Yes, Everything is Bullshit. I'm pretty sure that is a George Carlin special-- sue me (oh wait you can't because you're dead oops). In addition to everything being bullshit, Everyone is Full o' Shit. Especially the authority figures meant to gracefully guide us through life. "Shut up you hippie," you might say, if you are a Dwight Shrute and subsist solely on approval from your dumb boss. Whatever. I wouldn't hate authority if it hadn't earned my loathing. "Shut up, you hippie." I'LL KEY YOUR AMERICAN EAGLE BUMPER STICKERS, WHAT THEN. WHAT THEN, SIR. You will be without visual rebuttal to the Darwin Fish stickers HAHAHAHA yeah, everything sucks.
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| Know when to stop rebutting. |
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| GOING 2 HELL- PROBS. |
The most embittering case of authority-gone-wrong occurred in high school. Oh yes, those seminal years of dedicated self-loathing and hormonal confusion. I could not find approval through usual teenage methods of "coolness," since I was incapable of feigning apathy and without access to drugs or sex or other coOoOol things. I instead, with my witty female friends close by my side, fixed my focus on being the best fucking honors student EVERRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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| I google-imaged "Honors student" and this is what I got. Androgyny and dumb gloves. |
In case you haven't noticed, there is a lot of competition to get into "good" universities now. So junior and senior year of high school were defined by an unstoppable tornado of dread and anxiety. Homework was piled liberally onto our heads as our teachers shrieked and pulled out their hair and fretted that WE WEREN'T GOING TO GET IN ANYWHERE COOL AND THIS IS THE WORST CLASS EVER YET OH MY GOD. Two teachers were in charge of a supremely dorky supplemental program, an alternative to AP that will not be named because it is so superfluous and offensive that I can't even think about it. Let's call it DS for DumbShit. Anyway, they spent the majority of their energy trying to bully students into going for the "DS" diploma because it made the program look better and the school look better. The program-whatever required a lot of additional classes and time, including a fully-fledged research paper and numerous other components, including oral exams and a stupid class on the "theory of knowledge" (SHUT UP) (I'm only mad because I took it).
To be fair, the program gives you a lot of college credit or something and is probably a worthy venture for the most deranged of over-achievers. The two ninnies in charge, however, tried to goad us into it by threatening that we would end up at community college and not STANFORD if we made the terrrrrible decision of not adding a hundred classes and extra assignments to our already heinous schedules.
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| NOT STANFORD= THIS |
Guess what ladies. I didn't do that shit. AND I STILL GOT INTO UCLA WITH A MILLION MORE CREDITS THAN MY PEERS BWAHAHAH. Guess who didn't get in. All the kids who tried to do the "DS" program and literally failed their classes because it was a ridiculous amount of work and their souls imploded. (To be fair, one of my best buds completed the diploma with great panache and reaped the benefit of UCLA acceptance--an example of someone who understood the challenge and met it, which is always a quality to be admired.)
But guess what REDUX: these "failures" (the ninnies loathed said students for their crimes against academic perfection) went to community college for a couple years and then transferred into the school of their dreams. Berkeley. NYU. UCLA. GOOD FUCKING SCHOOLS. Not to mention these champs saved crazy money. Strange how our "beloved" teachers made it seem that this was the least desired option with the least amount of prestige and glory..... in order to persuade us to take on extra work in order to make them look good.... HMMMMMMMMMM, sounds like exactly what a guide for impressionable and intelligent youths should be doing. NOPE.
Let's not forget to mention the inherent misery of being a high schooler. I'm pretty sure all of us were depressed. Maybe I'm just saying that because I was depressed, but I specifically remember gazing into people's eyes and seeing an ocean of hidden misery. "Oh but teenagers are always sad." There's more to it than that, fascist-voice-of-the-elderly. I got to grade my class's creative essays, which turned out to be a horrible invasion of privacy. It was the only chance we had to express ourselves, and oh boy did bitches express. All I read was rape, eating disorders, loneliness- basically pieces of paper that read DEPRESSION DEPRESSION DEPRESSION in big red letters. It was horribly saddening, and solid evidence that what I suspected was true--we were all miserable. We were miserable at school because of the stress, and we were miserable at home because of our families or some bullshit totally out of our control.
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| Just because. IT ISN'T!!! |
My teacher never read those essays. The worst part is that this particular educator paraded herself around as a Loving Emotional and Spiritual Guide, who cultivated close relationships with fellow self-deceiving cheeseballs. She had us do projects specifically meant to draw out our inner "issues," which was incredibly inappropriate for her to attempt as she was and is not a licensed therapist or counselor equipped to handle a therapy-environment-gone-wrong. And yes, when our fellow student presented on the death of her father, said teacher was sobbing without restraint. Thank you madame, for maintaining a stable and safe-feeling environment for your anxious and gifted students. Also, she would literally fall onto the floor and pound her fists and cry while telling us about her personal tragedies. Now you know why I hate authority??
