Monologue of a Teenager Trying to Find Fulfillment in Life

[OctopusGarden]

Hello, as you may notice I have recently signed up. I write often, so I googled "literature forums" to find some place to gain input into my writing and to read other's as well! So here I am, and this place seems great.

This is version one. I'm still working on it to get my ideas straight.



Monologue of a Teenager Trying to Find Fulfillment in Life

Every day I ask myself: Why am I here? Why do I do the things I do? What is causing me to lead the life I lead? Ever since I was five I have been attending school. I have been learning the things some fat group of mostly, if not all, white men think I need to know to live in this world. Why can't I decide what I want to learn? Why don't I have control of what I do to live in this world? I don't even know what I want to know, because going to school has rotted my brain away. Every year it is the same, from age five to eighteen: english, math, social studies, science, and electives. Every single year, from five to eighteen. Most of my "education" I don't even remember, which renders every forgotten hour in school a waste of time. I hate wasting my life; I only have one.

School limits the mind to doing just the minimum just to get through the day. So why am I here? I look at my transcript and I am a number out of another number. All I am is one among many. All school does is compare me to others; self-improvement has no meaning. I learn what I am told to learn, take a test, and hope I do better than others. There is no self-improvement. My life is based solely on the lives of others, and theirs on mine. So why am I here? I sit here and ask myself this every day and yet I don't leave. I know: I need to get a high school diploma so I can go to college so I can get a good job so I can make a lot of money so I don't have to live the struggled life my mom lived. That's why.

But why does one thing determine whether or not life is a struggle? One thing, in our world, determines my quality of life, and that is money. I drive down the streets of Phoenix, Arizona and it is business after business in a grid that extends for miles. Every single block, the same dull paint with the same ugly billboards objectifying women and glorifying cheap calories and beer. That is our life.

So why am I here? The way I see it, life is pointless unless you die fulfilled. Is earning money fulfilling? The thought of that sickens me. Money is nothing except a separation of class. If one had all of the money in a system, then money would be useless. If everyone had an equal amount of money, it, again, would be useless. If no one had any money, of course, it would be useless. $180,000 a year is only an accomplishment if the majority of people around you make less than you. I will not life my live comparing myself to others. Defining success in terms of money is only done through comparing how much I have to how much everyone else has. Why judge the quality of my life by comparing it to people who are worse off than I? Because that is all money is: a separation of class. A separation of those who live well and those who struggle. Sure money buys food, money buys water. But it took me eighteen years to realize that food grows naturally. Water flows naturally. Food and water are not products of a corporation but they are gifts from the earth, and it is wrong to deny someone these gifts because they cannot afford it. It is wrong to charge for them.

Why work? Why sell hours of my life so a fat white man can profit from it? My life is not capital. My life is sacred. I should not have to sell my life (especially at a profit to someone else) to live. I will not be a slave. I cannot work and be fulfilled. Sure, I could buy things, but what satisfaction does that bring? I do not feel fulfilled when I buy anything. Every dollar I spend in an American corporation they take it and starve a child thousands of miles away; that is not a lifestyle I can subscribe to. I will not sell my life, my mind, my body, my soul so others will suffer.

I am tired of it. I am tired of living my life by the terms of others. Success in school is determined only by comparing me to others. Success in the "real world" is only determined by comparing me to others. I am tired of it. I cannot be fulfilled by comparing myself to others. I am my own president, my own congressman, my own senator, my own mayor, my own schoolboard, my own principal, my own teacher. No one can tell me how to live my life except for me, and I will not be told otherwise.

I will only find fulfillment by pursuing my dreams, and that is what I will do.

[LeavesOfGrass]

I suggest you not blame "fat white men" for all of your problems.

[OctopusGarden]

I suggest you not blame "fat white men" for all of your problems.

i didn't blame fat white men for anything
I'm just suggesting that the diversity of people in the major constructs of our society is lacking... because it is mostly wealthy white men who represent us as a people.
I'm white by the way.

[muazjalil]

nice read....good construct. But i do agree with leaveofgrass, classifying the fat white guy detracts the argument. even though you are white, my opinion is use some class neutral word

[OctopusGarden]

nice read....good construct. But i do agree with leaveofgrass, classifying the fat white guy detracts the argument. even though you are white, my opinion is use some class neutral word

That makes sense. I guess I'll reword it.

[breathtest]

I love it when somebody finds litnet for the first time, because it reminds of the excitement of when i first stumbled upon it.

And this is a great foundation for a story i think. I suppose this is only the beginning. I would cut it down a little and try to be pithy. Say what you want to say in less words, because a lot of it is just repeating the same point. But it is a great idea and well written.

