The Path to Freedom?

The attainment of my freedom. Freedom of having to work a job 5 days a week that leaves me with not enough time to chase the feeling of adventure and emotional intimacy. School right now binds me. I don’t have the money right now to do what I’d desire, nor the time. I am a prisoner staring through the chain-linked fence over the horizon during a sunset just waiting to finish my time in school and to get my first 18 months of work experience in. My days as a teen have passed. I am 20, have been so for a little more than three weeks. I feel a bit sad to know that 20 years have gone by already and if I ask myself if I’ve been happy with my life so far, I can’t say an adamant “yes”, or “no”. As I sit here and ask myself whether I will be satisfied with my life in the near future, I get the feeling it won’t be in the middle ground. I will either start feeling more excited for my life or I may feel cursed. Right now I feel my life is a level C life. It’s not horrible, it’s not great, and I’m in limbo. Do I understand why some people do not like school and get bad grades due to a lack of hard work? Absolutely, yet I have less respect for people who don’t get at least decent grades. I am no terrific student. I’ve gotten a D before, had an F halfway through one quarter in 7^th grade that I ended up bringing up to a C, and performed well below average on the Pre-Calculus final that dropped my grade from a B+ to a C. I feel the stigma of seeing the amount of red marks on a test and hiding it as quickly as possible, only to over-hear about how other people did better than me. People who I can’t imagine them sitting as long as I did at a desk staring at the review material. I’m not much of a studier. Not one class out of all classes I’ve taken throughout my career as a student has interested me to the point where I would go pick up a book and explore the topic on my own time. Not one. Not AP biology in high school, not psychology, not history or literature, and certainly not Calculus. If schools were meant to inspire me to explore topics they teach in classes, they have failed miserably. If it was my job to be inspired by topics we learned in school, I have failed as well. It’s amazing I’d rather turn on the television and watch someone else’s drama on the Dr. Phil show-which is playing outside my room as I write this right now- than work and invest in myself. I have no interest in the majority of the classes I’ve taken in high school, and only a moderate level of interest in a few. Biology and psychology were the only classes where I had a moderate level of interest in. All those classes I took, what do I really remember from them? The amount of time I spent in classes, doing the homework assignments, and studying for tests has yielded such a minimal amount of retained knowledge. I’ve heard my dad tell me that school is a type of training for when you enter the work force. School is supposed to help you with your problems solving skills. I’m not sure the double-digit number of years I spent in school is needed to hone my problems solving skills. What an epic failure for schools and myself. Schools don’t deserve all the blame yet neither do I.

The thought comes to mind of how to differentiate myself from others and stand out. We all want high status, and status comes with power. Power comes from the application of insightful, esoteric knowledge and wisdom. There’s a saying that I wish I could find but goes like this, “The ways the majority do something is usually the wrong way of doing it”. The meaning being that the methods the majority of people use to accomplish something is usually not the most effective way to accomplish it. I love wisdom and secretive, applicable knowledge that can improve my life greatly. I have been a fan of self-improvement since late middle school as I desire to become better than others. Much of my life, I see many people display the illusion of their high status by wearing fancy clothes, the cap, expensive shoes, and wearing sunglasses on days where sunglasses simply aren’t needed. Deep down, I despise people who attempt to proclaim their status to people where ever they go through superficial means. Perhaps I’m much more sensitive to other people’s motives and hidden meanings to what they wear and how they portray themselves. I always loathe when people attain their status through means achieved without dedication and diligence. This is true for those who dress like celebrities, hip hop artists, or thugs with a cocky and smug look on their face. Just when I was walking my dog earlier, I was discussing with my brother about what we learned in sociology class, that drinking alcohol and smoking weed is a symbol for masculinity in American culture. The more I think about this, the more I fume at the display of people who seem to be naturally quick witted with a cocked tongue ready to display their extroversion, social dominance, and popularity for the world to see. After all, gregariousness is a symbol for confidence, popularity, and high status. I believe each of our own personalities are determined and largely influenced by our innate level of introversion and extroversion which have a genetic basis and our environment growing up at home and our experience early on in school. Both of these factors are out of our conscious control. Therefore the fact that these people were fortunate enough to have turned out less self-conscious, less anxiety prone, and innately quick witted at the tongue heightens my sensitivity towards the inequality that people who are quieter and more prone to socially anxiety have to deal with. This is another example of how others who were given an easier path towards higher status and happiness. Does higher status equal happiness? For someone going through high school or college, I will certainly state with confidence that those who go to parties and is popular with girls, is someone who gives the impression that they are happier than the individual who studies hours a day, has fewer friends, and not talked about with the girls. According to Alexandra Robbins, author of “The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth”, it is the same qualities that make them unpopular in school that helps them flourish after schooling.   

