I never liked High School. Hated it in fact. If I were to remember back to those days it wouldn't be very comfortable. I lived a life of solitude back then. At School, on my own, drifting between clicks and having no real definable friends. At home I had many, and we were always living in and out of each others pockets during the weekends and at nights. But at school I was a loner, with low popularity. People would laugh at me more than anything.
I remember when it was time to shed the drama of school and move on to the outside world, and how excited I was to grab life by the balls and just roll with it. Life was there for the taking and I was going to take it ALL. So exciting.
And then I landed a place in college
It wasn't long before I was propelled back into high school all over again, but a smaller version. Our class was small, with barely 15 people in it, and we were taught in an annex far outside city grounds, so it was like high school but with a super small amount of people in it. I would have liked to say it was a good experience but our class was very young, and it was the thugs that ran away with the popularity, again.
Then there was my first job. Bah, you know, I hate to say it. School again! Everyone wrestling to be the dominant worker, who said what to whom, and the peer pressure! Not being able to speak up for what you believe in because some bigger alpha-male-dude wouldn't like that, and that would make work, and possibly life difficult.
My friend circles, you guessed it, school again. Always some bloody drama with them. Perhaps it's why I've opted for a much smaller circle of friends. Back in my younger years there was always some sort of power grab to be the dominant male, the one with the most notches on his bedpost, or having the most beautiful female tied to his arm. Not to forget career, if you didn't have good career prospects in my circle you were way down the chain.
And now that I'm a parent I stand on the playground, watching, as I wait for my son to come out of his class, watching, all of the other moms and dads, joining up, breaking apart, determining their social worth with the circles they hang in. There's a HUGE click in our class, and I chuckle to myself as I watch the moms that are 'the in crowd' sitting there like they are sears of the world, and the onlooker moms, those that wish they were in the click but aren't quite cool enough to get in.
Perhaps I'm just too old for that bullshit now. I introspect FAR too much to involve myself with clicks and isolate others, or believe that I have a 'social worth' to slip back into the mindset of school. If I make new friends I try and embrace them to my group, and if anyone wants in they can. My group is for anyone and everyone. Fuck social stance, peer pressure and all the other insecure bullshit that motivates us to let school dynamics dictate our lives.
And it's the same here, on the Internet, not limited to Steemit, but in every social application that allows us to communicate and connect. High School dynamics, clicks and whatever else you want to throw in there for the hell of it. I watch as people in my feed, any feed rise to the top of their social group, and fall down again, it's a crazy battle of wills and ego.
Yet I will say one thing, and it's something that I've really grown to respect is that I really can get with the idea of evolution theories, where it is not the strong that will survive, but those that are most adept to change that will last for the duration. And when you think of it, there's such a truth to that.
If you look at the typical run of the mill high school popular thug, that gains his ground by frightening peers into submission and is projected into a tremendous amount of popularity and reverity, and that thug has remained unchallenged for most of his adolescence. Then after school he is propelled into a playground that is SO big he's just a little amoeba floating around, unseen to the naked eye. Better adapt quick! But, as the thug was growing up he never learned to adapt, he was at the top of his peerage constantly, the wind changed with his way, not the other way around. And by his failure to adapt he remains a constant amoeba, no growth, no betterment, always angry at the world.
So let's learn to adapt. Let's move with the wind rather than try to summon godly forces to move the wind ourselves, or worse, be blown over by the wind. Let's make wings so that we can soar with the wind, and take on those life challenges.
And it is on that note, friends that I bid thee,
Be well,
