It Happened EP84 : Monologue
Our relationship with government starts at the moment of our conception and lasts until our death. This cradle to grave approach of telling other people how to live is ingrained in our physiological development and creates dependence. When a child is born in modern times it will eventually follow the rules of government instead of its parents and parents are having whatever say so in their children's lives slowly stripped away by the state.
If you're wondering why we live in a society full of infants, ignorant and emotional people who will take or accept what's purposefully stuck in front of their faces, its because of how we manage our society. But the state doesn't look at it that way, they look at the world as theirs to manage, us included. That's not public service, that's not representation, that's management.
For those who have children in the American school systems I hope you are the types of parents mine were. When I realized that academics was not the route I wanted to pursue in life my relationship suffered with my folks suffered because they would tell me how the system works, that you just need that piece of paper, you need a backup plan in order to live a more comfortable life. They were right.
In a system that asks for you to prove to the state and corporations your worth and intelligence through a series of tests I was more interested in playing power chords and finding a cheap PA System to start a band. I wanted nothing to do with school. I knew I was being held there against my will and I realized that it was the law that was keeping me there.
I grew up with truly incredible parents and grandparents that kept the world open for me to discover on my own and in my own way. It gave me an advantage socially in classrooms because I always felt that I was on the outside (and sometimes literally) of the classroom. I was what I would call self aware at a very young age. I knew that I thought differently than my peers. Like I always had a conversation going with myself when others seemed to be just following the teacher's orders. Certain teachers recognized this and encouraged it and others had to deal with the ramifications of having a child in their class that was not only uninterested in what they were teaching but also finding entertainment in becoming a disturbance.
I got kicked out of class a lot in my first few years at school. Spent half of first grade in some sort of form of detention. Had my desk moved into the hallway outside of the class but would still find a way to disrupt the teacher. Even if they stuck me in other rooms, they couldn't lock me in so I would leave and go back and disturb the class some more. I would really get a kick out of my friend in class joining me in making crazy noises or pretending to be characters from Ghostbusters or Thundercats.
As my experience with education progressed I would always seem to squeak by though because I somehow absorbed enough knowledge in my life that I could pass all the tests and move on...until high school at least.
High school was a completely different animal. Now the type of behavior I exhibited in first grade was not going to be tolerated at all. Fighting with the other kids, sometimes because I was bullied, sometimes because I wanted to be in the air conditioned In-School Suspension Room was out too. The principal I had was a former cop and would call the boys in blue on ya if you acted out like that. Probably ship you off to some sort of institution that would make my high school look like a party. Luckily for me, I had my parents to keep me in line just enough to survive the system and I got out of it relatively unscathed and unscarred.
Not all who go through the process of education, whose brain for whatever reason doesn't fit within the rigid requirements of our Corporatist Indoctrination System, are fortunate enough to ever leave it or survive it.
Some of the friends I met in detention were there because their parents were not good to them. Some had some real issues that they turned to drugs to cope with. Some of those people are dead now. I'm grateful to have something in my life that guided me away from that fate.
I would grow to understand that there was more than just the education system that kept people in a mental box. Working in various industries would show me that the indoctrination people receive from that impressionable age is still working. It works when they elect our representation too.
I was blessed to have the system fail me. I was never meant to fit within its machinery and I was even more blessed to have a family that put up with it. For those that didn't have that kind of patience and understanding from their parents, or no parents at all, the cold walls of some kind of institution or even death was the other option.
People like myself, who didn't belong in such places as government schools and its other offshoots, can look back now and see that we had it better than the kids today. Because now the State's claim to you is asserted even harder by our society. Parents around the country are having their children taken from them in one way or another. Even if its just to brainwash them into being another blind obedient follower, it is unnatural and a sin to take such minds and abuse them the way they do.
The state ain't your mommy and daddy, and if you don't have a good family, life is gonna be soo much harder. But even in those terrible circumstances you can still find a was to succeed on your own terms if you seek out what your purpose here on this earth truly is and that to me is something that is discovered not given. Go exploring, have adventures, have a conversation with yourself, and come up with a better way to live than as a captive in this world.