The Delusion of Complacency

We as a society are complacent. We like to feel safe and warm and in the comfort of our own homes. I myself like to feel this way at times. But then, there comes those times when I get that inevitable sense of a Took and want some adventure. I am under the belief that most people feel that way at one time or another.

Our society is too complacent in my opinion. We are under the impression that our thinly insulated walls can keep us from any harm and our silently gliding cars will protect us from impact. There are rules upon rules meant to keep us safe and out of harm’s way, but in reality don’t do much of anything. Anyone who has built a house or done any sort of construction work at all knows that a common house is a very fragile thing. You can literally punch a hole in most walls. Those rules meant for safety are going to be broken anyway, and the people who won’t break them probably don’t even know them. The rules of society are to be quiet, safe, calm, and ordinary. Quite like a hobbit. But where’s the fun in that?

Maybe I feel those adventurous urges more than my peers, but when I look around at the adventures I can take they are few and far between. If I told this to one of my parents (or any other adult), they would say that I’m not looking hard enough, “life is an adventure,” and so on. Not so. Yes, there are some adventures in life, but the whole point of them is that you have to look for them. I’m hardly going to travel the world while sitting in a desk for seven hours at school. “Your time will come,” my parents say. I don’t want to sit around and wait for my time. Anyone who has done anything worthwhile went out there for themselves and didn’t listen to anybody who told them to wait. So why should I?

In the history of mankind, there have always been unexplored places, new and exotic things and cultures. Countless people have spent their lives sailing the seven seas and charting the New World. Many more fought barbarians to protect their Empire or joined the army to conquest new lands. Those are adventures. They are not safe and cuddly, but exciting, dangerous, and based upon merit and skill. Now the world is all but inhabited and explored; society’s rules are closing in and look down upon any who do anything extraordinary or out of the ordinary.

My theory is that mankind needs that sense of adventure. Perhaps modern society frowns on anything “adventurous,” but then why does science fiction exist? Why did Jules Verne write Journey to the Center of the Earth; why have Tolkien, Rowling, and Lewis become some of the most celebrated authors of the time? Movie theaters are filled with movies such as Avatar and Star Trek. I believe that deep down, mankind still has that longing for adventure. It has only been a few short centuries since the majority have ceased to look for it, and it must still be in our bones.

It is for these reasons that I play video games and read books. I don’t like slaying pixels and reading just to shut people out. I read to get lost in another world; I play to experience adventure. For that is the only way that I can truly escape this mundane life. Perhaps one day I can travel the continents and learn new languages and customs, but that day is far away. It is not just my age and gender that limit me, it is finances and the modern age. You have to travel considerably far to escape technology and English speakers, and spend a lot of money to do it. When my parents say that my time will come and I will get those experiences, they forget that my dad’s semester at sea experience was in an age gone by and my mom’s college experiences were generously funded. If those things have past in that amount of time, then by the time that I am able to leave, will there be anything left? Unless Pandora is discovered or I somehow get to the center of the planet, I’m worried that there won’t be.

I say these things to my mom and she gives the response that a Tolkienesque adventure would be quite fun, but you wouldn’t really want to do it. I disagree – wholeheartedly. Maybe she doesn’t understand how much I understand. The danger is real, the risk uncalculated. It wouldn’t be all sunshine and bunnies. No nice bed or fire when the day is done. I realize this. When I am in the mood for adventure and I’m thinking that there must be some Took somewhere in my veins, I am fully willing to jump down the rabbit hole. Nothing worth gaining is ever taken without risk. Were I given the chance to risk my life and go on an adventure, I would say yes. It wouldn’t be without thinking, for I’ve thought about it long and hard. My very bones ache with the want of some excitement. To get out of this mundane regulated life and take some risks, explore the uncharted.

I enjoy my life, don’t get me wrong. I love seeing my friends at school and my family at home. However, were I given the chance to gallivant off on some quest, I most certainly would say yes.

Poetry – Fancies

“His soul stretched tight across the skies

That fade behind a city block,

Or trampled by insistent feet

At four and five and six o’clock;

And short square fingers stuffing pipes,

And evening newspapers, and eyes

Assured of certain certainties,

The conscience of a blackened street

Impatient to assume the world.

