In this new political age, I have struggled to produce a way to define my emerging opinions. They feel keenly particular to me. I have a tough time thinking some of my generation and others, don’t find themselves looking around the world and feel jaded, after a childhood of being told that Y2K was going to send us back to the stone age. Or that after 9/11 the government began building concentration camps to house teenagers who downloaded Metallica albums, so many of the books, bands, and movies marketed to us might have been wrong.
There is a future.
As a high school dropout, I have always lived with a sense that my place in society was forever going to be linked to a job that I had zero interest in but was successful (and grateful) enough to make a living from. While giving forty of my hours weekly to the benefit of others, at night, I wrote screenplays, poetry, and other pieces of fiction where a singular theme that stood out was the outcast versus the authority, central to every inner voice and character. It was the same thing taught to me from growing up in poverty and being subjected to a Christian curriculum: “The world is an evil place that you will never change.”
Even without the evangelic doom, I was a part of a generation, through toys and an active imagination, who thought that the only future which held any stature or meaning could only come from enlisting in the military. In photographs of my childhood birthdays, I am in my camouflage pants opening gifts that always included an action figure with a gun. As my parent’s generation looked to John Wayne, mine did to Rambo. Not Sly, but the actual (mass-murdering) character. We saw in him the same battle-hardened fervor we pretended to have as we marched through the woods, sticks in hands, playing out our own make-believe Vietnam War.
Once I grew older (and out of the camouflage pants), I began to shed my nationalistic views. In their place came the other extreme, that not only was the government wrong, but they were evil. Whole institutions became a cabal of wealthy villains who spent their days controlling media and their nights worshiping Satan. It fermented in my mind a healthy distrust of the wealthy and even stronger distrust in the law enforcement and intelligence gathering institutions enshrined with the responsibility of keeping our country safe. Every small mistake became some secret tidbit, where in the early days of the internet, could spread like wildfire through chat channels and newsgroups.
Much like these days, what used to be looked at as a counterculture turned out to be just another group of opportunists who framed the world in any way that sold their products. The “Truth” turned into anything ricocheted loudly enough in the echo chamber we occupy. Dark veils covering a marred history were explained as country’s cover-up. Everything was so sinister that there couldn’t be room for incompetence or compromises. Through all this, the same thing stood out: If I were to participate, I was complicit in the country’s sins.
I could’ve ignored it all. I could’ve headed out on my own, put myself through school, found better friends. I could have, but at the time, this was so much a part of my identity, doing better with my life would mean abandoning the impoverished traits that made me who I was.
The only thing my fatalistic indulgence accomplished was to keep me out of the debate. It was only for sidelining me from entering conversations about topics that I’ve tried hard to learn about on my own.
If ever a word appeared frequently on any official form bearing my name, it would be “truant.” I have, for far too long, looked at this country as a place I didn’t deserve to be active part of. For too many years, I have sat on the sidelines brooding over the decisions of morons from both sides of the political spectrum, knowing full well that I could never be a member of either. All those delusions have lifted. I am American. I am glad to have been born in the wealthiest country in human history. I am now sure, with this birthright, comes the responsibility of keeping myself informed about not just the global ramifications of my country’s geopolitical standings, but also of my stance for the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of every person in this country.
