April Awakening: Day Twenty-One ☁️☁️☁️
I wasn’t much of a student in high school. My public school education wasn’t necessarily lacking, I just had no drive to pay attention to things I had no interest in. I took all the AP classes to make my mom happy, but the truth is I pretty much sucked at all of them. I tried AP bio in freshman year, then AP chemistry in sophomore year. After that, I knew I couldn’t continue down this smart kid path, so I decided to take regular old environmental science in junior year. I was a fan of earth science in grade school, so this felt like it’d be a good match for me.
My teacher was a good ol’ fashioned stoner hippie. I was subjected to rants about how the government isn’t doing enough to help the environment, and how things may not be here in X amount of years. A lot of the stuff went over my head, and I spent the time doodling in class or reading something other than my schoolbook. The only significant assignment I could remember was an essay on whether or not we should drill for oil in the ANWR. The teacher actually made the case, before we did our assignments, that it’s a very oil-rich part of the country, and that there wouldn’t be any significant disturbance to the natural wildlife if officials chose to drill. So I wrote my paper about that, saying I think it’s a good idea to find homegrown oil deposits as long as we don’t disturb the natural resources and keep things regulated.
I was the only one in the class who had this mindset. Out of the twenty-five students, I stood alone in wanting to drill. Everyone else said no because how dare the government disrupt nature. I remember thinking how strange this was, and while the teacher didn’t necessarily shun me, I certainly felt like I was losing this tournament. Me and my big American nationalist mouth, I guess.
But that’s just it. Looking back, I didn’t mind being the outlier. I honestly thought I made a good case, and thought I was making the same one as the teacher, quite frankly. It’s cases like these where I wish more would stand with their instinctual beliefs instead of just going with what the popular team thinks.
In case you missed it, yesterday the House of Representatives approved $61B in Ukraine funding, and actually waved Ukrainian flags on the House floor. I don’t know why they thought this was a good idea, but it’s just making me hate the government all the more. Still, all the Democrats voted for it, and just over half of Republicans did. This is interesting to me to see how fractured the R’s are, while the D’s will stand steadfast through literally any piece of legislation. I suppose it’s good to approach things from a united front, but when the causes you’re behind are to the detriment of the rest of America, is it really worth it? Why not be the outlier ‘nudge’ who talks reals and says it’s time to form a less-fragmented strategy?
It’s wishful thinking on my part, but I think yesterday’s display might have cemented whose team everyone is really on. For those not fully awake to it, there’s certainly a divide between those who are for America, and those for something completely different. I don’t think it’s a radical position to want American tax dollars to work for Americans, yet people on Twitter will tell you that makes you pro-Putin. So there’s certainly stiff competition we’re up against in order to bridge the extremist gap.
I “stand” with no one but the American people and the innocents caught up in everyone else’s war. I don’t think this makes me a radical. I don’t know what people determine to be radical anymore. All I know is I refuse to get caught up in anyone else’s game and just continue to play my own. It’s much more fun to be on a homegrown team rather than a corrupted uniparty threatening to disrupt the entire championship. So choose wisely. There’s a lot riding on these stakes.
Happy birthday to me, by the way.