Out of my frustration for the superficial methods and the innate tendencies that gives one higher status, deep down inside me, I feel the need to succeed in life through determination and hard work. I refrain from using superficial methods to help me boost the illusion of my status. I feel the need to succeed. I feel the need to prove my worth to those kids who are popular. I know that sounds insecure but that’s how I really feel. I feel the need to one day in the future be someone who is admired and respected for the life I now can live. And to be honest, to see, on a whim, one of these popular, alcohol drinking, weed smoking, hipster dressed individuals years from now when I am in my prime and hear that tone of jealousy and/ or surprise that now it’s my turn to be the successful one in life. This is a dark and slightly evil fantasy I have deep down. I can’t tell you the number of times I have thought that, when I was in college and see groups of popular people laughing, or see a guy with an attractive girlfriend walking by. I feel like I’m a villain in a Disney movie plotting and wishing people ill-will. Do I believe my feelings are justified? Without a doubt. Do I advocate villains in society like criminals? Hardly, yet, I can understand those who have acted out in violent ways due to feelings of unfairness. I do not support what criminals do, but I can understand why people lash out, and unfortunately, sometimes people are pushed to their absolute threshold.

The Virginia Tech shooter, Seung-Hui Cho, committed an atrocity no doubt, but scarily enough I sympathize with the sufferings he went through.

Quoted from an msnbc article:

"Long before he killed 32 people in the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, Seung-Hui Cho was bullied by fellow high school students who mocked his shyness and the strange way he talked, former classmates said"

"The text, photographs and video in the package bristle with hatred toward unspecified people whom Cho, a South Korean immigrant, accused of having wronged him, adding to a portrait of a solitary man who rarely, if ever, managed normal social interactions”.  

“Once, in an English class, the teacher had the students read aloud and, when it was Cho’s turn, he just looked down in silence, Davids recalled in an interview with The Associated Press.

Finally, after the teacher threatened to give him a failing grade for participation, Cho started to read in a strange, deep voice that sounded “like he had something in his mouth,” Davids said.

“As soon as he started reading, the whole class started laughing and pointing and saying, ‘Go back to China,’” Davids said.         “

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18169776/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/t/high-school-classmates-say-gunman-was-bullied/#.UBoIX5KoGM0

I was lucky to have grown up in a culturally diverse area where schools were attended by those of the same or similar ethnicity and the majority of students were accepting and tolerant to differences in race. Is Cho the villain? Unfortunately he is. He was teased, bullied, humiliated, made to be the subject of embarrassment, shunned, and he is the criminal. He is the criminal. Of those killed who mocked him without mercy are mourned and their families empathized with. Vigils held for them. The cruelty of those students swept underneath the rug, into the darkness, to be forgotten. Their lasting legacies: they were the victims of a monster named Seung-Hui Cho. Can you feel Cho’s pain? His life ruined; the death sentence. All because people chose to join the fun and get a laugh at his expense over and over and over.  

To people I don’t know, I don’t defend the Virginia Tech shooter. To my closer friends, I sympathize with his sufferings and disapprove his method of retaliation.

I love clandestine, applicable, and powerful knowledge. Fuel to the fire. I rarely read a book in my free time that does not allow me to improve myself in some way. Justice is what people say they want. But we all know that’s a lie. We all want to be on top. We want to be respected, admired, and held in awe. Years from now after the end of high school, on a chance occurrence when we see that popular girl (or guy) we recognize from years past coming towards us down the street, we all want to be able to think and laugh, “boy haven’t the times changed eh?”, only to have them drop their head, stare at the ground, and shuffle their feet on by.