitest force that it is in the world today. What is a bad thing, are parents that have no clue how to raise their kids, and haven't the slightest idea what their kids need to grow up as inspiring and successful individuals, (note: success NOT equal to money and power). Looking at adults today, it is safe to say that the world is being run by coorperations, by ignorance and by immature and naive forty year olds and fifty year olds, who don't know what's going on. Their world is dying, and our world is growing. Look at politicions, look at police officers, look at abuse rates. Look at us kids. How many kids do I know that have broken families? The answer is a lot. Just looking at my peers and even myself, I know that something is not right in the way we have been raised, whether it stems from our establishment, meaning family, or from society, we know that we are being lied to. In the past, children would never think of denying any kind of authority that they were taught to follow. You don't do your homework, you get hit with a ruler, and you can't sock the teacher in the face or file a lawsuit against him/her. You don't do what your parents tell you, you get belted, and you will not speak in your defense, nor try to prevent the beating. Today, kids are braver and more aware of how things should be, and have a far greater understanding of what is fair and what isn't. Kids know not to take crap from anyone they disagree with. We want to go our own way and we will. Rebellion is deemed to be an ignorant outcry for help, executed by "rebels" or unruly teenagers. Rebellion, is NOT a negative thing. Rebellion is a positive act. If you don't want to do your homework because you hate Calculus and you will never use it in your life, you shouldn't have to. If you don't want to go to Spanish class, you shouldn't have to. Granted, one should be aware that they need to suffer the consequences, noting that, there are rules, and choosing to break them means neccessary measures to follow in order to avoid getting caught, and if you get caught, well, at least you stood up for what you believe in. Rebellion is the manifestation of bottled up anger, and it is all we have as the youth of today to fight for who we want to be, and what place we want to ultimately hold in the world. As "kids" our individualities are surpressed to the point where we HAVE to revolt. We HAVE to stand up for who we are. Those who do not are the kids who become doctors because mom and dad want them to be, those who don't are the kids who commit suicide because they have to much pressure on them to be perfect, those who don't are the ones who resort to ignorance. Not doing what you want to do in life, means putting aside all of your wishes and dreams, means putting aside your humanity, eventually resorting to the lie that you are happy with your life, because everything you wanted was unattainable, and reality has given you the best it had to offer. Anyone who has been taught the evil chain of life.. that school equals higher education, and higher educatioin means success and success means money and money means happiness.. has been ruthlessly lied to. All anyone needs to follow their heart is an open mind, motivation, and self respect. With these things anything is possible. There are those who live on the streets who are perfectly happy with their lives. There are those who simply do not want money. I don't want money. How many times will people tell me that I cannot live without money, that I NEED money. How many tribes exist today that live in nature, sans any form of currency? There are many. I need money for what I want to personally do with my life, that I will agree with, but survival without dead presidents is NOT impossible. What I want out of life, is enough money to survive, and I will earn that doing what I love to do. I will never take a job because the money is good, so that I can live luxuriously. I will never take a job that means being elite to anyone. Money is completely over-rated in our nation. What people fail to realize is that we are living in a time of affluency, much like the early twenties. We take it for granted, we get money we spend it on "stuff." I have more than enough respect for people who choose to live poor, for people who are rich but don't bother with their money. The root of this ignorance, which is ignorance due to wealth, is the way the youth are being raised. Our parents, our teachers push us to be successful, not successful in what we want to do, but successful in terms of the coorperate ladder, push others off just to make it to the top. I almost left the room when I heard a speaker on career day tell all of the students, and I quote, "You HAVE to go to college." No, no no no no! You have to go to college to be a part of the coorperate world. So many people, many of them adults, cannot even see the other world. A world where people get by without higher learning, a world of people who chose to go their own way. (Granted, I'm focusing on those who are following their straight A's and their ivy league schools for money, which is a lot of people, not those who truly wish to be doctors or earn their degrees in archeology, etc..) People