[OctopusGarden]

I love it when somebody finds litnet for the first time, because it reminds of the excitement of when i first stumbled upon it.

And this is a great foundation for a story i think. I suppose this is only the beginning. I would cut it down a little and try to be pithy. Say what you want to say in less words, because a lot of it is just repeating the same point. But it is a great idea and well written.

Thanks a lot for the input

[D.P.Trottier]

If the world were more diverse then it would put idealists and revolutionaries out of business. (just kidding, a good idealist ALWAYS has something to rebel against.)

I like this, even the fat old white men part because you arent trying to be neutral, you arent speaking for everyone, just yourself. and if you identify old white fatties with power, than dont censor your honesty.

keep going with your opinions- as you get older not only will you be well-rounded in questioning a pointless system, but you'll learn to identify which systems are and arent pointless, and then maybe even what it is that could be changed about them.

I'm glad to see a member of our nation's youth that thinks about why they dislike something and not just dislike it because its school and everyone dislikes it. stay thoughtful.

[Delta40]

nice piece. its a lovely reminder of my adolescent state of mind. man, I was gonna change the world, gain world peace and not be part of the establishment eva!

sigh....

[blazeofglory]

I understand by white-men you mean not a racial white people, it is symbolic or else you yourself is white. You mirrored my own mind. I too feel the same. I am privileged to belong to a class of people, likened to the whites you have symbolized. But the white men or the privileged ones are corrupt and live on the sweats of others are also slave to their desires in point of fact. They had to go to school and stood out of the rest and to do that that they had to work hard and sweat and sacrifice all their prime moments.
I work for a big company and the company pays me well enough by enabling myself to buy the comforts and luxuries I want in life. I am also a slave of the comforts and luxuries then. I know it very well yet I choose to buy into the idea of becoming a millionaire or billionaire. I do it deliberately, consciously. I know I am in a trap but the trap has been home to me. I know what I call family is a fetter to my freedom, yet I choose to be shackled since I cannot believe myself and want to be under someone's stewardship.

I know everything is transient and those who value worldly comforts are wrong and those despise them are wrong too. A luxurious man is wrong on moral ground and so is a saint forbidding himself everything is wrong too. Indulgence and non-indulgence are in their wrong directions. That who is right and who is wrong is incomprehensible. I feel hemmed in a predicament, swinging in a web.

I find everything funny, the institution of marriage founded on sheer ridiculousness. The prime move is sex but the motive fades away in a while and this is seconded by children and our presence there will be a yoke their back, for we cut their wings of freedom to doom them to our circumstances, blocking their natural move to be free like their innate fellow beings in nature who rollick and frolic wildly in the wilderness.

You and I know it and our systems, traditions, beliefs, social and economic systems are trash but still we cannot transcend these limits. We have founded them for ourselves. What you call school, society, convention, system mirrors your inner realities. These values are ingrained in us genetically. We cannot get out of this snare of systems, for we fear aloneness or the systems that hook us secure us from the external aggressions that had birthed the concept of tribalism.

We cannot break free from these traditional shackles no matter how much doggedly we try

[hillwalker]

A great piece of analysis, and as breathtest says, you should stick to your guns. The 'fat white man' is indeed behind many of the wrongs you identify.

In the Western world (and in blaze's world by the sound of it) education is becoming increasingly measured by its cost-effectiveness; the financial return it generates compared to the time and money the government invests in it (which is why everything is now governed by results and targets - children are taught to pass exams, little else).

State education is merely being provided to churn out a new set of 'slaves' intelligent enough to hold down a job (and thus pay taxes and buy expensive consumer goods to keep the machine whirring) but not too bright to actually question what is behind it all.

Well done.

H

[kelby_lake]

I'm assuming this is not a dramatic monologue. Also, if you don't remember any of your 'education', you weren't paying attention. There's always something to be gained even from the most seemingly dull lessons.

You have a nice writing style, even if the sentiments have been heard before many times. I did like the 'white supremacy' point though- it's been said that literature and the theatre is full of 'dead white men', most of them probably middle-class.

[RaoulDuke]

A very interesting read, and well written to boot.

I can't help but wonder, have you read anything published by CrimethInc? I read Days of War, Nights of Love a little while ago and some parts of your writing reminded me of it strongly, particularly when you pledge not to sell your own time and lament the transformation of food and water into "products". If not you may enjoy it; it essentially takes a swipe at the mass-consumerist capitalist society but has a refreshing absence of esoteric language and ivory tower thinking.

[the facade]

Ok, so now you understand your character (or yourself?). Construct a narrative enveloping that character and let those musings unfold.
Good luck!