My opinion on life is thus: life is constantly out to get you. It has a mind of its own; it teases you, breaks you, leads you on, then just when you think it's on your side, it betrays you again and again. Life is a poltergeist, a mischievous and devious gremlin spawned of the darkest pits of this world, and its secret desire is to turn you into Satan's robotic minion. Life is a game, and if you play by the rules, you lose, an idea which has brought forth the popular philosopher's joke of proclaiming to someone, "You lost the Game."
A certain book that I read when I was young and more ignorant than I currently am dealt with this concept of playing by the rules. The book series was a knockoff of James Bond, where the teenage hero is placed time and time again in a "no-win scenario" while his innocent girlfriend is being held captive by the main villain. Every time, despite the insurmountable odds, the hero manages to escape the plots of his evil nemesis and rescue his damsel from distress, most times within an inch of both their lives. In this particular book, our brazen, Bond-esque teen agent is caught in an exact replica of a computer game, exact but for the obvious fact that he has no extra lives to spare. After realizing the fact that the game was a program, and not completely applicable to the laws of physics and human ingenuity, he resolves himself to not play by the rules (example: instead of running through the corridor of flying javelins, he chooses to ball up his socks and throw them down the hallway, setting off the motion sensors and enabling his escape).
The significance of this story to me is this: there is a stereotype for everyone in the world. Every person is categorized as part of certain groups, depending upon their existence. For example, a person who enjoys playing Zelda games and talking about Star Trek is classified as a "nerd". A person who loves playing sports is turned into a "jock". This irks me, of course, because I find it repulsive to think that because of my interests and dislikes I am limited.
My best illustration for this would be our AP English class' recent assignment: to read Pride and Prejudice. I won't spoil the plot of the book, but I will mention that the entire book deals with people and their relationships with other people. That's why I like Darcy in that book, by the way: because (at first, at least) his opinions and attitude aren't affected by the way others think about them, a virtue that is lost in current society.
Anywho, in Pride and Prejudice, the language used is very artistic, taking a long and thorough reading to fully understand the humor and satire behind each phrase. The part where my aforementioned stereotype spiel comes in that one of the girls in the class, as we were walking out, said the following: "Oh, Kyle! It must be pure torture for you to read this!"
As I thought about this throughout the day, I began to realize two things:
- I dislike reading Jane Austen (to an extent)
- What I dislike even more than reading Jane Austen is when people tell me that because I'm a high school sophomore guy, I have to dislike reading Jane Austen.
This event reconditioned my mind and made me realize a third thing: I want to fight this preconceived notion that a sophomore guy has to be a backwards, pig-ignorant, unimaginative, garbage-phillic Philistine. Just because I'm a guy doesn't mean I'm a brute.
In my opinion, life is a game where rules are placed upon you that restrict your path based on things that you can't change. In short, it's a no-win scenario. And to quote James Tiberius Kirk, "I don't believe in no-win scenarios."
My goal in life is to be a man of Christ who can retain his dignity in such a world as this, where individuality is simultaneously promoted and frowned upon. Speaking of which, George Orwell's predictions of "doublethink" becoming prevalent in society? ...heaven forbid that I would ever be classified as a conspiracy theorist, but I think this is hitting too close to the mark for comfort.
As always, I remain your humble servant,
--JesusFreak
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