Friday, May 22, 2009

Looking at life in hindsight while pressing forward

I am about to graduate high school. For many, including myself, this is a glorious and joyous time. Time for dancing nights away, grad parties, cramming for exams and doing nothing in class because teachers have given up on class.

But then what next? After this time of celebration and bacchanalian debauchery, we shall leave the oyster that we have collectively known as childhood for the "Real World." We will lose the coverings and the protective clothing of parental guidance and minor's protection in exchange for college cram sessions, working away our weekends and trying aimlessly for that elusive loch ness monster we call love, success and happiness. Why do we celebrate this? Is it a celebration of the things we will do? If you ask me, it's a little preemptive. Are we esssentially having a childhood Mardi Gras, where we gorge ourselves with everything childish before going into the Ash Wednesday of adulthood?

What is ahead? Will we matter as much as we did in high school? Or will we proceed to just be another meaningless number sitting at a desk, anticipating the weekend with every breath because we have no intrinsic value in our careers? Will the people who were the Olympians of High School be thrown into the Tartarus of Washed-Up Alley, while the geeks and the servants wind up becoming the emperors of our society with their intellect, policies and technology? Or will evil triumph over good and idiocy still continue to be rewarded in this new realm?

Will we maintain those values we held when we were younger? Or will our ideology come to clash with the harsh medicine known as reality? Will we still be the good little Puritans we were raised to when we come to face crisis on our own? Or will we break under the pressure and change our philosophy to the way of the world?

What is next?