In rants past I've stated that I fully support, nay, demand that people take ahold of the huge steering wheel in front of them that is their future and bring their lives out of the horrendous flat spins that they already are in. I give suggestions just to prove I'm not being a totally unreasonable bastard: drive courteously, participate in the rearing of your children, try not to be so dense that you think your ten-dollar toaster will actually hesitate to burst into flame when you leave a gods-be-damned Pop-Tart jammed in the stupid thing with the elements on "crisp it darker than a Baywatch Bikini Line" for over twenty minutes. All of these things, one might assume, would be classified as "common sense," perhaps even the sort of thing that might become sheer instinct and be handed down from one generation to the next, the sort of thing one simply knows innately through some intervention by mother nature.
But no.
No, instead, we continue to thrive on making our fellow man miserable. SUVs sell in record numbers, and at the same time the auto industry continues to execute a bitchin' headlock upon the oil refineries so that gasoline remains plentiful and cheap enough to continue to power these Lexus-brand tanks. People burn down other people's homes. Stalking. Styrofoam peanuts. Abortion clinic bombings. Any number of atrocities are perpetuated in the name of any number of causes, but because it's "for a cause" that makes it OK. I mean, dammit all anyway, wouldn't it be so much more WORK stepping back and acting like the sentient monkeys we claim ourselves to be? Can't have that, mercy, no.
Here's where Fer tells more than you want to know: I don't know, for various reasons involving my sordid medical history, if I can even bring a life into this world (Yes, I can just go give a sample and get an answer, but this is one of the things I Just Don't Want To Know at this juncture in my life). If it should ever prove itself possible, the next question is should I even do so, when/if the right conditions ever present themselves (house, marriage, savings at the right level, etc)? Am I really doing right by my offspring to bring them into this world? I'm one ranting person who really dislikes the environment around him. I, alone, cannot change the world around me -- and as much as I might like to think otherwise, it isn't very likely that the world at large will hear my relatively simple plea and decide to participate in the global overhaul of our species... if being alive for this long has taught me one thing, it is that I am about as insignificant to this planet as that ant you unknowingly stepped on last week on the way out of the Burger King was to you.
I know that you are thinking "But you can pass down your morals to your child! You said it yourself, loser," right about now. Yes, those of you who have children already CAN make sure the world is a better place by instilling values into your children that YOU approve of, rather than letting the television, the school system, the babysitter and the X-box do it for you. This idea, if practiced by a number of people, could result in quite a movement within the next fifteen years -- and I for one would love to see it.
But as I have said before, I'm a practicing pessimist: I don't think anybody is going to go out of their way on this to make things better. So, that leaves me with this thought: if I were to have a child, this would amount to me sending out MY child, one of the beings I care most about in the world, out into a world that I already don't approve of, just so he can battle for beliefs I myself have been fighting for all these years already. I don't know about you, but I don't think that's fair to my child, not in the least.
Perhaps Kette will interject later in the comments -- I already have a sneaking feeling crawling up my back like a scorpion on a sleeping bag that most of the armchair psychologists will be jumping on this one with a few different theories about why I'm so adamant about everyone else altering the world and my lack of faith in my own child to do some of the work along with the rest. Maybe it has to do with my childhood -- I saw a lot of things I don't think I should have seen, and while I know I haven't had it as bad as some classes of people in far-off countries (Women in India, anybody?), I certainly did not have a lot of positive experiences in the public at large as I grew up (although I will take this moment to interject that my mother and my father, while tough-love types, were indeed quite loving and very devoted parents who did the best they could -- which, I like to think, was pretty goddamn good). I'm actually sort of interested in seeing this, because I've been staring into this mirror for a while now and the answers still aren't making themselves any more apparent to me now than when I first started. Whenever I start trying to figure out why I am the way I am, and I'm sufficiently agitated about the topic, or past a certain level of emotional involvement, the thing becomes more difficult than putting the proverbial square peg through the round hole. I mean, I might as well be trying to stuff a marshmallow into a friggin' piggy bank. It's fruitless and exceptionally frustrating.
Oh dear. I'm rambling and appear to have lost the exact point I was striving after. Bloody hell, I suspect that means I should wrap it up...
Is bringing a child into this world a fair thing for me to do, when I already disapprove of so many things that are occurring? Are the memories of my youth making me fear that perhaps my child would have to undergo some of the same traumas, ones which I don't think a child should have to go through, ones that can, in my opinion, rip away the thin veneer of wonder that's left in life for children in this day and age? Am I afraid of the commitment it represents to raise a child to believe in what I believe in, and believe in it enough to go out and fight for it? Am I out of my bloody mind to be staying up at night thinking about what it'd be like to find out I'd brought a life into this world, just before some incredible disaster occurs? Or am I just being paranoid about the whole damn thing?
I dunno.
It sucks to be introspective when you don't have the qualifications to even inspect a piece of wood.
I got a crazy teacher
He wears dark glasses
