I'm going to diverge a bit from the whole political theme we've had going...in fact...I'm not going to talk politics at all...or...maybe I will, a little...indirectly.
I will begin with a wee anecdote:
I have a friend (and I really do have a friend, and I'm not talking about me and pretending it's a friend), this friend is damn near brilliant...at least she seems that way to me...and I tend to have this habit of associating mostly with people of decent intelligence levels, so go figure. We've had many an admirable conversation on things other than boys (which seems to be the only thing most girls care about that I run across). But then...there is a dark shadow *scary music plays*...she's made some mistakes, she -tried- to drop out of highschool...for a boy...but she had already taken all of her required classes, so they wouldn't let her. She knows this was stupid, and she threw away many a friendship, as well as college, for this boy...who ended up cheating on her, and he's a complete ass (I've met him, and not just being weird and judgemental). She knows this was dumb, and she wants to go to college now, and fix everything...and major in political science (ah...politics). She's got these insane aspirations that I'd admire. More people need to have insane aspirations, I think.
That all sounds glorious for the most part, yeah?
Well, this friend of mine got arrested for public intoxication a week or so ago, and a few weeks before that, she got really drunk and did coke. Not to mention countless other things she's done that could also result in death.
Yes, glorious alright.
She started to go downhill after I left for summer to come back to this shithold of a place that I live. Her friends all suck. She hangs around with the worst possible people I have ever encountered. Not to sound incredibly arrogant, but I'm one of the only decent friends she has (I think there's one other aside from me), and a lot of the time recently, I feel like she's pushing me away. I have been known to get needlessly drunk and do stupid things, I won't lie, but seeing her become needlessly drunk (even when she says she doesn't want to, and one person tells her to) and do more stupid things has hit me like a large rock in the middle of my forehead.
And now to make some sort of semi-coherent point...
People these days...more specifically teenages and such...the people in my general age group...so many of them are so fucked up, and I just wonder what happened.
I'm a member of myspace in all of its glory, and I randomly look at my friends' friends, and see 13 year olds who claim to drink, and it's disgusting. Maybe they're lying in some attempt to be "cool", which is equally disgusting. I have this friend who might very well throw away everything she wants, and one of her friends that really cares about her for no real reason...for things, she had admitted countless times, don't make her happy. Then there's someone else who is so obsessed with dating and finding a guy that they managed to have a 0.3 GPA, and failed out of college. She did throw her life away for a boy, and she doesn't even know which one. I bet it won't be any of the ones she was hanging out with when she should have been in class.
WHY???
I know I drank for stupid reasons, but I NEVER did anything I would regret, and I NEVER stopped caring about my future or my friends. Yes, I'm senselessly dedicated to a straight girl, who will probably never return my affection, but it has failed to interfere with my life in any significant manner. I will never let it get that far. I don't understand what is going on in these peoples' heads, and I'm tired of just sitting and watching them make mistakes with NO ONE telling them that they're stupid. I'm afraid of coming across as a condescending ass.
I HATE wasted potential. I HATE to see people mess up.
There's always a chance if I say something that they'll listen. Maybe they just need a reason to stop what they're doing. I bet it's a hell of a lot easier to come up with a good reason to stop drinking, than it is to come up with a good reason to continue. If I don't say something, and then I'll wonder for the rest of the life if it would have made a difference if I did...
I think I somehow just compared boys to alcohol, but oh well. Hopefully you get the point. I'm not saying no boys and no alcohol...I'm just saying to stop being fucking stupid, please!
Ok. Politics. Yeah. Vote for Bush because of moral issues. Kill the fucking faggots, and don't try to develope cures for diseases with stem cells, but don't pay enough God damn attention to your own children so that they're alcoholics when they're 18, and think that finding a companion is the most important thing in their life.
That friend of mine, she wants to save the world. I think a lot of people would like to do that in some way, but it's too hard. If you want to change the world, the first thing you have to do is change yourself. Save your fucking self FIRST.