IV. The innocence you loseA. The prototype I see all this as a very big problem. I’ve gone beyond caring about how pointless the plastic, shopping mall and pink fairytale culture is invading the whole world and crushing true values. This is about more. I see:
1. that the adults are biased and clinging to values that the youngsters of today don’t care about, we’re expected not to
know things, and like a mishap experiment, are denied guidance on what to do with the information, because the adults are in denial about their children
knowing. Pretending the sight is not in their heads doesn’t erase it, and not speaking about it like a taboo is leading to its misuse. Instead of dealing with the spilled milk, like cleaning it up, they are flustered by rude and traumatized kids and are convinced of their righteousness, and act as though it’s a mere psychological defect in them, not to be blamed on anyone, and they should be sent to a shrink (who’ll probably just drive the thorn deeper),
2. my peers are accepting corruption because that’s what it means to be an adult today. I know kids my age whose life goal is to be rich, have a mansion, no family, and unlimited comfort. Hardly anyone in my age group thinks of such outdated things as ‘family’ and ‘children’.
What they see is this: anyone who gets married, inevitably gets divorced, so why go that far? If our parents have so many problems with us, then why have children at all? To have the freedom not to care about another human being, not to care about nature, about values, about anything but themselves, seems what you’re supposed to do if you don’t want to be ripped out. We have the ability to be corrupt, and the world is doomed anyway – then why not enjoy it to the height of corruption? We’re all going to die, so while I’m still alive… no one is going to notice that insignificant 0.0000001% of corrupt attitude that I’ve added to the total sum in the world. Right? (Guidance: …silence… “you’re not supposed to know that. Forget it. It’s not as interesting as you think.”)
B. “Sad but true” Who told anyone of the recent generations, about what is not right about being a neo-nazi, just because every second man is a murderer today? We are at the very bottom of consciousness it seems. Where have values gone, where have morals gone? If to be an adult is to admire a mass-murderer and to look down upon an old English gentleman sipping his tea quietly somewhere because he is old, then I’d rather not be called an adult; I happen to infinitely prefer old English gentlemen to savage humanoids. Because, you know, if that shocked you that I’d get this out of the world, let me tell you that most of my generation is inclined and exposed to being the savage rather than a quiet respecter of life and – god forbid – ‘old people’.
What is it to grow up in this world? To prove that I have the stomach to watch wars and wage wars and remain emotionally impassive about it?
It is not in my intentions to lecture anyone about their bad habits – if they want to stick to their perversions then let them, as long as they don’t try to yank me into it. It is in my intentions, however, to set off the warning alarms about the general state of affairs in the world – if you don’t take care of yourself, that’s your problem, but if you do it in a manner that is ignorant of its long-term effects: wake up. How many frustrated adults out there see that people are being stupid, that they keep polluting the atmosphere and make huge mounds of trash every day… and yet, they drive cars. They buy all that trash.
You might be a nature activist, but to what ends? You might support all the people trying to save the rainforests, but it’s not enough. Unless everyone does something about it, it’s never going to be enough. What I see, however, is far more distressing – everyone *knows* how things stand! And nothing is happening, so what can we do? It would indeed be naïve of me to think that awareness is enough, because our leaders are very much aware of what’s going on. They’re not innocent in any way, sense or term. The people of the world are aware, too. They make anyone see it as futile to rant about how sacred nature is (it really is), and how we should try to save it, because most people – let’s face it – just don’t care. The illusions are spun around us, and we believe that to be pure is to pretend not to know about it, just follow the ‘be good, do your recycling, and we’ll take care of the rest’, raise our children and not acknowledge that they see corruption, and don’t know how to handle it. Maybe, at one time in life, they all wanted to save the world – was it right of any parent to stamp that out, for the sake of the illusion to stand? Is love and innocence what you give, by giving a veiled world, saying that as long as you don’t take it off, you’ll be happy? To quote Metallica, all this is “sad but true”.
C. The rebellion How many people are innocent, really so, they live their lives in a good way, and those who don’t are insulting their effort by living in a bad way – but ultimately, it doesn’t help to just be ‘good’. I have found more often than not, that to be innocent (according to the dictionary) in this world, is to be incredibly naïve about living in it – maybe you live in a role-model fashion that everyone should follow, but it’s not helping! Earth is still a nest of corruption. It is futile to lecture someone with really bad habits that endanger their environment about morals – because they don’t have any. What about the other definition, however?
