Void(null)
04-20-2010, 03:31 PM
My friend and I have started corresponding by good old fashioned letter writing. He sent me this rather wonderful drunken mess all the way from France, part poetry, part philosophy part drunken slurring.
For reasons discussed in my own letter, I am writing everything out into a notepad document first, and I pasted it into this forum to self spell check via the Preview feature, before writing it out by hand to mail it.
I figured while it was up here, why not share my rant with all of you good people?
These are the thoughts of an immigrant of 11 years who is soon to voluntarily leave America and return home. Take my words for what you will, but this is the impression I shall be taking home with me.
Letter writing holds for me a certain fear, one which I have never been able to overcome. I struggled with dyslexia all my childhood and adult life. It was only with the advent of the computer and the internet, when pen and paper became a thing of the past could I finally begin to put my thoughts clearly into written word.
For someone who read Nietzsche and Plato as a child... to be treated as an idiot by educators all because I could not place my thoughts into the pen, and pen cleanly onto paper was the tragedy of my youth. It bred frustration, a contempt for the education system and wasted most of my years of education to the point that I simply stopped going to school and my grades suffered none for it.
The digital age for me has been a freeing. Were I to go to school in this day and age I doubt any would know of my dyslexia. Children have laptops, every home has a computer and a printer and from middle school onwards no child is expected to place pen to paper.
While I have gained so much, even I am not such a selfish beast that I cannot see the harm that has been done to our collective species. So much has been lost in the past decade by the death of the written word.
The English language has been replaced with its fast food equivalent, Facebook and Twitter the McDonald's of communication, fast and cheap yet unsatisfying and ultimately harmful.
I am sad to say that unlike you, I can not freely place expression and prose onto paper. The sheet of parchment is my prison cell, the pen my jailer. My words would become the same emotionless, meaningless drivel that you seek to combat in yourself and others. So I shall instead meet you halfway and allow this box of light and precious metals to transcribe for you my words as I dictate to it my thoughts. Yet I shall write to you in human hand, with all my human failing.
The weekend has passed, spent in a delirium of medication and nose blowing. All of Vermont is currently sick. There has been an outbreak of this mutated Rhinovirus stampeding its way through the populace. This is the first day in almost a week that I have been able to jump out of bed, instead of spending my first two hours of the morning willing my limbs to move through the burning of every joint and muscle, a pain akin to those suffering from Lyme's disease. My Wife has been sick also, I being the lucky first, got to demo this lovely new illness for them, so now I am looking after my family as they are going through the worst of it.
They have released Emergency medication into the populace, Prescription strength, prescription recipe medication for this illness that you can buy at a drugstore, you have to give them your Drivers license and Social Security number but rather that than the expense of a Doctors visit.
Yes that's right, America releases Emergency medication in remote areas for you to buy over the counter instead of letting you see a Doctor, this country's health-care systems is fucked beyond words. They wouldn't even have released the medication were it not for the consideration that if it spreads then tens of millions would miss work and that would have a negative effect on the economy.
I can not wait to be back in a Country that has some form of social responsibility to its people. The UK is a miserable place at times, but we are so lucky in so many regards.
So many days have passed, a week even. The entire family including myself have been ill and that completely threw me out of the routine I was developing for writing a little a each day. It also totally messed me up for finishing Roadside Picnic, I am on the last 25 pages and while the story has been amazing I now can't seem to find the time to sit down and finish it. I do this to myself far too often and need to become better at putting myself back on track once I have been derailed.
Life right now is good, everything is going according to plan, yet every day that passes I find something else amazingly ugly about America that makes me happy I am soon to leave.
Going to School in both England and Scotland gave me an interesting perspective on how History is taught. While we are taught the same content from the curriculum, the spin and eyes that its told from conform to the nationality of your teacher and so their experience filters and colors what you learn.
My wife had a similar experience, but instead of the filter of an individual, it was the filter of the government.
She was 8 years old, in History class and they were being taught about the Native Americas and my Wife's Family have a great amount of Native American blood in them. While not full blooded they are only 3 generations removed, so oral tradition has passed down knowledge and story's about their History. One would think that this would provide an interesting insight for the class, but that is simply not how things work in America. The Entirety of the America Education system is based upon half truths and lies, especially where history is concerned.
