Class In Session

    Today, we’re going to talk about the young, the old, and the in-between.

    We’re also going to talk about why all the years in all the world don’t really make a damn bit of difference.

    If you’re scoffing as your read that opening sentence, do me a favor, shut up, read, and judge my conclusions as you will AFTER you read my article.

    Now, then…
   
    I’m just about twenty-one years old. Societal standards pretty much dictate that no one older than myself will take me the least bit seriously until I hit twenty-five, at a minimum. State regs say I was an adult at eighteen, they say that I’ll be fully responsible for myself as of next month- (and that legally, I will now be empowered to drink myself into a coma, but that’s neither here nor there…) and yet most of the “adults” around me will still treat me as a “child” for awhile yet.

    You look at someone my age, and you might be inclined to consider us “innocent”. Probably not in a sexual sense… Really, cruise around on the internet, find me a thirteen or fourteen year old of either gender that isn’t at least *trying* to bang anything that moves, and I will personally recommend you for a Goddamn commendation.

    Nope… not in a sexual sense. But “innocent” within the context of the world, within the confines of “real life”, within the structures of society, the way things work, the realities of existence… we “young people” seem to often be treated as though we know nothing about these things, simply by virtue of the fact we’re a relative few years younger than the person passing judgment.

    And you know what…? I don’t really like being treated as a child; never have. Never could stand being dismissed out of hand simply by virtue of my years, and to this day, it still really bothers me.

    But, what the hell. I’ll allow the possibility that you’re right. Those of you who sit in judgment, hey, why not. Maybe you’re absolutely right, and you’ve come to some grand realization that the younger generation has not.

    But here’s the kicker, boys and girls…

    Everybody’s learning. We never stop. I don’t care how old you get, the honest truth is that only the world’s most idiotic being will ever believe that they know everything.
   
    Until the day we return to dust, the world will be in constant flux; and the rules of life will be changing and warping long AFTER you and I kick the bucket. Long after we fade from memory, long after our friends are gone, their friends and their friends… barring some cataclysmic fuckup that kills every sentient being on the planet…

    (As an aside, PLEASE don’t even SAY 2012, I will scream “Y2K?” and gut-punch you…)

    BARRING THAT…

    Until such time as everyone and everything dies out for good, man… everything’s changing.

    Most people treat innocence as a handicap.

    Me, I treat it as a luxury.

    See, that’s why I get along with kids, and that’s why I think they’re the luckiest little bastards on the planet; because they’re still fully clinging to hope, and dreams, and all the beautiful, grand, adventurous imaginings inside their heads.

    Innocence is a blessing. It’s a treasure, it’s not something deserving a derisive smirk or a raucous round of pointing and laughing! Innocence is the act of holding onto those wildest, crazy, colorful concepts, and believing in your heart of hearts that somehow, someday, someway, they just might become reality.
   
    You explain to me then, what the hell is so bad about that.

    There really isn’t such a thing as knowing more about “life” than the other guy, young, old, or otherwise. I offer to you that there’s only PEOPLE, each of us surviving in the best way that we know how. Perhaps some of us have seen more than others, perhaps some of us know more about a given subject than him, her, them or whatever…

    But the world’s always changing, and Goddamnit, at the end of the day, I don’t care who you are, nor do I care how OLD you are or what you DO… all that matters is that you hold on.

    You live your life, you make it WORTH living.
   
    If on your final day, as you cast your eyes up, and you wonder what you’ll see when you go to meet your maker… if on that day, you can say there was at least one single thing you did, or saw, or heard, that was worth experiencing…

    Then in my book, you did all right.
   
    You held on for as long as you were going to. Life wasn’t a total bust, and there was at least one ace amongst the hand you were dealt… that, to me, is a good life.

    When that day comes, whatever WAS will BE, and nothing else is going to matter.

    This life is a test of survival. There’s no good way to play it, nor is there a bad way; everybody knows their joy and their pain. All we have is a moment, another, another, and maybe one moment more… then it’s back where we came from.

    So, in conclusion… here’s my thing about the concept of innocence.

    If life is just about getting what you can from it; finding as much enjoyment as you can… about laughing and learning as much as you can…

    Every day that a person can cling to innocence is a beautiful thing. Every single day they can look towards the next like it’s a kind of adventure… good for them.

    Don’t laugh at the people who can still trust, and laugh, and get giddy or excited. Don’t smirk at them and think, “Oh, you’ve got a lot to learn…”

    Truth is, chuckles, class hasn’t let out for you yet, either. The older you get, the harder it is to remember that. I know, because I do it myself more often than I should.

    You’ll never learn all the lessons, because nobody ever does… but between you and everybody else…

    I say the person who leaves this world the happiest, that’s your winner right there.

Responsibility... That Heavy, Heavy Word...

    My name is Joseph Bozlinski… “Joe” or “Jake” to my friends… and you know what?

   

    I care.

   

    I care a lot.

   

    Even though I spend much of my life trying to pretend I don’t, everyone knows better. Including me.

   

    Why do I do this?

   

    Why, because caring hurts. Hurts like hell… and in my world, I see all too much that’s worth caring about in the first place.

   

    With my own two eyes, this is the world I have seen:

   

    A world, in which I've seen a homeless man, curled up in the fetal position, trying to find some futile warmth in the uncaring brick of a gas station corner store, while a couple of drunken sods point, chuckle, and make it all-too *obvious* that they’re all too *happy* that *his* fate isn’t *their* fate.

   

    In which a working-class mother swings from honey-sweet, would-be mom of the friggin’ year, to getting plastered off her duff, and proclaiming to the whole of Myspace that her children are good-for-nothing, “stupid bitches”, laughable, ungrateful, wastes of human beings… when reading rants like that, I’ve wondered how often the woman’s taken a gander into the mirror.