To be innocent is not to be ignorant. Most people buy trash and pollute with the mask of being innocent – they’re not hurting anyone – and using the name of innocence as an excuse to be naïve and ignorant that they’ve just added a minute, but significant fracture of a percent to the world’s rough path down the roads of utter destruction. The true innocent will raise and nurture the next generation to know what it is that must be done, and help doing it. Of course, unless everyone gives up their corruptions, even this gallant attitude towards life will not help.
So ultimately, from a pessimistic point of view, the world is doomed. I give all due respect to those who live their lives in a way that tries to save what’s worth fighting for in this world, but that doesn’t change the fact that we’re doomed; and maybe, again, from a pessimists point of view, rightly so.
What then can we do? As things stand (speaking to my generation), we cannot rely on our elders anymore. Are we to continue this corruption? Most of us (thankfully not me) have been raised in an already odd fashion – I’ve seen parents with a racist outlook raise their children to hate people who have a different skin color, which is simply wrong. Do we, my generation, rebel against this?
No. We rebel against the stale ‘order’ that has been forced upon the people, to keep the stream of corruption flowing, but we’re going about it the wrong way. Is it wrong to kill a man and cover it up, and right to kill him and enjoy the attention? Because a lot of people tend to be of that opinion today. Is that what we rebel against? The cover-up? Or against the act? This is no rebellion. It is not fighting for what’s worth saving, and being ‘young and naïve’, I say that those things are worth fighting for, no matter how impossible it looks. We don’t have to accept the corruption, even if we know we’re reaching the dead end.
D. Innocence: a thing to lose Will I be, however, ignored – by all the adults who are comfortably living in this wrong way, because that’s ‘the way of the world’ – because I’m young and naïve? Am I to be taught a lesson by life that corruption is OK? It sickens me. ‘That is not how the world works’, I know, but it is WRONG. Apparently, I’ll find out that the world is cruel, and I will fail – but I don’t have to! Maybe the world is cruel, but that is no reason to support it, to continue to breed cruelty into it. Of course, no matter how many adults will be touched by my sentiments, it doesn’t change the fact that none of you have done enough to change things. And my generation? What of them?
They have been raised to believe that things are messed up, and that’s just how you have to accept life. Are you really so careless, to silence hope for our planet, because somebody out there has told you, just as you are telling us, that it’s doomed anyway? Or are you – adults – naïve enough to think that my generation will save you? I know them better than anyone else because I am one of them – they won’t.
I no longer call for rebellion; I wait for Armageddon. Yes, the state is sorry enough to just wait until the world will purge itself of all the evil we’ve done with one fell-swoop, including the ones who did it, and sadly, including the innocents who haven’t ever put their sword down in the fight against it. The way things stand, that is the only thing that I see can really jolt us out of this devil’s-circle; it has to be something big and explosive. Wait for the day when Mother Nature gets angry and impassively do her revenge on us. More accurately, she won’t even do it because she’s feeling like you deserve a lesson, she’s only going to create the antibodies in her body to rid herself of the toxins of poisons. She won’t hold back and preserve mankind for its own sake.
V. DirectionsA. Stick to the wrong book Why are we bickering about immaterial facts? Adults lecture their kids ceaselessly about how doing this and that is wrong, and “don’t follow our footsteps in this-and-that regard, don’t change the rules, don’t drink, smoke, do drugs, go for one-night disco catastrophes with strangers, get bad grades” – the list is endless, but you’re all missing the point; that is not the biggest problem in the world. The real danger that kids are in are not from these, it’s not their failure or getting into the drudges of life – it’s the loss of innocence, the loss of being aware of what’s what, and what needs to be changed. In our enlightened state of existence, the only spirituality is severely tainted in some places, and our ethical values are swapped with a survival kit in the hard and ‘real’ world.
In an average American household to get a bad grade makes parents gasp. People in my generation get grounded for getting a bad grade, but they are all ignorant fools – and the parents are mostly OK with this – in regards to the value of a human life, of nature. I say, to my generation, forget the grades, look at what’s happening!