 

I am moved by fancies that are curled

Around these images, and cling:

The notion of some infinitely gentle

Infinitely suffering thing.”
 

– Prelude IV

T.S. Eliot

Poetry – There Will Be Time

“And indeed there will be time

For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,

Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;

There will be time, there will be time

To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;

there will be time to murder and create,

And time for all the works and days of hands

That lift and drop a question on your plate;

Time for you and time for me,

And time yet for a hundred indecisions,

And for a hundred visions and revisions,

Before the taking of a toast and tea.

…

And indeed there will be time

To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”

…

Do I dare

Disturb the universe?

In a minute there is time

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.”

 

– The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,

T. S. Eliot

Mice, Books and Canadian Rock Bands

Our house currently has a mouse infestation. The rodentia are cute and furry, and unbelievably quick. However, they have been living in my closet. Until recently, this hasn’t really been a problem. They’ve only been in the lowest couple of shelves, and I don’t really use those much. Lately though, I’m pretty sure they’ve been up nearer to where my clothes reside. This does not give me a warm fuzzy feeling.

I can handle mice on my clothes. I don’t think they’re “dirty” or anything, at least not extensively. The clothes in my closet probably gather more dust and grit from the entrance to the crawl-space under our house than they do from the mice. (Yes, the entrance to the crawl-space of my house is smack in the middle of the floor of my closet.) What I find difficult to deal with is when they eat my books. I just picked up a book to read and the back of the cover felt ripped. I turned it over in my hand and saw teeth marks. This is sacrilege! Books cannot be torn apart my mere rodents! Books are sacred, treasured things.

I am extremely OCD about my books. I don’t put them in my backpack and I remove the dust-jacket on hardbacks while I read them so they don’t get messed up around the edges. I do not write in them, highlight passages, or put sticky-notes in them. And I never, ever, dog-ear the pages. Each page should be straight and crisp, though not as crisp as a brand new book. More the crisp of the sort that has been handled carefully and fondly over the years. Soft and smooth and slightly yellowed, but straight. As you can see, I highly revere my books. So when I turned this one over and saw teeth marks in the cover, with a hole in the dust-jacket, I was very upset.

This was no particular book, however. Oh no. Had this been a different book I might not have been so upset. Unfortunately, this book was meant to be a Christmas gift to someone. The book is called Clockwork Angels, and is based upon the story and lyrics of the album with the same name by a Canadian rock band – RUSH. I had first heard of this album by way of one of my teachers (a big fan of RUSH), who was very excited by this newest album of theirs. Apparently, they used to release “story albums,” where one side of the album told a story. Basically as I understand it, all the songs were connected through a narrative or theme, kind of like TSO’s Beethoven’s Last Night, but more in the style of a typical music album. Well, they had stopped doing that for a while (and I get the feeling this was a long while) and this new album, Clockwork Angels, was story based. The teacher showed me the album and we listened to some of it and I read through the lyrics. They were very interesting. I picked up immediately that they were steampunk (though I don’t think he realized that), and the story sounded very intriguing. In fact, I thought I would have like to know more about it. Well hoop-de-doo when I walk into Barnes and Noble that day and I see a book on the New Arrivals table with the album cover on it. ‘Twas indeed the same story. The drummer in the band, Neil Peart, wrote the lyrics and story, and then basically someone else wrote the book with his help. I started reading it and it was pretty enjoyable. I knew immediately that I would buy it for the teacher and give it to him for Christmas. This was in…oh, maybe October. That’s how long I’ve had this book.

Knowing how OCD I am about my books, I’m the same way with gifts, other people’s things, etc. So this book was practically enshrined. It’s a little ridiculous I know. I read through it (it’s pretty good by the way) and have kept it in near perfect condition all the way up until (I assume) today. The only damage, if you can call it that, is the dust-jacket. You know when something with a lot of ink on it, like a dust-jacket or photograph, gets rubbed a lot and then gets sort of matte and cloudy looking? Well, that’s what happened. It’s very minor. Anyway, I managed to keep it in perfect condition for over two months. Now two weeks before I give it to the intended recipient, it gets eaten by a mouse! This is so frustrating! How do I explain a random bite taken out of the cover? All of those things adding up to me being so crazily protective of this book, and now a silly mouse eats part of it. Argh.

