“You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everyone else, and we are all part of the same compost pile.”

Taken from Chuck Palahniuk’s “Fight Club” these are probably among the truest words ever written. Every day, thousands of school-children across the globe are fed the same tired line of bullshit. They’re given unrealistic expectations for life and then beaten into line as to how they are supposed to accomplish it. You are special. You can do anything you can imagine. Reach for the stars. Believe in yourself, and you can accomplish anything! What a load.

From almost the time you are born you are subjected to a non-stop barrage of shit designed to make you into a productive, functioning member of society. Even though you hate it, you go to school. While there, you will learn valuable lessons about how authority is often arbitrary and unfair, supposed friends will knife you in the back, and that being a productive member of society is almost intolerably boring. The older you get, the worse it gets. Unless you are a spoiled prick, eventually you will get a job. Your first job will introduce you to a level of pain so profound and complete that you will find yourself wishing for your days spent memorizing useless poems to recite in class. Every single day you have to go to your job and take shit, a little part of your pride dies. I’ve worked in everything from IT to maintainence to package handling/delivery to convenience stores. It’s all the same. Your soul is essentially taking a beating. Every time your three different bosses tell you to do contradictory things, then yell at you for doing one of them, you just say, “Yes, sir.” or, “Sorry, ma’am, it won’t happen again.” You want to yell, scream, break shit. Decry them as being frauds and morons in front of the entire workforce. Expose their bullshit for everyone to see. You won’t do it though. You won’t do it because you need this job to pay the bills and you can’t do shit without the all-mighty dollar. Every time some cocky fratboy fuck walks up to your register with some vapid wench on his arm, throws his credit card in your face and asks for, “Marlboro FUCKING Lights, you minimum wage loser” you want to call him a worthless, spoiled cocksucker, then reach over and smash his face into the edge of the counter until he crumples to the floor like a rag doll. But you won’t do it. You need this job. You have to pay bills. You’ll just nod, ring up his smokes, and swipe his card. Maybe you’ll even tell him to have a nice night if you’re as shut off and numb as I am. Every time you have to swallow your pride and submit, a part of your soul dies. One day you’ll wake up and realize you’re empty.

You’re empty because you gave it all to someone else. You’ll lose touch with most of your friends, the ones who haven’t knifed you in the back yet anyway. You might think you’re in love, but sometimes you wonder. Is it all just about social status? Would they still love you if you said you were just going to be a hobo for the rest of your life? Do they really love you, or just the easy life your future career path represents? Everyone wants more from you. More money. More status. More wealth. More gifts. More time. More accomplishments. More of yourself. More, more, more. What about courage, honor, honesty, and integrity? Nobody wants more of those things. Those things will just get you fucked. Courage and honor will land you in a back alley getting your teeth kicked in by a gang of punks pissed off you didn’t take one of their member’s shit. Honesty and integrity will leave you penniless and destitute, while the people who took advantage of your naive trust pop open bottles of champagne and sleep with models. This world does not reward moral people, and anyone telling you otherwise is an idealistic fool.

This world is like a ravenous, starving machine. We are all its food. We are ground to bloody pieces in its chattering, gaping maw. The people who are most successful in life are just those who know how to avoid getting eaten first, and they will throw you in first if they think it will get them a dollar more or another second of time. Empires, whether territorial or financial, are built on sweat and blood. Every day, doctors prescribe drugs their patients don’t need to pad their bottom line. Lawyers tell clients to bring frivolous lawsuits and motions so they can wring more billable hours out of them. Convenience store clerks give 100 people a day one penny less change, because then they make an extra dollar.

Doctors who don’t prescribe medications without just cause are sued for malpractice by addicts, and have to close their practices. Lawyers who advise their clients not to waste their time and money on stupid actions will never make partner. Clerks who don’t short people on change will have to pay money out of pocket at the end of their shift because they accidentally gave extra money to someone who didn’t say anything. If you try to do your job honestly and with integrity, you will be fucked in the end. The machine will chew you up and spit you out.