don't understand that school and college is simply not for everyone, because not everyone chooses to become something that makes them a part of the higher percentage of society. I would rather live poor and be doing something I love, than live rich and be doing something I'm apathetic toward. Luckily, kids today are aware that they are being lied to, that this way of life is not the only way to live. Unfortunately, because they are aware of this, many have become bitter and depressed. The reason for this is because they know that society is an extremely powerful thing, that what is deemed normal, however wrong it may be, is what is accepted, leaving them as outcasts. We all know how outcasts are treated, we all know how nonconformists are treated. We are rebels, we are evil, therefore we are WRONG. What is highly ironic in the world today is that the forces between good and evil, are being portrayed by normalcy and diversity, majority and minority, conformity and rebellion. The first being the good, and the second being evil. However, the latter in each representation I have mentioned, is the good, and the first is the evil. For the rebels don't really care that the conformists do what they do, they just don't want to be stepped on by the conformists. Don't step on us, don't brainwash us, and we will go our own way without a fight. However, the conformists, the majority, DO step on us, do cause us hurt and make us angry, because they think they are right, and they want everyone to be like them. Much of this is due to fear of diversity. I won't even get into that, but the bottom line is, anything that is different is wrong, because there is a pre-existing fear with an unknown source, in anything we are not used to. This leads to all the isms and phobias, racism, sexism, fascism, homophobia, you name it, it's due to the self righteousness of the majority of society due to fear. The solution to the abolishment of the depression and anger of children, is that they need to be raised with open minds. They cannot be raised in essence of their parents, they cannot be raised by the beliefs of their parents. They need to be raised by universal rights, and be guided by the teachings of an open mind, not being tied to a leash and dragged through life being told who to be and who not to be. I can't even explain how neglected I feel as a youth of today. Everything I do is viewed by many adults as "teenage behavior" not human behavior. Everything I do, they blame "hormones," When I get angry I'm over-reacting, because kids have nothing to be angry about. All they think we have to deal with is doing homework and how to spend our weekends. They don't know that we are depressed, they don't know that we feel underestimated, they don't know that we do drugs, drink alcohol, have sex, hate things, love things, etc. They don't think we are HUMAN. They think we are "teenagers." I've had to overcome so many things, so many things that nobody will ever understand, so many emotions and feelings and occurences. I've almost given up at times. I know kids who have resorted to suicide because they felt nobody cared. They blame television they blame music. Frankly, music is one thing that us kids have to keep us alive. Parents will never understand that, because they just don't care enough to trust what we do and what we like. We use music to overcome depression, it helps us feel understood, and they will never understand that. Kids have way too many burdens to overcome these days. I hear about how the world has gone wrong in so many ways, nobody ever mentions the youth. I hear about how we need a new government, how we need to stop wars, nobody ever pays attention to the youth. The youth are revolting. All we have is eachother. Even though all we have is eachother we are still fighting amongst ourselves. The hardcore kids hate the teeny boppers, the straightedge kids won't associate with drug users, the straight A kids think class skippers are losers, vica versa. But we are united more by our youth and motivation and the fact that we are isolated, than the adults are by their money. We need to close the generation gap and form an understanding between adults and children, but that can't happen in this generation. All we can do is know the hardships we have overcome, be ourselves, and let the children of the future, our children, be themselves. By being yourself you let others be themselves, and by letting everyone go their own way, there is an understanding of the individual to be an individual, and that is what we need to be united by to abolish the negative reputation that society has. That is what we need to abolish classism not on a physical level, or due to wealth, but on a mental level. There will always be the rich, but the rich need to let the poor be poor if they choose to be. There will always be the business owners, but they need to let their children be musicians if they want to be. The majority of the youth today have opened their eyes, while previous generations choose to keep theirs closed, because we know that no matter how much it hurts to look at the light, it beats all the bruises we get stumbling around in the dark