never let me give a eulogy

it's officially the death of individual style, and this tragedy was one that caught me off guard. it's a shame, because i finally thought i was about to experience some sort of deeper, more powerful sense. the issue is that classic schooling teaches us to stand a safe distance away from the edge. never toe the line, because one fault can turn a masterpiece into a disaster. but because of this, the majority of people never have, or never will, come close to making something incredible. I discovered this sudden death in the following presumptuous obituary, written in today's issue of the mind of, well, myself.

Creative expression, child of two loving parents (father, time and mother, nature) has tragically passed away, early this tuesday afternoon at around 12:38 pm. Her effect will long be remembered, for she shared a presence that was ubiquitous and ancient. Though the general population is grieving through the classic form of denial, those who have recognized her absence are still only partially in the know. The bitter truth is that this famous individual was murdered. (queue dimming lights and jaws theme song). Yes my friends. This was no "accidental" loss, but the result of a cold-blooded killer. Now, before we point fingers towards the big G.W. bush, Russia, osama, the fundamentalist christians, or the ever-so-popular gays, tranny's, and vegitarians, let's take a step back and examine all the evidence. It seems that the individuality in writing was being suffocated long before the classic people to place the blame on were even around (however i tend to blame russia for the majority of my issues). If we take a look back on how we have been taught to write and express ourselves over the past 100 years, one can observe the steady decline of distinctiveness in how the majority of the population (and by majority of the population i mean kids in the public school system) convey their thoughts and beliefs academically. In noticing this, we cannot blame one person, but our own desire to fall inside of the rigid guidelines set fourth for us learned students by our educators. Creative Expression will forever be in the hearts of those who truly appreciated her beauty, and her assassination will be remembered as a date which will live in infamy... wait, has that been said already?

As i sat in my social criticism class mentally sketching out the perfectly objective piece shown above, i was shocked by how apathetic my professor was to the points we were making. Over and over again, my classmates maintained that they have no idea what their style of writing would be, because the majority of what they write is directed towards a teacher of some kind or another. Instead of trying to arrange an argument in a new and innovative way, we have all been trained to write only to display our knowledge. It caters strictly to whoever is assessing the piece, so trying to spend the extra time imputing your own identity and voice is completely forgone. I find this disgusting, and worst of all, extremely hypocritical. I am this student, just another statistic like those TRUTH commercials beg me not to be. No, i don't actually think that individuality is lost, but the drive to discover it seemed so deeply buried that very few are willing to delve into themselves to find their own expressive tone. even when people begin to hone their own words into a penetrating voice, they easily get sucked back into the classic 3 part essay mentality and continue to color inside of the lines. I'm not satisfied. I want a challenge in writing. something that will sharpen my writing in my own respect (because g-d knows it needs sharpening), and inspire me, most likely through a series of horribly frustrating and disheartening attempts at perfection. until then, RIP identity