They painted a portrait of the Native Americans as brutal savages who were lucky that the white man came along and tamed them all. A far cry from the beautiful and noble portrait that my wife had been told from her Grandmother, of the balance in living with nature, of the founding of the first Democracy in the form of the 6 Nations.
When she questioned the History they were being taught in School, the Teacher screamed at her... called her a dissident and dragged her into the Principals Office. Her mother was called in, and a little 8 year old girl was interrogated and bullied into giving only the answers that her teacher wanted to hear. Repeating back the propaganda.
This is an ordeal that any intelligent American who questions the system at an early age must endure in some form. They are taught from a very early age not to question, not to think, pledge your life and soul to your country each morning and believe everything that you are told by the governmental system. Because it is safer not to question the propaganda.
This is such a beautiful country, with amazingly bright and brilliant people... but the Government forms the most oppressive and evil regimes that I have ever known. I need to get out of here, back to my Motherland, back to blighty. Our Government may be as useless as a wet fart, but at least the people are allowed to question, to think for themselves. They are made numb and given the option not to, but you do not have to worry about the Police breaking down your door for having an enlightened conversation.
Even writing this I feel a sense of trepidation, that sense of tension welling in the center of my chest that screams "Will they think you a Terrorist for writing this? Am I one letter away from being held in an Internment camp for questioning the system?" It sounds crazy, but I think it is a little seed of fear that anyone who has bothered to read the Patriot act carry's with them.
We are wired, we are monitored, we can not speak, we can not question. I can not tell where Fear ends and Freedom begins.
War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength.
If any country embodies Orwell's totalitarian regime, it is today's America.
The American Constitution is one of the greatest documents of social importance to this date. If any Country could abide by the American Constitution it would be a truly beautiful place. Sadly America has lost its way and these wounds go deep, right to the very heart of the Country. They shall heal slowly over time, but they shall scar and leave this once beautiful nation hideously disfigured.
Home... will be home soon. Surrounded by friends and family. Where the Government is useless and the biggest threat to our Society is the Chav. I am looking forward to experiencing Freedom once more.
For reasons discussed in my own letter, I am writing everything out into a notepad document first, and I pasted it into this forum to self spell check via the Preview feature, before writing it out by hand to mail it.
I figured while it was up here, why not share my rant with all of you good people?
These are the thoughts of an immigrant of 11 years who is soon to voluntarily leave America and return home. Take my words for what you will, but this is the impression I shall be taking home with me.
Letter writing holds for me a certain fear, one which I have never been able to overcome. I struggled with dyslexia all my childhood and adult life. It was only with the advent of the computer and the internet, when pen and paper became a thing of the past could I finally begin to put my thoughts clearly into written word.
For someone who read Nietzsche and Plato as a child... to be treated as an idiot by educators all because I could not place my thoughts into the pen, and pen cleanly onto paper was the tragedy of my youth. It bred frustration, a contempt for the education system and wasted most of my years of education to the point that I simply stopped going to school and my grades suffered none for it.
The digital age for me has been a freeing. Were I to go to school in this day and age I doubt any would know of my dyslexia. Children have laptops, every home has a computer and a printer and from middle school onwards no child is expected to place pen to paper.
While I have gained so much, even I am not such a selfish beast that I cannot see the harm that has been done to our collective species. So much has been lost in the past decade by the death of the written word.
The English language has been replaced with its fast food equivalent, Facebook and Twitter the McDonald's of communication, fast and cheap yet unsatisfying and ultimately harmful.
I am sad to say that unlike you, I can not freely place expression and prose onto paper. The sheet of parchment is my prison cell, the pen my jailer. My words would become the same emotionless, meaningless drivel that you seek to combat in yourself and others. So I shall instead meet you halfway and allow this box of light and precious metals to transcribe for you my words as I dictate to it my thoughts. Yet I shall write to you in human hand, with all my human failing.