   

    In which a pretty girl with a great mind is content to be used as a punching bag, an emotional scratching post, and a goddamn sperm receptacle on a day-to-day basis, because even though her life has become a special flavor of Hell, at least it’s a Hell in which she doesn’t have to be *alone*. (And I know more than one girl such as her…)

   

    In which the only way to solve a problem is to scream at it until the words are gone… fuck it until it doesn’t hurt anymore… or pummel it until it can’t get up anymore; and if none of those three options remain to you, then in this world, you'd best be ready to watch that problem take your life away.

   

    This is a world in which it takes some poor lady getting badly beaten and robbed to get a community off their lazy, collective asses for the first time in a *long* time.

   

    It’s a world in which the value of trust is measured in the amount of money and drugs on the table… in which kids know no greater aspiration than to be a bigger scumbag than the ones who pushed them, or their parents, around… where family values are overrated, and in which integrity and honor are two words that might as well move straight out of Webster’s and stay to languish in the history books.

   

    This is the world I’ve *seen*. We’ve *all* seen it, the only exceptions being those who’ve lived in lilly-white bubbles for the past long *ever* or so… and the lilly-white bubble is often called “denial”, more than any other name.

   

    There are, in this world, people appointed in their various fields, to help society out of its most destructive ruts; We’ve got therapists and counselors. We’ve got paramedics and doctors. There are police, there are soldiers, and there are other fields, with other folks, who each in their own way, try to dam the flow of hopelessness that batters at our way of life.

   

    Those people are people we desperately need... unfortunately, they make it all too easy for us humans to assume it's their job, to clean this world up; their job, not ours, *never* ours.

    The standpoint of John-Q and public...? It seems too often to be some variation of: “It’s not my business. It has nothing to do with me. I have no reason to get involved.”

   

    And that, dear readers, is the heart of this article.

   
    If you always wait for "somebody else" to take care of the problems you see in your world, well, then... you're letting evil grip us all just a little bit tighter. As it was once said... "All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."

   Story of my damn life, that one. Honestly.

   For a very long time now, I’ve been criticized for trying to help those in need, for trying to make change for the better in my surroundings, for “sticking my nose in” where it supposedly doesn’t belong. An ex girlfriend of mine accuses me of being, and I quote, “Captain Save-a-Hoe”… because I am, and always have been, a sucker for a damsel in distress. But really anytime an injustice catches my attention, of *any* sort, I really *have* to do something, *anything* to try and help.

   

    Why?

   

    Because, in this world, which I’ve just laid before you within the context of this article, I see one simple, inescapable truth. That being…

   

    It is *our* world.

   

    Good or ill, beautiful or atrocious, this world is *ours*. It’s not one that you can just shove the responsibility for over to the shmuck that’s standing next to you on the street. It doesn’t *work* that way. You’re *both* equally responsible… you’re both bearing the burden of this world, this existence, and the only difference is how much of that responsibility you’re willing to admit.

   

    You cannot just stand by and let something wicked or cruel go on, unimpeded. In doing so, you’re contributing to that very same cruelty.

   

    The guy getting the crap kicked out of him by some mugger? Nobody’s asking you to rush in to his defense, fists swinging. But a call to 911 would be great, y’know? ‘Cause GOD FORBID, the next time it might be you sucking on some pavement, tasting your own blood in your mouth, and cursing the passerby for not helping you, for no better reason than “It’s not their business”.

   

    The woman sitting on the park bench, crying her eyes out? “I’m not going to ask. I’ve got enough problems of my own”… great. Wonderful. Beautiful, really… but imagine if she takes a swan-dive from the top of her apartment building a few days later, because she can’t find anyone to hear her out? Far-fetched, you think? Not as far-fetched as you think… there are a countless number of terrible things out there, that could’ve been avoided if just one good person would take the time to sit down and listen to a stranger’s pain.

   

    Those are some extremes; a lighter, but still perfectly relevant example; I’d ask my younger readers to consider one of your classmates; in school; struggling with his assignments. A couple hours of your time, y’know? Maybe that’d be all it would take to swing the kid’s grade from a “D” to a “C”, or better. Why not? Why couldn’t that happen, why couldn’t *you* be the ones to step forward and lend a hand?

   

    All it can take is one brave moment, or one kind word, and you could change someone’s whole life around. At the very least, you might be able to turn a frown into a smile!

   

    That’s true power, right there… the ability to leave this world one day, a better place than it was when you were born into it. It’s a wondrous power, a momentous power… a terrible responsibility, but still a truly beautiful thing.

   

    Everyday, I see something that makes me hate this town, hate this state, hate this country, hate this *world*… I see the kind of thing which the human animal happens to be… a creature ruled by selfishness and plagued with apathy. I see it, I recognize it, and I know the truth… that being, as someone once said;

   

    “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

    I am who I am, I do what I do, I live life as I do, because I want there to be a little more light in the dark. I can’t stand idly by, turning away from ugly sights because, well, “they aren’t *my* problem”.

   

    They are my problem. Because they’re within my world, they affect my fellow human beings, and I have the power to change it, by the smallest of actions… that’s a power we all *share* each and every one of us!

   

    Nobody’s asking you to run out in tights and a damn cape, to go save the world as we know it.

   

    But I’d ask *you* to ask *yourselves*, if maybe, just maybe… a smile and a hug to those who need it is worth your time? A kind word, a friendly piece of advice, or just a hand to hold?

   

    The world’s always going to need saving.

   

    Whatever we *do*, the world’s always going to be *changing*!

   

    What kind of changes those will be, that’s *our* responsibility.

   

    Tomorrow’s a question that only we can answer. End of story, dear readers.

    Now go, and live your lives.