The Young and the Passionless

I've always been a big Peter Gray fan. If you don't know who I'm talking about, do yourself a favor and look him up. Or read the post I wrote about him last year. Or watch the video below. I'd say it's an excellent introduction to this amazing man. I'm an avid reader of his blog on Psychology Today entitled 'Free to Learn' and I highly encourage you to check it out. You might not agree, but as he points out in his TED talk, it might give you something to think about.

Anyway, the guy makes some excellent points about education. He is a great advocate for the freedom of children, as well as a passionate critic of traditional schooling, which only serves to rob children of their individuality.

A few days ago, on New Year's Eve I went to a party hosted by a friend and something struck me as strange. As she introduced me to some other guests I did not know (who were about my age), one of the things a guy did was tell us what high school he'd gone too. It made sense I suppose, as he was there through a mutual acquaintance,a girl who'd gone to high school with my friend and he was trying to see if I had gone to the same high school, to which my friend told him it's a long story and we left it at that.

Now, I have no issue in explaining that I am unschooled or why I followed this path, so that wasn't the problem, but what seemed very strange was the idea that one identifies through his educational background. I've seen this happen often among people my age – they tend to name their respective high school, like handing out a business card. Because that should tell me something about you? That you went to X high school? I highly doubt that.
It seems most disturbing to me to think that kids my age find some sort of (mistaken) identity in a value-less piece of paper. Sounds to me like ex-cons saying 'I did time in San Quentin' while the other nods knowingly – am I, as a fellow young convict, supposed to know that the teachers in X high school are particularly brutal? Or admire you for serving time in an especially tough high school? Because I don't see what else it says about you.
It doesn't tell me who you are, what you enjoy, what your favorite food is or how you like to spend a Sunday afternoon. It's of little insight in whether you're a classical ballet guy or a punk. But then, why would such a youth identify himself through his passions?
As Gray points out,

Follow your passions. That’s what almost every commencement speaker says to the new graduates. It’s almost cruel. If all you’ve been doing is school and school-like stuff, how do you have any idea what your passions might be or how to follow them?To find and follow your passions you need lots of time and freedom to play. Play, almost by definition, IS following your passions. But we’ve pretty much removed play from young people’s lives.

_{Photo by Animesh Basnet on Unsplash}

Of course these kids tell you where they went and what college they are attending now – it's the only form of ID they have. Which seems to explain why they have such a hard time finding who they are in today's society. If you take a look at young people today, you mostly find two extremes. There are the ones who spend all their time learning and doing school work, replacing their absent hobbies and passions with school-related activities and when asked, they tell you that is their passion. Astonishing that their passion so conveniently coincides with school, isn't it?
And then, there's the other extreme – the ones who serve time in whatever bland indoctrination center they can get in, put in the required time in order to get a degree and spend the rest of their time wasting around, drinking all the time or partying or often just wasting their time. If you look at many college kids, you'll see they are drifting around with no real purpose, as if they're waiting for someone to come and assign them a task.
Tragic, indeed.

At social gatherings, they mainly talk about school – often bitching about their respective college and how it sucks, how awful the building is, the teachers, whatever else. I'm not saying there are no young people with passions and self-directed hobbies out there, just that they're few and far-between.
And they go on to be passion-less adults who mainly talk about their job and their work. Figures, I suppose. And I agree it's unfair, I agree that it sucks that you become institutionalized, that schools take your potential and squish it to mush just so that you'll be a good little boy or girl and conform to the system, work obediently, pay your mortgage etc. I'm sorry.
I know it's not your fault. But it's never too late to go against that, it's never too late to turn things around. Sure, it's much easier to do at 6, but it's not impossible at 26 or even at 60. As I wrote yesterday, you can accept the way things are, you can accept that you're just an expandable slave or you can power through and change things in your favor. It fills you with anger, to think of all the children who are prisoners inside those fucking brainwash factories. And it should fill you with anger to think of all the years you wasted there. Trick is, you can use that to your advantage.
You can work to build yourself up, you can devote time to finding what really drives you. And you can give your kids a fighting shot and not send them to school.

Thank you for reading,