Disclaimer: This isn't a poem, nor is it a statement. It's a rant, tout court. 

Let Us Be

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There is a fundamental issue with our generation. Generation X or something. In fact, it might be Generation Y, or Z. I couldn’t care any less about nomenclature in all honesty. Until it’s put into the textbooks for Generation AB to read, I’ll acknowledge it. I might discuss the Baby Boomer generation, because they’re hot stuff right now. Both my parents are from that time, and so are many other prominent adult figures. Denzel Washington, a famous African American actor known for his various roles as The Equalizer, that dad from Fences, and the main character from some show on Broadway. I don’t know, and I don’t need to know, but the point I’m making is that they’re involved in American culture. Now, back to that issue I meagerly touched upon. We’re apathetic. Yes, your indifferent and dissident teenage son does not want or feel the need to contribute to society. There are many problems we like to discuss with one another, such as gun control, LGBTQ rights, the morals of certain historical instances, the generic sex/drugs topic, etc. etc. etc. Indeed, we have a lot to talk about. We have a lot of our opinions to share. In a week I get the impulse to say whatever’s on my mind to my partner in conversation over 1000+ times. I say them, but not without caution. Pushback is expected. People enjoy arguing. It gets them riled up. People love the idea of being different or unique from their peers, parents, or society itself. Americans, they are quite laughable. I don’t know how widespread this issue is, but I might surmise that a struggling and oppressed teenager from Mexico isn’t particularly worried about where they stand socially compared to the affluent Californian teenager with double Ph. D’d parents and a personal vehicle. Man we care so much about such menial things. Uniqueness. There could be a paper written only about that, and let’s be real there probably is. There is a desire to be unique. There is a desire to make people look at you and say, “Damn, I wanna be like them.” I’ll try not to entertain the idea of differing to vulgarisms throughout this skimble-scamble paper, though it is tempting. You know why it’s tempting? Because it’s common. I do it all the time. It doesn’t change how I think or my personality; I like saying them because they add a sense of emphasis in certain circumstances. What was I talking about again? Apathy? Yes, apathy. Well who cares about that? Teenagers experience puberty and express apathy because people can’t relate to them or their problems. Alright let’s just end the discussion on apathy. It’s not necessarily an epidemic but more of a guideline for how to be the most mediocre teenager possible. “Find your purpose” is what they say. Screw that. Just let us be. Stop interfering with your idealistic nonsensical absolutely irrelevant false dictums and life advice. I’m done hearing it from you Baby Boomers. You’re from a time when the world was all good, and racism wasn’t all that bad. It was manageable. No, stop trying to make us live the life you lived. You either give us too much or not enough. You want us to participate. You don’t want us to stray from that perfect path which brought you to where you are. There are more things to learn now than ever before. Technology is rampant. Seriously, rampant. Businesses are changing, homes are changing, government is changing. You don’t need to keep telling us that too much screen time hurts our health, that video games are bad for our brains, that too few hours of sleep is detrimental to our development, or that going to the best college is essential to being successful. The latter really gets me going. College. Here we go about college. This industry profits more from parents yelling at their kids to get good grades than the damn government itself subsidizing them. Parents pay to get their kids into good schools. What do I mean? They do what I used to do in elementary school: slip the cheat sheet into the desk and peek at it when the answer was unknown. Their cheat sheet is money, and who wouldn’t want to use it during the ultimate of parental examinations: getting your child—that strange entity you’ve put your heart and soul into— into college. You’ve had your mishaps before. You’ve been tested as a parent. A catastrophe unlike any other… a C-! A C minus is by far the worst event ever to strike the life and soul of your innocent 6th grade girl! Oh, I’m not kidding. These parents have gone nuts. Education is life. Education makes opportunities. Education grants you the paths you wish you could take if you were living on the south side of Detroit. Now, all this indoctrination may seem intimidating, but let me assure you, you’re damn right if you think it’s intimidating, I mean people kill themselves over receiving bad letter grades. This, in large part, is because of the backlash they receive from their parents. The norm is either straight A’s or nothing. You are a failure if you have a 3.0. Parents enroll their children into SAT preparation programs before high school even begins, meaning that a majority of the kids don’t even know the concepts that the SAT is supposed to examine. Your score is vital to your future. Since when? Since now, idiot. There has never been such a push to getting good SAT scores as there has been recently. I’m taking it a third time because my first two times weren’t high enough. Somehow, after hours each weekend of isolated preparation since my first one in December, my score decreased! I received a 1360 the first time. You bet your bottom dollar I wasn’t happy with that pathetic result. Then, I consistently practiced each weekend up until this most recent one in March. 1340. How is that possible? Well, I simply don’t know. Perhaps it was a lack of adequate sleep. Perhaps I was distracted. Perhaps the test was harder this time. Perhaps I’m just incompatible with the test. While running these causes through my ignorant mind, I looked at it again and had an epiphany. This test is utterly insignificant. Now, If I had gotten a better score, I’d have probably been saying something along the lines of “hey that’s pretty good. The test is obviously fair and I’m glad I put in my best effort to get this score. I can’t wait for college and my successful future!” However, that’s not the me this universe wanted me to be, so now we’re here, discussing something so infinitesimally worthless that it becomes humorous to even discuss. The test is flawed in determining whether a student is ready for college or not. College administrators who admit students into their school look at the SAT score, and if it’s out of the preferred range, they essentially throw the application out the window. There are many paradoxes within our culture, and that’s what makes it great in a way but also how it divides us on many fronts. The primary one for teenagers is education. Parents with wealth want their kids to go to the best schools, because they can afford the best schools and they know that their students can achieve being accepted into the best schools because they are paying for their children to attend the best high schools and such. For a teenager with struggling parents, the world of education is of little importance to them because they’re merely trying to get by. Studying while holding two jobs and playing three sports? Good luck. Then there’s violence, with someone being shot every other hour somewhere in the country from 9 pm to 5 am. What are we going to do about it? Nothing, because we’re apathetic. Media has both enlightened people and infected people. Totally electric vehicles will consume the world of transportation. Malls will cease to exist. Drones will become the deliverers of mail. The world is moving rapidly. With all this happening, what’s the need to obtain a Master’s? People are so rapid and expedient that the main excuse they use when they encounter any sort of task or impediment is “I just don’t have the time.” Why? Why don’t you have the time? “Well I have to work out and study and play a sport and I have an event for a club I’m in and advocate for gay rights and volunteer and hang out with friends, so yeah I just don’t have the time. “You know a paragraph doesn’t take that long to read, right?” People determine whether or not they’ll read something by its word count as the only criteria. Concision is hard these days, especially when people can’t formulate their thoughts without using the word “like.” Like for real like I can’t even get my point across like even like when I try to like talk to people I get like really nervous and stuff so like I can’t really say like what I mean to say like you know? Was this an issue a century ago? I can’t imagine anyone conversing in the manner I just did during the early stages of The Roaring ‘20s. People do not have the time. What else? I could elucidate a bit further on some of the aforementioned subjects (and by a bit, I mean individual essays for each), but right now I’d rather not. Let me be, I’m a teenager of this time period. What can I do? I’m no isolato but I don’t have an affinity for this cultural environment either. I have so much around me yet feel like nothing’s there. Why is that? Answer me this, though I still won’t care.