The World Owns You

Part 1

I was thinking this morning about my life. I’ve never been happy about not having control of myself, my life, my immediate circumstances and the multitude of consequences resulting thereof. To put it another way, I have a problem with authority. I can’t remember a time when this wasn’t the case. I was thinking that no matter how hard I tried to free myself from the constraints of my reality the gravity of reality always pulled me back into universal compliance. Frequently to my detriment. So it seem’s/seem’d to me that no matter how much I tried to do what I want, the world/universe always got what it wanted one way or another.

I hated school and being told to do homework as a child. The lectures were okay. The homework and forced compliance always rubbed me the wrong way. I felt like I was in prison. And I’ve since learned that isn’t entirely far from the truth of the public school institutional system. As an adult that now works in that system, I understand the need for such regimented systems and behavior control. I still don’t like authority, but I understand it better.

There are children who, like me, have a dislike of authority and conformity. There are varying degrees based on my observations as a school bus driver and basic observer of life. Some individual children would balk at a command while other would flat ignore it. I know this seems pretty obvious, and it is, but there has to be some system in place to maintain some semblance of peace and order. Children need to learn that “the world owns them” in the sense that there are consequences for the decisions and actions we make. They are at least subject to school discipline if there is no effective home discipline, which is not uncommon.

School discipline, at least the public schools I’m familiar with, needs to be rigid. It chafes people with authority issues like me, some more than others. I received some disciplinary actions as a school boy, but I wasn’t too “bad” a kid. My institutional discipline was minimal compared to most but still a cause of personal distress.