<< Ah, the age of apathy and nihilism manifest in modern youth. I never grow tired by looking at representatives of the group and marveling of the sheer lack of initiative, ambition, and meaning that is in your lives. Your (lack of )achievement is laudable indeed.
Here's the way I look at it: with affluence and well-being, people are lulled to sleep. With no responsibility and no rites of passage, modern youth are indeed without direction and are generally disaffected. They stuff you into rooms for 6-8 hours per day "for your own benefit" where you are group raised by "a professional" so you can "survive in the competing labor market of the future". Well I am of the opinion that I don't give a rat's arse about the future if it involves continual denial and repression of the same progeny who will live in said future. Sure, there are the few blessed with excellent genes, with superior looks, with special skills and talents who will rise easily to a position of power and domination but for the rest of us normal folks, we must be content with whatever we are spoonfed and expected to adhere to, as enforced by plethora of rules and regulations. Well I say BULLOCKS to that.
The truth is that you need to keep going to the mass education system. I mean, you need that obscure Calculus derivation skills in your janitorial engineer position. You need to learn why Kerouac traveled out of sheer desperation to find meaning and write essays on it without understanding the angst other people feel. You need to understand that unless you keep following rules without thinking for yourself (yes teacher), you will get ahead in life by being a secretary for someone who has an advanced degree (oh I wish I went back for more school, then I could be in a higher place and have more money to spend on alcohol, pornography, and cheap "entertainment"). But that's why you need to keep going to school. Where else will you learn all that? Where else will you learn that no matter how hard you try, you will fail. No matter how hard you work, it will be in vain because there's no way around the system and there's no escaping the inevitable. You are born, you work, and you die, at the last moments trying to recall where the time went.
Aye, but where else will you learn all these "important skills to help you survive in the real world"?
Well I say BULLOCKS.
Only in reaching for heaven, in hoping for the impossible, in realizing that the effort is worth it if just one more mind is made more aware, more open to experience, more open to working and affecting positive change can we recognize and realize meaning and thus gain motivation. Through a concerted effort of dedicated individuals real change is made, and yes indeed this is the only way change is made.
Where am I going and what am I saying? Look, you've been told all your life that you need to follow a certain way in order to live well. Look around you. Are your parents divorced? 40 % chance say they are. Are you afraid of going outside because you think you will die? Do you get the feeling that there is something terribly wrong with this world? That there's nothing really wrong with people, there will always be some screwed up ones but for the most part, we all want the same thing: a good life, friends, some meaning, and satisfying work. But look around you. Do you see any of that? Anti-depression sales alone are somewhere in the 300 millions in the US alone. But that's just a small sacrifice we have to make so that everyone benefits right? Well we are everyone and with each passing day, we die a little and allow ourselves to be submitted to this "higher calling" where all men are supposedly created equal and where we all have a chance to make our dreams come true. Except we never get to it of course. We spend our time in schools learning "skills that will help us in the real world". I say BULLOCKS.
School will teach you nothing unless you are willing to learn and see a point in learning. You can drop out, get a college degree, support your family, work for a dream, and make your own life if you only make the effort and think that this matters.
Look at ViperGTS on this forum. He's not an especially bright guy. He has made the point that he doesn't want to get up on Saturdays to go to Calc class and he says he has trouble understanding the material. yet he dropped out of grade school. He didn't need the "high school education" so valued by people. He holds a decent job and has a full life with his woman (The Blond One, Cheers to you ), family and friends. He seems like he has motivation since he sees that there is something terribly wrong with the way things are going right now. The only difference between him and many of us who are apathetic is he gives a damn about the world, about the people he loves, and about himself. And if you read the forums, you'll see that he's pretty happy. It's just an example I thought up of since frankly, the guy impresses the bazeejus out of me.
All I'm saying is that if you think the world is crap, you don't have to put up with it. You have an example of someone who chose not to. Is he living a good life? I'd say so. Do you think you can get more? Maybe, but will it make you happy? Will the extra knowledge and stress love you when you lie alone at night? Will the money keep you happy after you have a screw and still feel depressed? My bet is no, although it might. If you see no motivation in your life, it's not entirely your fault. We are very social animals and we live with others, so we have to stick to a system. Yet we have a choice in that system.
You're saying high schoolers can have motivation? I've never met one that does.
And why do you think that is? They learn the same crap year after year with no more explanation than "yeah I know this is useless and you will never use it again but I had to learn it, you do to. In fact, I hated it so much in high school, I now have a masters degree and I'm teaching it again to people who hate it as much as I do". Funny how that works, eh?
Some have suggested ways of temporary motivation by fixed ratio reinforcement, girlfriends, busy-ness with clubs, etc. and I say is it worth it? It's just more of the same crap. If you want to do something different, do so; just stop whining that lack of motivation is a bad thing. It may be the best thing that's ever happened to you since you can look around and say "fvck that", it's not worth it. It's your move. What's it gonna be then, eh?
Yeah, I am done now. But I think that made a hella lot of sense, at least to me.
Cheers ! >>
Now honestly, who actually read that.