A Nice Response to my "Welcome to Class" Post

 One of the great things about my new social media life is that it is enjoyable.  FB and Twitter were not fun, and listening to all the midwits and uninformed SJW's became insufferable.

SocialGalactic is great.  Michael Malice's locals.com site is great too.  I posted my welcome message there and I got this as a response from one of the nicest people on the site, Lani.  Remember, this is social media:

"I love that you say writing your own life’s script. I’ve always felt that way about my own life & said to myself jokingly that I aspired to have the best stories at the old folks home. May I inquire what some of those questions are that need to be asked?"

I responded with this:

"Thank you for the great words. I love your philosophy, and the comment about having great tales in the old folks home - I love that.

Off of the top of my head, some of the questions are: "why can't I do that?" "What is the fallacy of authority?" "Who created school and for what purpose?" "Why are people so afraid of being called a 'conspiracy theorist?'" "Who was Gary Webb and how did he die?" "Why do they ignore building 7 on 911?"

That's just off the top of my head. The main focus is independent thought, which is something school is engineered to stamp out - which is why it takes 12 years, and is also why the Cathedral is deathly afraid of homeschooling."

Lani then shared an experience from her past.  It fit with what we were talking about.  It's poignant and deep:

"I want to share something with you, that I though out years haven shared with others when they seemed to be at a crossroads in a kind of “what am I going to do with the rest of my life” situation. I’ve been told it was helpful. When I realized my first marriage wasn’t going to work out and my initial dream of being a ladies who lunch & leisure was not a price I was willing to pay, and I needed a new path and quick. 

Long story short, I went to the BLM (bureau of labor statistics) website and read through every single job listed and read the job outlook, pay and what was needed as far as education and training for each job and what the environment was like in each job. I considered my own natural inclinations, experience existing college credits and meditated on what I could see myself doing. I narrowed it down to 3 possibilities and did some research on each position. I chose one and within a couple years I had a degree and a job I enjoyed w/nice pay and benefit package and was divorced and fully self reliant. 

I often wish that my parents or someone in my sphere had sat me down and took me around and showed me all the possibilities and ways of being that existed. It was hard to see those as a kid from a small town before the www existed. Had I been younger, I might have made different choices but time was of the essence in my own situation. If I had a kid I would show them the results on different life choices. Take them down to skid row, take them to different industries and people etc. and have ‘em ask themselves where do you want to be, how do you want to live and are you willing to take the time/risk to do whatever it takes to get there. Something like that. Mind you, I have little regrets. I have experienced almost everything on my bucket list and stories crazy enough I am almost shy to tell them as they sound so fantastical, I often think no one would even believe me. 

Anyway. I don’t know if that story is useful for you. But thought I would share in case it was."

Finally, I answered here:

"I think it's very useful. It sounds like we both had the: 'go to school, get good grades, and get a good job' trope served to us. The people who did that weren't beasts, they weren't acting to put us in a box, but it became the ethos, the zeitgeist as the institution of school became the gargantuan monolith it is today. There are so many possibilities, as you say, and you're right. The narrowing of the scope is one of the things that hamstrings young people.

There are many ways to be - I use the same words - and the journey to explore those ways is not only fun, it's necessary. Having a fulfilling life, with a purpose, with varied experiences, full of learning and internal satisfaction, is the natural way of a free person. The Original America understood this. Tocqueville saw it and wrote about it. The freedom to create your own path (pull yourself up from your bootstraps / rugged individualism / root, hog, or die) was the whole idea. A person who asks questions, thinks for himself, and writes his own script has lived a rich and wonderful life.

The fact that you see yourself in the past and want to talk to that person is wonderful. You get it. And you used the perfect word - "risk". As they've conditioned people to never accept risk (Stay inside!!) they get a docile and malleable people. Without getting too wordy the American politician of the past would have been afraid to do what these have done today. He'd have gotten shot (Shay's rebellion, the Whiskey Rebellion, Civil War riots in NYC, Bacon's rebellion). As @malice explained to Tim Poole the other day, the under-qualified evil people who run this place learned over the last few months what they need to do to manage The Herd. Schooling is predominantly responsible for this.

You'd make a good teacher Lani. Sharing your experiences, thoughts and ideas with a young adult will break the cycle. I do it at work, and it makes my job worthwhile, despite my station in life as a 25 yr veteran public school English teacher in the Bad Neighborhood.

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Is your Facebook experience like this?  Mine wasn't.  This new existence is much better.