Before, I didn’t really mind the mice. Now I want them out. You can mess with my sleep, you can run through my bathroom/bedroom, you can even get in my clothes, but touch my books and I am no longer responsible for my actions. Get ready mice: This Means War.

School = Frustration

I was complaining to my family and friends a while back about my classes. Not the usual “I have homework” kind of complaining, but more like “this class is literally wasting my time in a major way.” Yes, it sounds like a lazy teenager, but hear me out.

The majority of my classes that I’m taking as a high school Junior are pointless to me. I have absolutely no use for them beyond my high school degree. I will use these classes: English and Orchestra. Maybe Latin and Digital Graphics. Pre-Calculus, European History, Physics, IB Biology – absolutely no use.

Whenever I complain to people about this they just don’t understand. “But you need a basic grounding in everything!” Well yes, but I already have a basic grounding in every subject offered in my high school. After Sophomore year, everything is advanced. I have taken basic sciences, more than basic and useful mathematics, more history that I know what to do with, and a foreign language that I will probably never use. Physics is common sense, the formulas are for career physicists only. Pre-Calculus is for math majors or people going into something to do with Calculus, like engineering or economics. Advanced science classes are for those people planning to be doctors, chemists, pharmacists, or basically anything requiring med school. English always needs to be taught, though honestly by this point in our lives we should have learned our primary language by now.

As of now I plan to major in music. What classes are useful to me? Orchestra. Bam. Why do I have 7 periods this semester and 8 the next? Why are all 7 of my periods full my senior year when most of my peers only have 3 required classes? I understand that I need a basic grounding in things, but I’ve already got a basic grounding! Stop telling me that, please!

It’s very depressing to think that everything I learn in my academic classes will be forgotten shortly following exams, when I could have spent all that time and effort into remembering or improving something I would use the rest of my life.

I love learning, don’t get me wrong, but school isn’t learning. It’s sciolism. We simply swallow and regurgitate facts without even tasting them. Nobody cares “why” something happens or works, and when I ask my classmates and teachers just seem exasperated by the question.

I live in a world where I am expected to get perfect grades in every subject like a machine, while my science teacher can’t even form a correct sentence and my math teacher has no clue what a covalent bond is. My entire life is based on my high school career. If I apply to a good school for their music program, I have to get accepted to their academic portion first. I’m sorry, but I fail to see what my grade in Biology has to do with my ability as a musician. Why do colleges look at all of your grades, your ranking, and your GPA when they should be focusing on what’s relevant to your intended major? I live in a world where a Bachelor’s degree is as common as a high school degree, yet half the population of my country can’t afford to go to a decent college to get a Bachelor’s. All of my classes are college classes (and I have to buy $200 textbooks for some of them), but I don’t get college credit for them, nor do the majority of adults around me understand that they are college classes, hence they are difficult. In addition, not only do I have to study for the SAT and ACT now, I also have an AP/IB test in every class except Orchestra. By next Christmas, I have to get all of my college applications done, and will most likely know if I get to go to the college of my dreams, or get shut down because my non-relevant classes dropped my GPA.

Some adults understand, but they are few and far between. Most don’t understand why my peers and I are stressed. We don’t get enough sleep, we hardly see daylight, and we (unlike the adults) understand that pretty much our entire lives, as we have been led to believe, are decided by these next two years.

One of the most frustrating things is that there is simply no way to make people understand. They can’t put themselves in my shoes and I can’t place them there. They have heard me complain and tried to sympathize with me, but they still don’t understand. The classes I’m taking at 17 are classes my parents took in college. The required classes I’m taking as a senior were optional to my brother 6 years ago. Everything we learn is taught to pass a test. It’s moved on from standardized tests like the TAKS and now is the SAT, ACT, AP, and IB tests, which by the way are also standardized. Pressure has severely increased on people my age, and parents just don’t understand it. It’s not bullying or peer pressure, but the pressure we put on ourselves and that the system puts on us. More and more is expected of us, and we have less and less to give.

