Wake Up

He who makes a beast out of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man - Samuel Johnson

You have lots of potential to do awesome and be awesome, but you are wasting away in a cloud of smoke. Wake up.

The anonymous post from someone on Formspring, the service allowing people to anonymously ask people questions about whatever, too widely used by teenagers, and usually just used to abuse people without revealing your identity.

A little bit of background: I spent my first few years of secondary school a huge nerd. Few friends, pretty much non-existent social life, never smoking, never drinking, never partying, never doing anything but going to school and playing computer games. It was not until my third year that I began to want to change this life, and not until the end of that year that I actually did.

I started smoking marijuana. I started smoking. I started socializing, going out of the house. Made friends. Went to parties. Became a regular teenager.

The people I found myself around liked this persona. They didn't know the old me, and I was just an average guy who I guess came out of nowhere. Hell, it's a big school, and I look a lot different now than what I did a year ago.

The people I used to hang around thought the contrary. I'd changed. I'd become some hard stoner, giving up all my “accomplishments”, my interests, everything that had once defined me for a few tokes of the herb.

I've been told many times that I've changed, usually not for the better, that I'm ruining my life, that I have so much “potential”, but then I got the post of Formspring.

I'm not offended, I'm not pissed off. I understand how people view my new lifestyle, but I don't believe anyone has the right to tell me that what I'm doing is wrong, that I'm “wasting away”.

Much of the time I don't run from the stoner image. That's what people know me as. But they have no idea what goes on in my head, what I think about, what I know, what I plan, what I've done and what I'm doing.

Wasting away? I wasted away for three years without the help of any narcotic, hiding from the world, holed up in my bedroom immersed in the world of Morrowind, Oblivion, Half Life, or any other computer games. I could go for days at a time without even going outside. Even for months without seeing anyone but my family, as I did every Christmas holiday. No one gave a damn then, no one even knew. Hell, no one should be asked to deal with that sort of trip. I was messed up. This isn't some “poor me, pity me!” rant, it's just what happened, how I felt.

And to think, it was then that people thought things were good for me. Said I had potential. That I would go far just because I did well at school and didn't do anything even the slightest bit wrong.

Stay in school for thirteen years. Leave school, pass everything with excellence, go to university. Go to university. Study for another few years, some bullshit degree, never actually doing anything, just learning about things that other people did. Get the degree at the price of my teenage years and twenties. Finally get a job in some office, working for some bigshot, making a fair amount of money, but nothing too substantial. Work that for years, get a house. Raise a family. Retire somewhere comfortable and live out the rest of my days unfulfilled, life wasted. That's the life I had mapped out for me, that was my “potential”. Excuse me for wanting something a little more interesting.

Yeah, I smoke. It'll shorten my lifespan. So will over eating, so will under eating. So will working out too much, or not at all. Yeah, it might be pretty cool to live to 100, but if to do that I need to exercise a precise amount each day, everyday, never smoke, never drink, never eat anything but green vegetables and synthetically created s**t, f**k that. “It's not the years in your life, it's the life in your years” - I read that on some birthday card, years ago. It's true. I'm not going to squeeze the absolute most out of myself just to gain another few years on this planet, only to use them to squeeze another few months out.

I fucked myself over for three years, no one cared. Only now when I'm finally getting back on my feet, sorting things out, am I told to wake up, that I'm “ruining” my life.

You have no right to tell me what to do, what to think. You haven't experienced what I've experienced, you don't know what I know, you don't know what I think. What I look like and what I am are two completely different things.

From the outside, I just look like some stoned teenager, caring for nothing but the next session, blowing all my money on smokes and weed, never taking anything seriously. You really think that's me? You really think anyone could be like that, that basic, superficial? Have a look at my hundreds of written works, the short stories, the novels. Read the pages and pages of diary entries I've made over the years. Talk to me about what I actually think, ask me questions; don't just assume. Look at what I've done, what I've created. Realize all the hard work I've had to do for those things you just think are stupid little jokes. Think about the things I think about, learn the things I know, then talk to me about potential. Smoke the amount of dope I have, then tell me I'm wasting away. I know what I'm doing, I know a lot more than you'd think. I'm no genius, I don't know everything, but if nothing else I at least know myself.

“Condemnation, without investigation, is the height of ignorance.”

And you call me a dipshit stoner.

Author's Note

Just another rant of mine, not particularly edited, just a stream of my thoughts.

Reviews

[I am Archangel]

Dude, that changed me. I'm mandalore from neoseeker. :o