We’re all being selfish. We look out for our own, parents trying to school their kids into a normal, right lifestyle, but to what ends? The world is dying, and will it matter, when the Armageddon comes, whether or not you did your best? No. You think that God will be merciful and favor your soul to go to Heaven over those who did ‘bad’ things like throw away their life (and who could blame them, they were too sensitive to handle the illusion masking the corruption that ‘normal’ people are good at ignoring)? And is that all you care about, that you did good, you’ll go to Heaven, and to hell with the rest of the people? “They should have known”, well, preaching about good and bad didn’t change anything, did it.
Catholicism has an interesting angle on this, if you feel like you’ve sinned, you go to a confession, you right your wrongs, and ultimately, your soul is saved. That is thinking ahead into the future. What about the world? Sure, you’re saved, and you’ve seen that telling others to save themselves is pointless because they won’t listen (but you try anyway), but that only secures you a ticket to Heaven once you’re dead. In the meantime, while you’re planning your afterlife, the planet is soon not going to have a problem with arguments about too many people and whether or not abortion is right, because there won’t be a world to be born into. If you’re not Christian and believe in reincarnation, you might find yourself going to another planet to live your next life, because Earth is doomed.
Don’t get me wrong – I believe it a very good thing, confessions, people need it; without it or our version of it, we wouldn’t be up for the fight – but we shouldn’t settle for that as a final answer. The world is not saved if you are, the world requires your conscious effort. A confession will ready you for the fight; it won’t finish it for you. There are many of us, who – despite having all the resources anyone really needs: a heart, a mind, a body, a soul – do not feel up to it; but this has been passed on to the next generation, and the next, far too many times, and the end of the world won’t wait patiently until we pick the savior army. Like in the airplane’s safety messages: if the compartment depressurizes, please put the oxygen mask on children first, then on yourself.
B. The angle To quote Nevermore’s apt song, Optimist Or Pessimist:
“The optimist understands why the world's gone down the drain
the pessimist never bends, constricting thoughts in vain
from the pessimist's point of view there's nothing we can do
as I paint this picture gray and taste the pain
I'll play the optimist
The only world I know is the world I cling to
It's a world that I'd want to save
optimist or pessimist, what am I suppose to be”
Indeed. What are we supposed to be? Optimist or pessimist? Either way, we do little to actually change things. You either say: “we’re doomed” or you say: “there’s still a nice stretch before the end!” There are, however, some people who didn’t care about what angle they looked at the world’s situation from, they
did something to change things, and it had an impact. I have many role models in this world, people I admire, who really do something, and I admire a lot of fantasy characters as well who – were they living and breathing people – I would admire as such, they give an example about what people could be like if they took matters into their hands.
The reality, however, is that we are aware of what it is to be noble, what morals are, but all in all, we remain closed in our own little world, sometimes yelling out to one another that “hey George, we should save the world!”, but still remain sitting in our living rooms, because we end up agreeing that two insignificant people cannot do anything about the fact that humanity is reeking in filth and is choking on it. One person alone doesn’t even go that far, they just think “mm, what’s the point of life?”. Our goals are to survive, to go out, get a job, make a good (preferably honest) living, get a house, get married (or not), have kids (or not), raise those kids in what we deem to be of value (money, steady job, etc.), steer them to avoid the mistakes that we’ve made, and sit back and watch while the world falls apart. Many people think that they’re simply not cut out to do great heroic acts and become Gandhi II. The adults’ eyes brighten for a moment, saying that ‘yes, that’s the right attitude’ – whenever a kid realizes that this is what it takes; ‘go out and save the world because we’re too old’. The kids – “who cares?”
And yes, who does care? Most of us will just watch the others struggle and say that all they truly care about is themselves, their family, their life, and they don’t want to change it. Change comes inevitably of course, which makes life bitter, and then we all go into denial about the fact that everyone can do something. Is it enough, though? Of course not. It has been the order of the world, that parents raise their kids so that their kids will go and save the world. So it’s our turn to have a go at it; but looking upon my generation, all I can do is sit back in horror and dismay, thinking that “God, these are the saviors?!”, my classmates are the ones who are going to supposedly save the world? The role keeps being passed around – all he wants is a family, a decent living. All she wants is to come to some spiritual understanding (rare). All that guy wants is to be rich and left alone. All so-and-so wants is… and so on. Which one of us is going to save the world? The one who just wants to live a life, and that’s it? Or the girl who wants to delve into universes parallel to our own, maybe even to call out for help to whichever deity to please come and save us because we can’t save ourselves? Or the guy who doesn’t give a damn about anybody else, all he cares about is having a comfortable life?
