On Statistics #3

Tell me, did the Wright Brothers go to the Air Force Academy? No, because it didn't exist yet, but that's beside the point. Did they take engineering classes? Nope. Did they have half of the resources that we have? The computers? Material processes? Welding? They did have welding, so that was a plus. The Wright Brothers were true pioneers, not the first to build a flying machine but the first to do it successfully. They had passion. They were carrying the fire. There fire was a fire that could not be tamed by anything other than attaining flight. True pioneers, like the Wright Brothers, are those who change the world. Bill Gates: computer software. Steve Jobs: same story. Mark Zuckerberg: Facebook. Thomas Edison: first to successfully construct AND patent the lightbulb. Einstein: all of our understanding of physics is based on his research. Lincoln: saved the Union. Gandhi: gave us some really great quotes. Obama: first black president. Susan B. Anthony: started the good fight to give women the vote. Tesla: gave us accessible electricity. Henry Ford: made the car a cornerstone of American society. Guinness family: made beer and gave us an authority on world records. Hannibal: rode around on elephants and did things in war that had never been done before. Elton John: made being gay mainstream and wrote some really great music. These people aren't nerds, they aren't know-it-alls, they aren't lofty and dreamy in their countenance. They aren't absent from the moment to worry about the future. They are raw and alive, fresh, original, and true. They fill the room when they walk in, they hold their head high no matter the circumstances, they are genuine in their character. I can't say that I know this for a fact, as I haven't met any of those listed above, but my point remains valid. This is the kind of person that the world cherishes, (often times only after they have died and what they were trying to tell the world is found by the world to be useful) and the type of person who advances most for himself as well as for others.

I often look to sky and think of my role in the grand scheme of things. I come to the same conclusion, much like Shakespeare's "All the world's a stage, and the men and women merely players, they have their exits and their entrances..." (There's more the quote, but I'm only listing the first three bits). My conclusion being different in that we aren't even players, we are but wary passersby in the cosmos, a speck of dust, bustling about in the background of such events we are completely and inadvertently oblivious to. Even within our own world, we are ignorant, turned-off, removed from reality, (reality being defined as a state of being the majority of people have agreed upon, something I often ponder and question) we are concerned for ourselves, those who are most like us, closest to us, and those who we loathe, but in a different way. We worry, lie to, cheat, kill, coerce, compete with, yell at, pressure, and disadvantage others, all in the intention to create a better life for ourselves and for those we love. We occupy ourselves with to do lists, with frivolous worries of everyday mishaps, with pointless baggage from a chance encounter with a rude stranger. We have created a society of goals and steps to get there, the end goal at the end of it all being a happy, fulfilled individual. We seemed to have derived a formula for happiness. Go to school, make friends, go to college, get a job. Die happy. What in the f*ck. Are you being serious? I always got this feeling I could never explain in the pit of my stomach, (when I was listening to a college representative or an Army recruiter, a sports "hero", people like that) one of poignant cynicism, to put it simply. I would say to myself, "This guy (or girl) is completely full of shit."

Only because they are. People tell you to do the predictable thing, the safe thing. Go to school, get good grades, get into a state school, get a degree. Get a job, get married. Live on a comfortable income, have 2.4 children, build white picket fence. Experience everything else that is stuffy and lighthearted American dream. I know I've talked about this before, but this still ties into the more specific thing I'm talking about now. People come to high school all around the country, people from institutions. Their goal is to get more people to join their institution. Military recruiters are common, as well as college reps. The most annoying type of this person, to me anyway, are those who represent an institution that masks the message, "You aren't doing anything with your life, you have no direction, so give us your money and your time and we will repeat your high school education, because you very well may need to be remediated, but this time you will get a near useless Associate's Degree! Yea!" This annoys the shit out of me. It's not that these people have the wrong intentions, or necessarily a fundamentally flawed method, though it is, as is most of education. The problem is the outcome. When kids graduate with an Associate's, they're closer to making something of themselves, but they are probably just as clueless as they were with what to do with themselves as they were in high school. Counselors, teachers, parents, administrators bombard students with questions about the future. The future represents the unknown, and it's part of our human condition to be afraid of the unknown. With that, you have teenagers being asked to think about, plan, and then begin to execute the rest of their lives. So you have these elements: 1) fear/anxiety of the future 2) no idea what the future will bring/what role you will have in it 3) you'd rather be partying or napping. Combine those things and you don't get progress. Most people my age, myself included, would rather not think about getting older, going to college, blah blah blah rest of your life and then dying.

You may be tearing apart my argument while reading this. You may be saying, "Well if our youth is totally clueless and without direction, what action do you propose we take to help facilitate the self-actualization of our young people, which will obviously produce happier, more productive, and simply better citizens?" I would contend to make an argument for young people going out and experiencing the world that they have been sheltered from by their loving families. Experience, learn, grow, mature, love, hate, empathize, swim, eat, repeat, kick, long jump, eat exotic food, participate in ritual ceremony of tribe in the rainforest, document, interact, communicate, write, reflect, ponder, dare to explore, adventure, inquire, persuade, finesse, try new things, push the limit, live! Many of these things one would have to travel for, which is fine. I think traveling has awesome benefits. People don't know what they want to do because they don't know what's out there! They have spent most of their time indoors, staring at a chalkboard, or a computer screen, learning largely theoretical concepts and theoretical problems of which to apply such concepts, they don't get to see the world as it is, what actually happens. I like those Discovery commercials, the ones that say "THE WORLD IS JUST AWESOME" at the end. Well, the world is awesome, and I can tell you from experience, what little I've had. However many people don't get much experience outside of their home, their school, their city, or even their state. If they take a school trip overseas they are constantly monitored and looked after by their teacher or other chaperone, which is necessary yes, but also subtracts from the experience. Berlin, London, New York, they all look the same from inside a tour bus, or out of an airplane window, or in a museum.

Just a note, you, the reader, may be wondering, where did the statistics go? Well think for a moment, how many kids are utterly or close to clueless about the world around them? Doesn't matter about specific numbers, it's too many. How many kids pick a state college or university that is within driving distance from home, for such reasons as their friends are going there too or it's close to home? Too many. How many kids close their eyes and throw a dart at a dartboard of majors, choosing the one they hit? Too many, even though that's a massive dramatization.