Thanks to das Hermit, Dr. Sebby, and Eric. I've passed your messages along to Roni. If I actually get around to writing one myself, I'll post it here. I plan to rejoin the Virus conversation just as soon as the renovations on C-Realm.com are complete and I'm back on my productivity schedule on the comic. See you then.
Keep on keepin' on.
-KMO
TheHermit wrote:
> Youth is always angry. It was angry in Aristotle’s time, it is angry today.
> Mainly because the older generation really is comprised of a huge number of
> gutless old farts who spend far too much time pontificating and saying no.
>
> Youth generally sees things as black and white and wants things now. A
> sixteen-year-old boy will come 6 times in an hour and his girlfriend will
> get to come once (if she's lucky). As you grow older you learn about
> compromise; the more intelligent tend to see the world as a patchwork of
> gray. And hopefully their girlfriends get a chance at coming too. There is
> merit to both viewpoints, but they are undeniably different.
>
> Quoted from another list... items in <...> replace to preserve anonymity.
>
> [Start Quote]
>
> From: <A.N. Other_Young_Man>
>
> <Anonymous_Young_Man>...
>
> I have an idea for fixing your fucked up world. You can come to my
> school, no one here would try that shit, at my school the other people
> would start shooting back. You gotta love my school, I've been
> evacuated 2 consecutive days for bombs, Thurs. and Fri. <A_County> county
> <A_State> is one fucked up piece of work... Ya'll all should visit...
>
> >
> >From: <Anonymous_Young_Man>
> >
> >Alright, I'm fed up to the ass with this colorado shit, it's gone to
> >far at my school. Some tight ass guy in the school system got this
> >idea 'trench coat mafia....trench coats....bad clothes...bad people'
> >so, he instructed all the other tightass` at the school and said 'You
> >see anyone wearing black and/or trench coats....suspend them!' So
> the
> >other tightass control freaks agreed. So, they started giving psych
> >evaluations, and anyone who 'failed' it was suspended. Oh, did I
> >mention the only people given the psych evaluations were the people
> >who wore trenchcoats or black clothes? They went out of the way with
> >this, and suspended several people (some of my friends), and they
> even
> >went as far as calling someone's parent in <A_Town> (long distance
> >from my place) and asking if they could search the child. Also, this
> >psych evaluation consisted of a few quiestions.
> >
> >
> >What is your religon?
> >
> >Do you roleplay?
> >
> >If so, how do you defeat an enemy? (most believed this quiestion
> lured
> >the person into saying 'you kill them, of course').
> >
> >I don't know most of the other quiestions, but this shit is getting
> >ridiculous. So what? Some kids that always got beat up finally got
> >pissed off and wiped out a few jocks, they were dumb, they had no
> >right to kill anyone, but because of them, everyone has gone insane.
>
> >You can't say I'm gonna kill someone because I wear a fucking
> >trenchcoat. What if someone killed some people and was wearing some
> >Nike` shoes. Would they kick everyone out and/or give them psych
> >evaluations for wearing Nike's?
> >
> >
> >
> >We live in a fucked up society, someone's gotta fix it.
>
> [End Quote]
>
> Both of them are great people, smart and fun (even if they can't spell). I
> love the idealism. I also clearly remember when "Rock and Roll" was the
> devil's music, long hair was satanic, and denim was anarchist... I'd still
> dearly love to play NIN at a suitable volume for some arseholes from my
> youth :-)
>
> I can remember planning and executing some pretty fearsome "getting even"
> practical jokes which would probably land me in jail if tried in the US
> today. I can clearly remember putting a soldering iron through a bully's
> hand, who chose to pick on me at precisely the wrong moment - and being
> greatly satisfied by the smell and the sizzle. I don’t recall being punished
> for that, everyone including the staff knew he had it coming. No doubt that
> this would have given me a record as a dangerous and violent offender here
> in the US, and my parents probably would have been sued into poverty
> although they were not present. Of course, I wasn't even as angry as most of
> the people here seem to be, I was getting laid from a much earlier age than
> most of the US considers "acceptable" (13 - and regretting that I had waited
> that long). Which would also probably land me in trouble here in the US.
