Jellyfish

 My boobs each have a boy name and a girl name. I think that is very symbolic of my life right now.



So, I really am graduating. REALLY. I am just about really and truly done with school, and I'm just wondering why no one told me that school prepares you for nothing. NOTHING.

No it doesn't, asshole! IT DOES NOT PREPARE YOU FOR THAT!

Oh, school was supposed to teach me about being responsible? Is that why I got drunk, showed up late for classes or skipped them all together the next day, and then ate taco bell while watching Keeping Up With the Kardashians when I got home? hmm?

Oh, school was supposed to teach me about the value of hard work? Is that why I bullshitted 90% of my classes and still managed to pass and graduate in 4 years?? hmmmm???

Oh, school was supposed to teach me to be a viable member of society? Is that why I am leaving school unemployed, broke, and with a strong will to get drunk, not look for a job the next day, eat taco bell and watch Keeping Up With the Kardashians at my parents house? hmmmmmmm???!!

Oh, school was supposed to teach me how to follow my dreams? Is that why I was forced to take an ungodly amount of classes that had no relevance to those dreams that my little shining spirit yearned to follow? HMMMM??!!

Oh, school was supposed to drain my parents financially while simultaneously draining that same little shining spirit that I discussed during the previous snarky question of its sense of adventure and excitement to get up in the morning? SUCCESS!

It really deeply affects that same little shining spirit mentioned in the previous two questions that I am 21 and am JUST NOW figuring out that school has nothing to do with living.


NO IT DOESN'T!

Yeah, ok. So I appreciate that I can read, and I love that I can speak some espanol, and I dig that I have read some really great plays and learned some really groovy things about the world in my sociology classes and such. I can see some value in those things. definitely. BUT I did not need 18 years to learn those lessons AND I would have learned more had I gone out and experienced more in my life. But Lawd Knows that the way our society thrives  in this idea that life is about spending tens upon tens upon hundreds of thousands of dollars on education just so that you can go out and do a job that wears you out and makes you physically and mentally ill in order to earn money just so that you can pay for your kids to go out and do the same damn thing. All the while, you got a mortgage on a generic 2 story brick house, a gas-guzzling car that earns you some social status among a group of people that honestly don't know any real truth about you nor do they care, and a wife or husband that you love but never have time to do the things you always said you would. You have settled because "settling down" is the goal. We hear it all the time. "It's time to settle down with a nice lad/lass and have some kids." Is that right though? Is it wrong? I DONT KNOW

I know it's a pattern for a reason. Is the reason that it's natural and that humans really do want that? Or is it a pattern because the "stable" "nuclear" "family" is easier for the powerful people that make money off of this pattern to control and manipulate. If everyone was just a crazy hippie beatnik life-lover and everyone really did do whatever he or she wanted, not what society or his or her parents or friends or teachers expected, then everyone would truly be an individual and the group mentality would cease to exist. And with no group mentality, the people in power would have no power anymore and without that power, they may just have to look inside themselves and realize that they never once questioned the pattern that their life had fallen into. Never once did they do what they really wanted. They only did what society said would make them valuable and rich and important. The thing about society, though, is that it has no heart. It has no compassion. Society is a jellyfish.

I'm aware that I'm a cliche. I GET IT. I'm 21; I hate the Man; I listen to jazz; I dance naked in the rain; I read poetry; I wear converses. YEAH. I'm not special.

But I am scared of the largeness of life, and I want to contribute something great to that life. That is what makes the liberal college cliche of a student wonderful and a force to be reckoned with. We are full of energy and fear and alcohol and angst and all of a sudden, school ends and we have a world of actual choices to step into. No more teachers or parents saying go do this at this time. Nope. We choose where we work, where we live, who we see, and what we value. People underestimate and devalue the freshly graduated liberal because we remind those who do not see the potential and grandness in life anymore of what they have lost and how far they have strayed and how deep into the debt, not the financial kind either, they are in life. We remind them of their mortgage and their shitty job and their less-than-thrilling relationship with their spouse and their complete disconnect from their own dreams and passions. Underneath their judgment and condescending scoffs is jealousy. You know how I know this? Because in school, that's what they always told me. If someone is rude and bullying you, he or she is jealous.

Hmm.. Maybe school is important. Ok. I take it all back. Wait. Changed my mind again! OH THE INCONSISTENCIES OF YOUTH

I am a zealous supporter of a life truly lived, and I know that like most passions, that fierce support will fade at times, but I hope that when that happens I will remember that I am going to die one day. Really. Die. Dead. Not exist. So in between now and then, I have to do everything that my heart desires so I have no time to get caught up in man-made "rules" for life. Each individual has his/her own brain, own body, own spirit for a reason. If we were all meant to want the same things from life, we would not need the intelligence we are all born with. I believe that we are born infinititely more wise than we are when we start going to school. Because before school, we have no real concept of grades or money or fashion or laws. We have hunger. We have thirst. We have raw emotions. We cry whenever the fuck we feel we should. We laugh loudly. We sing in public. We bring our imaginations into the tangible world and don't care who is looking. We have fun outside with only our friends to play with and the grass to run through and the trees to climb. Only when the "mature" "intelligent" "adults" begin informing us of society's pressures do we begin to suppress and mold ourselves into something more "acceptable."

I don't see this changing in this world. I'm realistic. But I do like to remind myself of these things because while I cannot change the world, I can change myself. I can choose to never lose the child within me. I can choose to be free within the chains that bind me. No one controls my mind and how I percieve and believe the world to be. This brain is mine, and it has been long before you taught me how to read and write. This life is mine, and it will always be no matter how much you want to own me and my decisions. So, thank you school for teaching me some cool fun little skills, but I want to focus my time of graduation on thanking myself for always seeking the truth that often escapes the scope of facts. I want to thank myself for living- for simply being- in a time when society values doing and doing and working and altering and nipping and tucking and faking.

Oh. And I'm really not all that liberated and free. I still feel fat most of the time; I worry constantly about disappointing people around me; I am considering grad school; and I eat meat again.

Hypocrisy?

No. I like to call it Hippieocrisy.

Shit. I'm human, and all humans say one thing and do another. It's what makes us all so dumb. It's also what makes us so interesting.

People don't makes sense. You know how I know? Because I don't make sense, and all people are the same. No one is special. I can see that because I went to school and can make sense of things. Make sense?

Ultimately the meaning of life is whatever you want it to be because your life and all its experiences are unique to you and thus the meaning of life is an individual discovery. You are special. I know that because I just do.

Life is an argument between 2 sides: the liberal and the conservative; the christian and the athiest; the cat person and the wrong person; the left hemisphere of the brain and the right; the logical and the inexplicable.

Don't try and make sense of it because then you will end up making a blog that only puts more useless bullshit into the world than is already in existence with E! tv programming.

Oh I gotta go! Keeping Up with the Kardashians is on.

Fuck off.
I love you.

-4:40 am Katie