This lifetime friend of mine called me around 2 in the morning, this was NO bother for me considering I’m usually well awake during the hours past midnight. And this particular night had been for him a long night of drunken thought which led to drunken desperation and loneliness. At the end of an hour and a half conversation my friend finally got to the point of all his redundant ramblings and he said to me.
“ Brother, I want you to evaluate my life, my habits, my attitude, my way of living, tell me what you think of me. Tell me what you think about the way’s that I’ve changed. Be honest, don’t hold back. What kind of person am I now compared to how I used to be? I want to know what you think about my girl from what I’ve told you. How should I deal with her? I could seriously marry this girl, I thought we had that kind of relationship. But now I’m not so sure, I need your advice on this one, I still love her SO VERY MUCH. I Don’t know what to do. Help, I love you brother, Thank you.”

I wanted to slap him, because he’s so young. We’re so young. He shouldn’t be thinking about marriage to Anyone at this point in his life. There’s still so much life to be lived. But I felt sorry for him too. Even though least of it was his own damn fault, a bigger piece belongs to his step father for being such a cruel asshole, and the majority to his mother for almost never standing up for her son when he need someone too. That’s when I really started taking notice of things that just didn’t seem right about how things in this day in age weren’t working out for a lot of people. And for the lucky ones who were already making they’re money with insurance companies and what have you, well good for them. The rich fuckers. But this speech isn’t about them, this is about the absolutely down to earth struggling to find their niche in life kind of man and woman who have actually stepped back and refused to accept what everyone says they should do and actually questions what it is they would like to do that would make them happy doing it. The dreamers of a disenchanted youth.

For many people in my lifetime they go through their life without really questioning anything. But for a large number of friends that I have come across in my life who are still my friends during this age of college and self fulfilling prophecy. They are unhappy with their routines of school and work. And for those who stay in school for the whole ride. They’re lucky if they get out of school by 24. For the rest of the poor bastards who want to be doctors and lawyers and psychiatrists. Well, they’re not getting out until they’re about 27 or 28 depending on when they started school.

I feel sad, as well as many of us do. We feel like we’re being held back from something. And it’s not KNOWLEDGE that we are seeking anymore. It’s experience, we want our God Given lives back. We as the youth are tired of drooling painfully over books and keyboards, going blind from computer screens and deaf from our headphones that we ware in an attempt to drown out the ambience of our dull existence.

Something’s in this nation and the way things are taught to be, just don’t make any sense. Early in life kids are taught to read poetry and literature to teach themselves lessons of life. One collection of stories in particular that I should have listened to more in depthly as a kid is the stories of Tom Sawyer and Huckle Berry Finn. Two kids who daily skipped scool in order to have adventures in their lives as opposed to reading about someone else’s travels and adventures. They found school (like most of us) to be dissatisfying and boring. So they simply ran around caused more trouble then they should have but still they learned their lessons the honest way as opposed to reading the cliff notes.
I’m currently 22 years old, I was born June 5th 1983. I graduated from the Art Institute of Dallas March 26th of 2005. Towards the end of my college life I became very depressed and unsatisfied with what I was doing. I was tired of recreating life forms fantasy based or otherwise. I wanted to actually be out in the world instead of building fictional worlds. So after 3 months of no luck in my career field. I ran, I ran all the way to Starruca Pennsylvania up in the Pokanose Mountains. A 24 hour drive from Oklahoma City. And you know what I saw when I got there. A bunch of kids as young as 9 years old talking about business and what they were gonna do when they grew up. Some of them, a few of them wanted to be film makers and they took great liberty in rattling off the programs they used at home in order to edit their films.

That’s when I was disgusted at what my life was in retrospect. I remember playing around getting dirty in the mud, jump on rocks, running through the woods, discovering new creatures as a kid and how vivid my imagination was. I drew all the time. Where as now I have to literally force myself to sit and sketch something just to make sure I still have the talent. I remember first trying to decide what I was going to be when I grew up and what a fantasy and a lifetime away that idea seemed. And that’s all it was, just a fantasy. From then on I spent most of my hours of the day behind an uncomfortable desk looking a books I never really cared for, I was just barely making the grade and the whole time I couldn’t wait to get home so I could go in the back yard and explore my wilderness of imagination. But still dreaming of that day when I would be all grown up and be that successful teacher, that film maker, that cook, or that whatever it was at the time.

My short time outside after school in the back yard soon got shorter and shorter. Then I remember I was suppose to have a relationship with a girl at school. I never got the ones I chose to go after. Eventually I quit and decided to put even more energy into practicing one of my talents that would someday make me into that actor, that writer, that artist or that whatever it was at the time.

I managed to get a school interested in me and they accepted me for college. I felt on fire, I did it. I was going to college, first kid in my family to do it. I was proud of myself and my family was proud too. I felt like I was cheating the system somehow. I was going to school to look at naked people and draw them and create them on a computer in 3 dimensions. When all my buddies were still cramming their noses into books.

My time for pride soon left, and I began to see how truly difficult it was gonna be for me to succeed in this particular field of art. I was good enough yeah, I could do it and make it look great but I wasn’t one that stood out in a crowd. And that’s what you have to be in order to make it. I felt cheated, the system had got me to give them 50 thousand dollars and as soon as I was really starting to understand what I was doing. I didn’t care anymore I just wanted to sit outside and enjoy the sun on my face. But I didn’t have time even do that for more then a few moments at a time. I spent the last 3 months of school indoors and at night working on my portfolio so that hopefully I could graduate. I survived on coffee and nodoze to stay awake long enough to get everything done. I graduated so I guess I did ok.

Now I didn’t have constant daily access to the internet cause I couldn’t and still cant afford it. Which, for those of you who don’t know is the only free and most abundant way to find information and tutorials on how to do things for my field of work. I knew I was fucked. My family was proud that I had now graduated from college and was ready to finally go out into the world and be somebody. I was disgusted, because the day after graduation we had a portfolio show where employers were invited to look at our work and see if they liked it enough to talk to us about possibly working for them. I had 2 people talk to me who were being generous because I was at the end of the table and they knew that I’d just witnessed them ooo and aww over my classmates work.

So here I am now a year later and now my friends back home are getting closer and closer to their own graduations. They’re reaching that final leg of the race. Just one year to go or however long it is that they have left. And you know what I’m hearing? Complaints. They as well as I are sick of it, all of it. They just want to live and be free from tests and books and notes and massive amounts of coffee.

Here’s my question. How long has this been going on? For how many generations have people realized that all we want to do is play and have recess? Like we’re suppose to do. There’s more to this but I’m tired now and my question wasn’t really fulfilled here at the end but you understand what I’m trying to say I hope.