Apathy Manifesto

Here I sit, the epitome of American kid culture. I've escaped.
I don't use Paris Hilton brand edible makeup, nor do I starve myself and shave every inch of my body hair to fit into tiny thong bikinis fit for only my-size barbie dolls. I'm an antisteryotype, an antisocial, and an antidrug for anyone who wants an antihit. I read magazines like Adbusters, like Utne. I read books like Palahnuik, like Huxley, like Orwell. I meditiate and self-medicate and all those things girls on 7th Hevan would lead you to believe was sinful.

How much do I actually get out of any of this? What is counterculture when there is no more culture to rail against? Trends shift, and just as liquid, their antitrends must shift. Where is the malignant culture so described to me, that I believe so vehemently in? All I do as a child is go to school, come home, refuse to do homework on the grounds that I have already learned what is being taught, eat, and sleep. All the malignancy I see is being presented by two or more opposing forces. Neither actually wants things to change, for without the other force to fight against, how would they exist? Without the 'squares' without 'geeks','losers','goths', and scores of other labels for the less, the inferior, How would the superior keep themselves as such? Likewise, How can the rebel exist when there is no longer anything to rebel against? losing battles we fight. As soon as we defeat one enemy, another takes its place. Nazis, Gooks, Commies, now Terrorists. Perpetual opposition is the way to tip top condition, applying not only to countries and their economies, but to anything you can possibly think of. Wolves. Deer. Fast food chains and resteraunt chains. Runway designers whose clothing is never meant to be worn anywhere but a runway, and designers like Ralph Lauren and Issac Mizrahi who peddle directly to soccer moms and dads, teenage girls and boys alike. War is being fought between Starbucks and Panera Bread, not for coffe, or for bread, but for who can attract the most college students to spend their afternoon sipping chai and working on their laptops.

War is being fought in drugs. The drugs you grew up with and the drugs I am growing up with are from opposite sides. Children only a few generations ago grew up on Tobacco, Alcohol, Weed, LSD, Cocaine. Those were the lords of the drug world. I grew up on Paxil, Adderal, Ritalin, Wellbutrin, Concerta, Topomax, and a host of the same chemicals under different names. These are the Drug Lords now. You call them Big Pharma, but honestly, they are just more organized and effective in advertising and distribution than the underground drug business is now. The one small difference between them, one above the law, the other below it, makes all the difference in their emnity.

A thousand thousand conflicts, raging in the world, in the cultural ether. Raging inside our own minds. The last war and the first war, Between ignorance and awareness, between information and disinformation. That one will keep going until we blow ourselves up. Silly. We love our facts so much and ignore the principles until information becomes ignorance. School is memorizing dates, never learning from the past we're condemned to repeat. Disinformation is so easy and so beautiful. Rightly spun, you can barely tell the difference between learning and memorization, between your own opinion and the opinion you've been told to have. School has become endless. Political correctness washing every fact clean of all blame, of all truth.

As I type this, it's interesting that I'm failing two classes and squeezing past the rest, except for Art. Teachers don't like it when you research yourself, when you contradict them or the textbook, when you say you read that book already and would prefer its memory stay untainted by analyzing and comprehensive questions meant to draw you slowly along to the teacher's own opinion. Teachers don't like to hear it when you say you didn't do your Algebra because you were up all night trying to write your own fractal equations. Teachers complain. The faculty puts you in remedial education, as if that helps any. When you flunk that, they send you to a school full of every other apathetic smart kid in the state classified as "behavioral issues: oppositional/defiant"

And it's great to finally be around your own people. In a bubble nice and safe from culture, from education. Not from drugs, you'd better believe that a good deal of these kids are high as a kite a good portion of the day, and the rest are on medication by their own or their parents will. Take away the drugs, I don't know what you'd have. We'd no longer be content, the false security, the numbing of the mind would be stripped away. We'd have to contend with a world that wants us to take sides in fights we never asked to be in. Sometimes I wonder what we would do. Would we form our own side of the fight? or would we kill ourselve like it seems most people do when they realize they have to choose between two very unappealing styles of life? I'm not sure. Sometimes I'm glad the drugs delay this decision. But the instant we run out of money for them, the second we sober up and face the world, we will have to make a choice. Do we fight for individuality on behalf of the masses, or fight for anonymity on behalf of the individual? Do we send our money to starving kids in Africa because the man with the white beard pulled out heartstrings? Or do we give money to Uncle Phil to support his addiction to painkillers and alcoholism?