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| This is what form she will take in my mind, forever. |
So here's the equation. You have a bunch of really smart creative kids who are spending all their energy on shit other people want them to do (Must have ten extra curriculars! Must volunteer 1000 hours in six months! Must win NUMEROUS GEOGRAPHY AWARDS!?!?). Then you have the wealth of clinical and/or situational anxiety and depression lurking beneath their shiny good-student exteriors. Then you have a bunch of adults yelling at said kids for not being good enough. Why are they yelling? Because they don't want to look like they are bad at their job, because then they won't get paid more. To which I say this....
FUCK. YOU.
The whole time I was experiencing this tomfoolery and abject mortal turpitude, I gave them all the benefit of the doubt. Oh they are nice teachers, I guess I did learn to write essays well, and I did get bomb AP scores. Four years of UNIVERSITY EDUCATION has changed my opinion. No gratitude. I would have aced that shit anyway. I am smart as fuck and they had nothing to do with that. Also, one can teach and not rip out the souls of their students to feed upon. One can instruct how to write a decent poetry analysis without striking mortal fear into the hearts of the innocent. As emotional vampires, they fed upon our terror and stress with the vigor of an eighth grader downing a hot pocket after soccer practice.
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| Mmm, mmm, BARF. |
"What a bitter little cunt you are," says Nazi Grampa voice. Yeah, yeah, I'm an American and I am grateful for the awesomeness of my life. But I am also pissed at fuckers with power who fuck with those without power. It is literally the worst. I was self-aware enough to refuse the constant entreaties and bribes from the ninnies when they still had hope I would do their dumb diploma. They tried pretty fucking hard, cause I was dope and smart. Unfortunately for them I was emotionally mature as well. I knew that I was a kind of person that responds extremely negatively to stress. And I was right. At my most stressful point in college I developed terrible clinical depression with a nice dose of suicidality. I was measuring my self worth with my amount of "success" as defined by "the world," and that was gravely unhealthy. I had to eradicate all extraneous pressures in my life and rewrite my priorities in order to ensure my survival. Mine is an extreme case, but I feel that most young people do not value their health over their schedule, and that notion is pressed into them by shitty teachers. It was always the people who truly loved me that pleaded with me not to take on too much or stress myself unnecessarily, because they valued my being over my actions. That is how everyone should be treated, always.
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| Be nice like this guy. Watch that hand though. Haaaay. |
Did the teachers know that they were pointing us down a path equating success with branding? (Stanford brand, Yale brand, HARVARD BRAND OH YES PLZ) Did they realize the ideas they push on susceptible young minds, "the more stress the better," "no glory without prestige," are extremely dangerous? Maybe they should consider their students' emotional, mental, and physical health before asking them to shoot themselves in the head, or the foot, or whatever, for the sake of bragging rights.
The abhorrent nature of these educators has made me appreciate the good ones and see them for what they are. My favorite teacher in high school was basically a mom-type who didn't ever intellectually challenge us, but drenched us in mom love and cuteness all day long. She was amazing. I still love her. I cried when I left her class. She is an icon of compassion and glory in my mind, shining like the virgin mary on a pedestal and everything.
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| Something like that. |
So what's the lesson here. Teenz r sad and they need affection. Sure, something like that. We all want moms all day. That's a good one too. How about, fuck everyone who has the chance to change a sad young person's life and decides instead to do nothing, or makes it worse for their own gain. And fuck people who suck those people's dicks. If you are a teacher, be nice for chrissakes. You can lazily refuse to teach and be nice and you are still a better teacher than the mean ones.
And if you decide to actually be a good teacher who cares and tries, you can change someone's life. That is very Hallmark-y of me to say, but I will not back down. My GOOD professors in college taught me to embrace my identity and my strangeness and to pity the ignorant haters, and that is a lesson that helps me every day. Fuckheads of the world, don't spend your time trying to get kids to hate themselves more, because then when you are old and needing someone to change your depends you will be alone because everyone will have killed themselves in some fashion, or they will hate you so much they would rather smear your own poop on your face.
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| If you weren't so mean, there'd be someone there to wipe your ass! |
EVERYTHING IS BULLSHIT. EVERYONE IS A SHIT HEAD. COMMUNITY COLLEGE IS A GOOD IDEA FOR NUMEROUS REASONS. GOOD NIGHT.
Brilliant! Amen, sista!
ReplyDeletePROPS TO US ALL FOR SURVIVING!!!!
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