>
> I also took risks. Lots of them. Riding motorcycles at insane speeds through
> woods. Climbing mountains. Shooting. High diving. Building tree houses –
> really high up. Surfing and diving. Making fireworks, nitroglycerine,
> guncotton and blowing it off. Getting drunk. Getting stoned. Combining these
> activities. All the things that normal kids do. Ok, so I exaggerate. Not
> entirely normal. But not considered entirely insane either. At least when
> they are not in the US of today.
>
> Maybe the sterile environment here has something to do with it. The idea
> that everyone needs to be protected from everything? The idea that there is
> no need to be responsible for your own actions. The idea that there is
> always somebody else to blame. And, or to sue... Or maybe it is just that
> life is boring when there are no frontiers, no risks. And the concept of
> keeping people in jail, err school, long after they were considered
> physically and mentally able to go out and rule countries not so very long
> ago. Without giving them any other challenges worthy of the name.
>
> Meanwhile the USA is still trapped into attempting to live up to a Victorian
> morality that never existed in Europe except as a fantasy propagated by
> journals written for "ladies", yet Americans aspired to make it real and
> were consumed with guilt when they failed. In the 1870s, the Americans did
> not know that the prim and proper English they read about in their
> newspapers were out fucking prostitutes ages eight or so and up. And had 1
> full time prostitute for every 8 men. And that one of the reasons English
> ladies didn't fuck their husbands was that syphilis or the "pox" was
> endemic. And so, while English fathers joked in their clubs, and then took
> their 14 year old sons to visit "reliable whores", the Americans tortured
> themselves and their sons with devices to prevent the sin of "nocturnal
> emissions" and took to mutilating (circumcising) them to "prevent
> masturbation and lascivious thoughts" in volumes that would be ludicrous if
> they were not so tragic.
>
> The natural consequence was that religious passion and desperation rose to a
> level not seen elsewhere in the world since the dark ages, as almost every
> American was consumed with a guilt for not achieving the preposterous,
> ridiculous, non-existent, wholly imaginary standards that they thought
> others had achieved. Of course, to cover this up, they developed hypocrisy
> to an art form seldom observed in Europe. And the young were ever good at
> noticing the hypocrisy of their fathers.
>
> I think I would have gone totally nuts as a kid, possibly even shot up a
> town or two if I had been trapped in the USA. As I said before, who is to
> say that these children are wrong?
>
> It seems to me that they may be quite right. Their country is all fucked up.
> And the only ones who might correct it are the insane children of today.
>
> TheHermit
>
> "The reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him...
> The unreasonable man adapts surrounding conditions to himself... All
> progress depends on the unreasonable man." George Bernard Shaw
>
> "People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't
> believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people
> who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find
> them, make them." George Bernard Shaw
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: KMO [mailto:kmo@c-realm.com]
> > Sent: Thursday, April 29, 1999 2:56 PM
> > To: Virus List
> > Subject: virus: alienated youth
> >
> >
> >
> > Any answers for Roni from the Virus crew?
> >
> > -------- Original Message --------
> > Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 11:49:48 -0700
> > From: "Chapman, Rhonda" <RChapman@ESD.WA.GOV>
> > To: "'kmo@c-realm.com'" <kmo@c-realm.com>
> >
> > Hi KMO -
> >
> > I've wondered for a long time and I'm curious if you have any
> > answers.
> > A
> > close friend of mine has a 15 year-old son who didn't come home last
> > night.
> > Of course, she is frantic, depressed, frustrated, and confused. They
> > actually have what I would call a good relationship. He's a terrific
> > kid
> > for the most part. I really like him.
> >
> > I'm sure some of what he feels is boredom and frustration.
> > She says he
> > is
> > also very angry. That's what I just don't get. Why are so
> > many kids so
> > angry? What is society doing to them? The problem seems too wide
> > spread to
> > be anything other than some form of general social breakdown.
> >
> > You seem very in touch with this stuff. 'Wondered if you have some
> > thoughts. We can't "fix" it if we can't understand the
> > cause. Somehow
> > I
> > don't think this will get better if left alone.
> >
> > Thanks, R
> >