If adults think their job is done, they did all they can, let me clarify: if you trust saving the world onto my peers and myself… just pray that whatever God or Goddess you pray to really does take into consideration that you’re not the most rotten of apples in the barrel.
C. Good vs. Bad What I see around me is that true innocence is no longer a virtue in the world – we convince ourselves that it’s something to lose, and once it’s gone, that’s it, we only get one chance. We believe that to be innocent, we have to be young and naïve, or to live in a good way in ignorance of evil, while the world is dying. No one is fighting for it – and I make no exceptions, all due respect to those who have tried, but didn’t succeed. The way the world is today (and you may grow tired of me keep repeating this), to be innocent is not to live your life by strict morals and somehow chip in saving humanity – because putting half your trash in the recycle bin is a very sweet thought, but it doesn’t stave disaster, it merely puts it off just a little longer. Some of us cry out to corrupt leaders to stop all this madness, but what actually happens? Of course, if you look to a corrupt individual, you will not get your wishes answered. Good vs. bad is no longer in the game plan. What we
can do is spread purity: we can bring back innocence.
The ‘good vs. bad’ categorization of things merely puts a label on something, so that in our worlds, we know what to stay away from, and what we can indulge in. Everyone has a unique set of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ labels, we all have our own system for labeling things, but it has gone beyond reason. All this nonsense about things like how Harry Potter is evil, for example – you’re arguing about a piece of
literature?! And what good will that do? True evil does
not lie in a book. True, the intentions of an author may be evil (certainly not Rowling), but that doesn’t mean reading a book will make a kid go Satanist. Most people don’t even know what that is. (If you think ‘a mass murderer’ then you need to do your homework; I do not support Satanism, but I am against ignorance and assumptions.) Why would anyone in their right mind decide to become Satanist if they read Harry Potter? There are no references
anywhere, which are satanic in nature – and yet, it has happened that for weeks, I kept reading more and more articles on a debate about whether or not Harry Potter was evil, and I couldn’t help but wonder whether or not I was hallucinating that this… is the big news. This is what the world has to say: Harry Potter
might be evil! (Ridiculous, of course.) In one of my schools (I won’t bring out names), the school librarian refused to keep Harry Potter books in their library – to my amazement – and I realized then and there that there really are people who take this seriously. The whole concept of debate was too absurd for me to seriously consider it as an argument. Well, one thing is for sure: if a kid does become Satanist, it won’t be because they’ve read a book. What drives someone to Satanism would have to be that their whole life is just set up that way, that they’d feel the urge to dabble into such things. If a parent is really worried about their child’s interests, they really should look at their life, not what they read. A kid without too serious problems and who isn’t being hurried into losing innocence, will read Harry Potter, enjoy it, and think no more of it. They will not feel any supernatural urges to worship Satan. (If, however, a kid does decide to become Satanist because of reading these books, then that means that their life is seriously messed up, not their interests in literature, and parents should not forbid them to read it, they should sit down and think about where
they went wrong.)
VI. The return to innocence What this all is really calling the attention to is that while we’re bent upon deciding whether or not it’s ‘safe’ to let a kid read Harry Potter or not, we should really be paying attention to the fact that we’re not doing our best to keep innocence in our actions. Maybe the world is doomed, and maybe we really can’t do anything about it – personally, I feel a cleansing doom is in order – but I ask of you, if you want to really live in a way that will help the world, don’t take for granted your personal 0.0000001% chance of keeping innocence alive. Maybe the time for great individuals such as Gandhi, who set out – in a way – to save innocence, is over, but the least we can do is keep it in mind that we should be willing to try. As I’ve pointed out, it’s futile to look to my generation to save the world… but at least, you can try and bring back innocence into our lives, clarify that innocence really is a virtue, and if one tries, one can keep it.
“That’s not the beginning of the end
That’s the return to yourself
The return to innocence.”
Enigma
Copyright 2007