With Specimens and Lasers

I used to love reading as a kid. There was a sort of natural flow with regards to my education; with learning. That was before all hell broke loose, of course. I used to fantasize that the walls of my bedroom would one day be lined with libraries of encyclopedias, and models of the space shuttles would hang from my ceilings. I'd have a lab; filled with specimens, and lasers. I used to beg go to summer school; always for science classes. Who knows what would've happened to me, had I a 'cleaner' life. I probably would have done better in school, and maybe gone farther in academia with less of a disconnect; had not all hell broke loose.

Hell was a temporally brief sojourn. It built itself up over a period of about two years, then cascaded in to a single point that was a day in December. After about a week spent not at home, I returned to a divorced household. That wasn't a big deal, if anything it was the beginning of relief; sort of.

Fast forward; just a few years. I grew up to living in the principals office, and in what was called "in-house suspension," (a dark room with about eight seats where you sat in silence and passed the time writing the same sentence, again, and again, etc...) I grew to know the 'authorities' well. As they passed in hallways they would wave at me, and I'd return the gesture. Punishment was casual. When I was being punished, I'd walk in, sign a paper, and walk out. We had it down; I knew what to do. I never argued with my punishment, I felt I understood why the system existed, and why it was necessary. I just did not think I had to be a part of it. I still don't.

"Don't do the crime, if you can't do the time." That was my younger life's motto - it doubled up as a justification for my not-so-wise behavior; a distraction to the fact that I often evaded any punishment.

Yeup, I was raised to believe that I could do whatever I wanted; all by myself. "Don't need anyone else but yourself," my old man said. However, that view is changing as I get older. I don't know if it is because those days are behind me now, and I feel as though I am recovering from the shock, but with all the disgust and distaste in the world, such an ideal is bullshit; childish even. The way I see it, that person can't possibly exist in this day and age. Right from the start, we are born needing. We go to school and take (some of us) knowledge. Even if you are abandoned as a child, there is someone who will care for you, even a little bit. Some have to self-sustain more than others, but that is no excuse to go bitter and lie to yourself, and to the world that you are a "self-made" individual. Those who would be truly self-made would stand as a finger painting to a Van Gogh. There would be no comparison, such an individual is clearly exhibiting only the worst of childish behavior, one that says that because the world hasn't the answers yet, the world should be punished. Why should they be so hostile, and stand-offish against such a wonderful world of systems that exist, and have existed before us? Why not take what they have to offer, and put them to good use build upon what exists already? Why so selfish?