I lost my train of thought. It's the ADD, officially. In real life, I found something more interesting to do than rant. Have a nice day, Kids.

Live it up.

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m0ppy on

Re: Apathy Manifesto

That sounds like you've pulled it from my brain and transposed it into a blog entry.
I was not aware that anyone else would, or could, think that way - or realize the things you've put forth in this entry.
The majority of people who read this will skim through it, see that it has some big words and some big opinions, and treat it like any other blog - in one eye and out the ass. I however, choose to let some of the things you've said here set in, and formed an understanding of the things you've said, and believe it or not, agree with most of it.
I grew up in between the two "drug generations", so I've had a taste (no pun intended) of them both.
Now, I'm torn. They've fed me zoloft, ritalin, depakote, risperdal, lexapro, klonopin, wellbutrin, adderall, and a few other molecularly-modified street drugs, to no avail. Give me a line, a bowl of hydro, and I'm happy as a pig in shit. Unfortunately, the law isn't happy with that. They don't benefit financially from it. So, it's lexapro and klonopin they feed me now, with norco for my back injury and flexeril for it at night. As I type this response, I feel the effects of the klonopin setting in, making me drowsy and apathetic, and add a touch of "Adult ADD" (as if there's a difference) and I'm so off topic that I can't remember why in the hell I even started making a response. *checks back*
Ok, now I remember. I enjoyed your post. You've come to some serious conclusions that most people can't see, and are completely oblivious to. Ignorance is bliss, and sometimes I wish it were that simple for people like us (that is, if you don't mind me combining my "type" with yours). Thinking too much is a bad thing to the people who decide what and how we learn, most probably because they're all in their late 50's up to in their 70's, and still determine how a child should think. This country needs an enema. Big time.
Have a good night, if you can. I need to go lay down and wait till the klonopin effects wear off a bit... then I'll be making a post regarding yours... and then you'll see what my visions and opinions are about all this... it should be interesting, or completely boring - depending on who reads it...

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lenora on

Re: Apathy Manifesto

Spent 9:30 to 10 reading your blogthing... All I kept thinking was "if my dad had a weblog, this'd be it. right down to the back problems" Crazy. of course, my dad's been dead for four years. Cirrhosis of the liver. Your daughter will always love you. No matter how depressed you are, no matter how crazy you seem, no matter what her mother tells her. (Most likely, she'll grow up to detest her mom, and think of you as awesome, fun, crazy, an escape from nagging and an introduction to unconditional love)

There are more people who think like this than one would imagine... they're just beaten down. Opinions like these don't get you anywhere in school, though maybe in the art world there's somebody... That's what I'm banking on anywho.

Up, got to go. My own mother is big on bedtime before midnight, no matter when you fall asleep.

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m0ppy on

Re: Apathy Manifesto

Thanks. That's an honor. You're actually not the only one who's said something like that...
My friend Sara - my "other other daughter" - says I remind her of her Dad. You'd probably get along with her well... she's at xsarax if you wanna say hi. Just tell her that her "other other Dad" sent you.
Thanks again.
goodnight.

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xxkillermoose on

Re: Apathy Manifesto

You're beautiful. You're such a beautiful writer I swear to my penis that I was reading a book. I'm going to sex you now

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thelostdreamer on

Re: Apathy Manifesto

Yep. The conformal education system is in need of some extreme makeover. Teachers can call anything contradictory to their classroom dogma "defiant of authority" or "disruptive", even though they're too caught up in their egos to realize that some students may have different ideas might be as true as their own. On another note, we overmedicate our children way too much. I believe the government puts conformity drugs in all the mood stabilizers and Ritalin so that the children will not question the government. The government and Big Pharma nowadays are close brothers feeding each other dirty money and screwing everyone else out of their money, and why doesn't anyone else see this? Because their too caught up in their nationalistic beliefs that the government is trying to help people. They're not helping anyone but themselves to Iraq's oil and our budget money for their personal uses. Anyway, this country is screwed for the next 20 or so years. Have a good day.

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lenora on

Re: Apathy Manifesto

That's why you buy generic! The only difference between paroxetene and paxil is half a milligram of unessecary chemicals. Mood stabilizers... I'm on a bunch of Topomax right now, and it's eating my art alive. I don't get inspired to doodle on the chalkboard while the teacher's out of the room, and I don't get inspired to write or draw either. The prices we pay for conformity...

If the government were run from the bottom up like it's meant to, then it would be helping people. Instead of all desicions being made by a handful of cozy government officials and their pet corporate execs... God, I love this country.