The weekend has passed, spent in a delirium of medication and nose blowing. All of Vermont is currently sick. There has been an outbreak of this mutated Rhinovirus stampeding its way through the populace. This is the first day in almost a week that I have been able to jump out of bed, instead of spending my first two hours of the morning willing my limbs to move through the burning of every joint and muscle, a pain akin to those suffering from Lyme's disease. My Wife has been sick also, I being the lucky first, got to demo this lovely new illness for them, so now I am looking after my family as they are going through the worst of it.
They have released Emergency medication into the populace, Prescription strength, prescription recipe medication for this illness that you can buy at a drugstore, you have to give them your Drivers license and Social Security number but rather that than the expense of a Doctors visit.
Yes that's right, America releases Emergency medication in remote areas for you to buy over the counter instead of letting you see a Doctor, this country's health-care systems is fucked beyond words. They wouldn't even have released the medication were it not for the consideration that if it spreads then tens of millions would miss work and that would have a negative effect on the economy.
I can not wait to be back in a Country that has some form of social responsibility to its people. The UK is a miserable place at times, but we are so lucky in so many regards.
So many days have passed, a week even. The entire family including myself have been ill and that completely threw me out of the routine I was developing for writing a little a each day. It also totally messed me up for finishing Roadside Picnic, I am on the last 25 pages and while the story has been amazing I now can't seem to find the time to sit down and finish it. I do this to myself far too often and need to become better at putting myself back on track once I have been derailed.
Life right now is good, everything is going according to plan, yet every day that passes I find something else amazingly ugly about America that makes me happy I am soon to leave.
Going to School in both England and Scotland gave me an interesting perspective on how History is taught. While we are taught the same content from the curriculum, the spin and eyes that its told from conform to the nationality of your teacher and so their experience filters and colors what you learn.
My wife had a similar experience, but instead of the filter of an individual, it was the filter of the government.
She was 8 years old, in History class and they were being taught about the Native Americas and my Wife's Family have a great amount of Native American blood in them. While not full blooded they are only 3 generations removed, so oral tradition has passed down knowledge and story's about their History. One would think that this would provide an interesting insight for the class, but that is simply not how things work in America. The Entirety of the America Education system is based upon half truths and lies, especially where history is concerned.
They painted a portrait of the Native Americans as brutal savages who were lucky that the white man came along and tamed them all. A far cry from the beautiful and noble portrait that my wife had been told from her Grandmother, of the balance in living with nature, of the founding of the first Democracy in the form of the 6 Nations.
When she questioned the History they were being taught in School, the Teacher screamed at her... called her a dissident and dragged her into the Principals Office. Her mother was called in, and a little 8 year old girl was interrogated and bullied into giving only the answers that her teacher wanted to hear. Repeating back the propaganda.
This is an ordeal that any intelligent American who questions the system at an early age must endure in some form. They are taught from a very early age not to question, not to think, pledge your life and soul to your country each morning and believe everything that you are told by the governmental system. Because it is safer not to question the propaganda.
This is such a beautiful country, with amazingly bright and brilliant people... but the Government forms the most oppressive and evil regimes that I have ever known. I need to get out of here, back to my Motherland, back to blighty. Our Government may be as useless as a wet fart, but at least the people are allowed to question, to think for themselves. They are made numb and given the option not to, but you do not have to worry about the Police breaking down your door for having an enlightened conversation.
Even writing this I feel a sense of trepidation, that sense of tension welling in the center of my chest that screams "Will they think you a Terrorist for writing this? Am I one letter away from being held in an Internment camp for questioning the system?" It sounds crazy, but I think it is a little seed of fear that anyone who has bothered to read the Patriot act carry's with them.
We are wired, we are monitored, we can not speak, we can not question. I can not tell where Fear ends and Freedom begins.
War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength.
If any country embodies Orwell's totalitarian regime, it is today's America.
The American Constitution is one of the greatest documents of social importance to this date. If any Country could abide by the American Constitution it would be a truly beautiful place. Sadly America has lost its way and these wounds go deep, right to the very heart of the Country. They shall heal slowly over time, but they shall scar and leave this once beautiful nation hideously disfigured.
Home... will be home soon. Surrounded by friends and family. Where the Government is useless and the biggest threat to our Society is the Chav. I am looking forward to experiencing Freedom once more.