Suicide for Conventional Thought

    I can’t speak for all the other countries on the planet, but when it comes to America, I can firmly say—and this is without a shred of doubt—that one of our most debilitating flaws is our over-reliance on the most conventional response. 
    One example is with the weather. Let’s say it’s mid-March, two weeks before spring break at an overpopulated urban high school—the dog days of winter as the most grizzled of teachers will tell you—and, upon scanning the faces of the students in the class, a near-tangible sadness hangs over their lackluster movements and expressions. Then, you look out the window and remember that it’s rainy and it’s been rainy for three days and spring flowers aren’t even showing their faces yet.  
    Now, as a collection of people—this analysis does not exclude me (we all think together)—we are too quick to settle on the weather as the catalyst that created the gloom that hovers out of sight but all around the classroom. I guess it’s reactionary. Everyone is bummed out because of the weather. Next item please. Maybe it’s some ancient reflex to blame our issues on the weather outside, rain dances and biblical storms and whatever superstitious shit sailors do. 
    More realistically, though, the gloom that is plaguing the classroom was brought about by a myriad of converging factors and waring energies. Maybe the weather put someone over the edge; maybe it fucked up a couple mornings and put some volatile people in some potentially volatile moods. 
    It’s a distinct possibility that the weather had a pacifying affect on the student body, turning some anger into a reflective, low-dose of melancholy. If the sun had risen early in the morning and hit the freshly fertilize, soon-to-bloom flowers, the chain reaction of events could have been near catastrophic. Maybe, instead of a sullen air sweeping in and out of the student’s lungs, a foreign air would reach them instead. Then, the pollen-filled air would disperse some sort of sinus discomfort to a quarter of the student population. Now you have 25% of the kids dealing with the hankering obstacle of misplaced snot and the other 75% are breathing in and out the fresh air. 
    Then, you have to deal with the inevitable conflicts that unravel like clockwork in a vacuum that leaks. Sprinkled with the more tranquil vibrations of a collective downheartedness, these conflicts are much less likely to set off chain reactions, and even less likely to render definitive outcomes. Outcomes or conclusions are the children of life. Spring in bloom brings new life. Spring in gloom maintains order and prolongs stability. New life is one of the most powerful things on Earth, but it’s the creator of both good and evil, almost as if it were the fuel they run on. 
    Another example—and I’ll try to be less tangental this time—can be found in the most common passing phrases. What’s up? Hey, how are ya? Hello. Sup dude. How’s it hangin’ playa? All of those one or two line conversations that we just throw back and forth at each other throughout our days. Why keep saying the same thing? Why not pass each other and make a joke or tell them an interesting fact or just make something up or pretend that you forgot how to speak the language or anything other than repeat the same phrase? We turn communication into a chore sometimes. 
    I guess what I’m trying to say is that we should rip the fuckin floorboards up and start tearing the lid off of everything that’s covered and make sure it’s the right tool for the right job. We gotta give every inch of occupied land on this floating ball of Earth a clean sweep. Let’s reset this dust-covered attic. 
    Disorder may ensue, but I just looked outside and I see some green on the trees and I see the rainbow swirled inside the flower beds and I hear the birds chirping. Spring in bloom brings new life, but it’s the creator of both good and evil. 
    Maybe I’m just young and naive…
    But maybe I’m also something else. I am young, and, as I’ve been told by sources of information I have the utmost trust in, nativity ALWAYS correlates with youth, so I will begrudgingly agree to the latter as well. Even with this labels, the reality of the situation is that every time something has been ripped up by its roots—whether it be Rosa Parks sitting down where she knew she wasn’t supposed to sit or John Calvin calling out the church for its corruption and overall backwardness—there was someone with the idea to dig into the soil of the forest, flatten the land, and build a new foundation. 
    The counter argument is this: “So, every time someone reaches 28 and has a brain on them and an eye on radical, positive change, are we supposed to just call in the bulldozers? It’ll be just like this whole gender saga, where they made two in 92 and only further diluted a system already rife with excess verbiage.”
    While that counter is not completely incorrect, it fails to acknowledge a time in which the system needs to be ripped down and built back up, and everyone, regardless of age, sex, class or race, agrees that when a system begins to swell and expand, it will eventually explode if it is not uprooted and replaced with a more modern alternative. 
    Now is the time. Think about it. Unequal distribution of wealth. The internet. Breakthroughs in quantum theory. A two-party political system that is serving the opposite function that it was intended. Everyone’s social security number can be bought for the right price. Most doctors are closer to peddlers than healers. Most healers can’t even heal themselves. 
​    I thought of myself as a healer. I’m gonna heal myself and help out the rest of this old world. Maybe I’ll reappear in another life and maybe I’ll get it right that time.