Gotcha to click, didn’t I?
I didn’t actually do drugs in high school, but now that you’re here, stick around. What I actually did was a health class report on illegal substances. The report listed in detail the many illegal drugs out there and their extreme dangers.
Then I wrote a summary. I wanted to share it with you, because I found that it captured my voice back then really well.
To set the context: I had been in a cult up until 8 months before I wrote this. My oldest brother did in fact die due to drugs. When I wrote this, I was in my only year of actual public high school. I was an atheist at the time.
I’d love to hear/read your thoughts on this:
***
Well, this is the end of the report. It’s been a long and tedious road, but here we are.
Through my experience and through my learning about them, I have found that drugs are the most evil substance in this world. They are used as a hiding place, to hide from the trials and problems of the real world, which is taking the easy way out. I consider it the wimp’s way out.
But this kind of opinion is very close-minded [sic], and it doesn’t leave any room for other cases. Cases that are those that show human suffering, and the suppression of some of the kids in this world. The ones that unfortunately don’t see anything wrong with hiding in drugs.
I heard from one girl about how her boyfriend tied her up so she couldn’t move. He then gagged her so she couldn’t breathe through her mouth, forcing her to breathe through her nose. Then he held a handful of cocaine under her nose, so that when she breathed, she would have to breathe it in. Now you know, people have to breathe some time, and she couldn’t hold her breath that long, she tried, but she couldn’t.
This was cocaine, so she pretty much got addicted to it right away, and she couldn’t help it.
You may say, “She should have picked a different boyfriend.” People aren’t always that smart, we would like them to be, but this isn’t paradise. And people change from drugs, her boyfriend could have started as a perfectly fine guy, then the drugs he was using could have caught up with him.
Besides, she had no idea there were people that weren’t like that; this kind of frightening life, and these kind of people were all that she knew. She didn’t know any better.
Well! you say. That’s where the problem is! Let’s try to get rid of this kind of community. Try is the operative word. We could no less do this than learn to grow wings and fly.
People are not perfect, heck, they’re not even close to perfect. You can’t expect unrealistic things out people who don’t see any reason to do anything a bout it. They don’t care about anyone but themselves. And they’ve been taught to be like this from day one, at school and most assuredly at home.
That’s where the problem is: at home. Parents may neglect the child or worse, beat it. They will learn that they are not good, and not worth the trouble, and so they will decided that the rest of the world is not worth the trouble. But no matter what we do, no matter what kind of concerted effort we put into changing this dying world, we won’t help or begin to help everybody. Which is less than perfect.
I think we should settle for less than perfect. Humans could never settle for anything, that’s the way we are, but I think we had better learn to settle for less than perfect. We should do all we can, for all those willing to have things done for them. We can’t change everybody. We have to settle for less than that.
We have to.
I heard a friend say he wanted to leave his home and run away. I said Why? He said because he wanted to. I asked him if he had thought about his parents and friends. He said, Does it matter? I mean, it doesn’t really matter in the big scene of things.
I wish he hadn’t said that.
***
Can you hear me in that little summary/essay? I can see the sprouts that would become who I am today.