Kids today are going to be even less equipped to deal with reality than the last generation was. Little Leagues are outlawing winning and losing, because losing makes kids feel bad. Many schools are saying red pens are not allowed, since they make students feel bad. Kids don’t play dodgeball anymore, because it makes some of them feel bad. I hate to be the one to break it to you, but their WHOLE FUCKING LIFE will make kids feel bad. If they can’t handle a whole bunch of red marks on their shitty assignment, or getting hit with a rubber fucking ball, how the hell are they going to be able to handle pulling 60 hour weeks fresh out of college or working 40 hours a week at a shitty, minimum wage job on top of a full load of courses? They won’t. They will fail. This entire notion of setting kids up to reach for the stars is pathetic and naive. It is cooked up by rich, well-to-do Ivory Tower shitheads who have never had to step foot outside their fantasy land of academia in their entire pampered, cushioned lives. Not everyone is going to be a doctor or a lawyer. Most people will be construction workers, or mailmen, or waiters, or clerks. And there is nothing wrong with that.

What makes a lawyer more valuable than a construction worker? The lawyer is paid more, but for what? Shuffling documents? Writing agonizing, pointless legal briefs that only a select few people will ever read or understand? The construction worker actually builds shit. He is essential to our society. People who look down upon, and mock the very people who built their fucking homes, roads, hospitals, and schools are the dumbest of the dumb. There is such emphasis to achieve and do well, but status by itself will never make you truly happy.

My entire life I was unhappy. I always did very well in school. I made straight A’s every year or very close to it. I did well on the SAT. I got into a good college…for free. I had undertaken every step that I had been told was necessary to ensure a happy life. Ever since I first set foot into preschool I had been told by my parents, my teachers, and the rest of my family, “Do well in school and achieve things and you will be happy.” They lied. As the weeks dragged by in college, I realized more and more that it was just another mountain of bullshit I had to climb on my way into a valley of pointless drudgery for the rest of my life. I started fucking up in classes. Eventually I didn’t even go anymore. I felt no sense of obligation to my parents, as I was attending school for virtually free. If I wanted to fuck up my own hard work, by god, no one was going to stop me. I got a job at a large packing and shipping company, and the money started coming in. I saw my girlfriend on the weekends. I was a social recluse, barely passing my classes, and getting 4 hours of sleep a night. Yet, for the first time in my life, I was happy. My life was harder than it had ever been but I was happy. I realized that it was because I was, for the first time, doing what I wanted to do with my life instead of what someone else wanted me to. As an entire generation of suburbanites in positions of opportunity has grown up sheltered and controlled, that is an important realization to have.

Though I usually wasn’t too fond of whatever garbage they made us read in highschool, I remember one book in particular: Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea.” Basically this old guy goes to sea and catches this giant fish. The fish is so fucking big that he can’t even get it into his boat, and has to tie it to the side. On the way back to shore, sharks and other fish eat the fish he caught. The Old Man struggles valiantly and to the bitter end, even when he knows it is hopeless, but eventually his fish is completely eaten, only the bones remaining. The morale of the story is that even in the face of impossible odds you should struggle on and fight against your oppressors. There was a sharp division in the class on reactions to this, and by “sharp division” I really mean, “me” and “everyone else.” All the other people in the class felt that it was stupid to continue in the face of obvious failure. The Old Man should have just left his fish in the middle of the ocean and returned to shore. What a load. If this does not strike at the very heart of the attitude of the youth, I don’t know what does.

I argued that, even when failure is virtually assured, it is better to fight against your enemies to the bitter end. Was William Wallace stupid when he fought an obviously superior foe in the British? Were ancient samurai warriors stupid when they laid down their lives for their vows and charged into battle against superior numbers of foes? Is that kid who spits out a, “Fuck you!” through his bloody, broken teeth to the punks beating him in the alley stupid? I would submit that he is not. Self-respect and pride in what you have accomplished with your short time on this Earth are worth far more than any degree, accolade, or award possible.

You may not be a unique snowflake, and you may be thoroughly miserable, but what you can do is keep on living. That’s right, just stay alive to spite the Cosmos. God, the Universe, whatever…it’s laughing at us. It sees us toiling away in our petty, little, insignificant lives, and all the stupid shit we think is really important, and it’s laughing at us. Every day you’re alive and aware that almost 90% of the things people worry about are pointless, it’s like spitting right in the face of existence. Someday we will all be dead and the universe will be destroyed, so enjoy the ride while it lasts, and don’t waste your time here trying to live for someone else’s dreams.

After all, no matter how influential or beautiful, every snowflake eventually melts.