I’m sick of memorizing things I will never use and seeing daylight only through the gray light of pre-dawn. I’m tired of losing sleep over anxiety for my future and not having anybody understand why. I want to cry and scream and shout all at the same time. School is useless and pointless. It’s like a pencil with an eraser at both ends. It never inscribes anything permanent on my brain, but it erases the things I want to know and learn. I’m exhausted of textbooks holding me back from what I want to learn and worksheets force-feeding me useless information. If society trusted me to be me, I would be ten times more productive than I am and happier for it. If I didn’t have to take academic classes, I would only take the ones that interest me and would further my education in a useful way. I would study and learn things on my own and only ask for advice and occasional instruction. In this way I would become self reliant and ready for the real world. Life hands you a test and then the lesson, and the textbook doesn’t exist. School hands you a textbook and a test and you never see the lesson.

This is why school equals frustration. This is why school drives me to tears. I don’t cry over a bad grade, I mourn for the loss of my childhood and the better times and education I could have had. Instead of rushing through Huckleberry Finn in three weeks and taking a test (in which you can pass without reading the book), I could have studied the philosophies of Rousseau, Voltaire, Thoreau and Emerson. I would love to learn for myself and analyze the meters of Keats, Yeats, and Elliot. Instead, I am stuck forcing formulas and dates into my head. Instead, I get rings under my eyes and a headache from finishing my homework instead of going to sleep. I am stuck inside a building with no windows and uniform walls, teachers that sometimes can’t even understand their own subject, and a prison-like regulated lunch and bathroom schedule. Nobody trusts us, nobody believes us, and nobody understands us.

Just to make things clear…

I post a lot about my education and the American school/education system in general. What I express about the afore-mentioned things can hardly be considered praise. Please do not take this to mean that I am against education and learning. The opposite is true. I am all for learning and education. I just believe that our education system is completely wrong and almost useless. I am frustrated with it, stuck in it, have to deal with the people it never taught, and never have to actually learn anything from it. Therefore, I criticize it in some vain hope that maybe someone will listen and finally put more funding into better teachers, textbooks with binding and without graffiti, fine arts, and things that actually teach you something (without giving you a meaningless grade), instead of funding pointless political debates, government spending, billion dollar sports programs, and corruption.

Maybe someone will finally not be afraid of change and actually execute the reform for which we’ve all voted instead of talking about it and saying it won’t work. We’ll never know unless we try, and frankly, pretty much anything is better than the way it is now. Some places have tried, and I’m very proud and excited for/about them. Then I look around at my school district and sigh.

You might tell me to stop writing about it and do something. Well, this is doing something. It’s bringing attention to the problem in a way that people might actually listen. Because I’m seventeen and a junior in high school, a lot of people don’t take me seriously. My friends and I all talk about how awful our education is and how we wish it were better. Some adults listen and agree, others say we don’t try hard enough at school. The latter is the vast majority. However, I’m the one who corrects the grammatical and spelling errors on my English tests, fixes punctuation in Math and Physics, and notices redundancy and the constant equivocation as to the “why” question in my Biology textbooks. I use words like “gallivant” and “expedite” in my everyday vocabulary, to the extent that even my teachers don’t always understand me. I’m more interested in why and how something works than just memorizing it, and I have more classical and cultural education from movies, books, and games than almost anyone I know. Yet still no one will take me seriously.

This is why I write. This is why the internet exists. The world is my audience and maybe, just maybe, someone out there will finally listen to me. They will ignore my age, my gender, my sexuality, my religion, my politics, my nationality, and just listen to me for my views, my ideas, and my thoughts.

School however, will remain the same. I will be stereotyped as an over-achiever, a not-yet-developed-teenager, and not old enough to be mature or have responsibility. I will be surrounded by people who don’t know what a “commoner” or “lox” is, don’t have enough sense of mind to throw away their trash, don’t know that a “kiwi” is also a bird, have never heard of J.R.R. Tolkien, can quote Fifty Shades of Gray but not Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and go to the bathroom to get stoned. Not all of us are like that. Some of us are actually intelligent, thinking, thoughtful beings. Unfortunately, it seems that we are enough of a minority that the system is built around the sad, troubled majority.