Societal Machines

When I went on the college tour, there was a man at Berkeley trying to make a statement. And although I’m sure this occurs all the time at Cal, it was the first time I’ve seen someone do that. And it amazed me. He was in the middle of the student square area (I forgot what it was called), and from the first impression he seemed crazy. He stood there, and randomly screamed out, “fuck iPods, fuck cellphones!”..”FUCK your iPod”…”yeah, go FUCK your cellphone!”

Yeah, he caught my attention. So I listened to what he had to say. His point was the fact that we were all so wrapped up in our iPods and cellphones that we became unaware of what was going on. He tied that to the fact that this is why we’re still in Iraq. Because no one cares. He went off on how we are all a part of the machine; he started reading a section of a book (I do not know what it is), and he read out something like “a government only rules by force.” And that’s all I got to hear, because we had to leave.

But I found it so sad that as he was attempting to make a statement, all the students and people passed right by him, ON their cellphones, LISTENING to their iPods. I hate the fact that even everyone (most people) who were on the college tour, too, kept saying he was crazy. No one wanted to listen to him because his way of making a statement may have been a bit extreme. But that’s his point. That’s how you make a statement. But everyone decided to keep going off of their first impressions and ignore the points this guy was trying to make.

And what he said is 100% and completely valid. We ARE part of the machine. We DO get wrapped up in our own shit and forget that there are bigger things out their than our stupid, little petty situations. And when someone tries to make them aware of this, they continue to live in ignorance. They choose not to listen. They choose to decide he’s crazy when what he’s saying, they would never have realized otherwise. Maybe some do realize this, but there is nothing to be done about it. Because I know that’s what I do. I am guilty of talking on my phone, and I am guilty of listening to my iPod. I am guilty of being sucked into all of these machines that society makes us all victims of.

It’s amazing just how much we all end up conforming. As much as I’d want to call myself a nonconformist, I know that I am far from being one. I don’t even think nonconformists can really exist. Sure, maybe a couple out there, but very few. To isolate yourself from all the factors in society asking, or pulling you in, is like not to live among society. I am a slave to the education system we’ve got going. The way I may fit that typical Asian stereotype makes me a conformist. The fact that I play the piano and violin, that I get straight A’s in school, that I applied to ivy leagues and all those “top-notch” schools makes me a victim of everything I don’t want to be a part of. So then you ask: why are you a part of this? And to answer that, I give you no excuse. I do not know why I allow myself to be enslaved to this. I am part of the machine that tells us we have to get good jobs and earn lots of money or we’re not successful. The guy at Cal ripped on all those out there who suck up to their bosses. In his words, “go to your boss and suck up to him until his nose is up your ass.” Why are people like this? Why is there this need to fit the standard meaning of “successful?” Will it ever change?

As much as I do believe that success is not defined by how much money we make, and that what school you go to does not matter in the end, the way I live does not at all reflect what I believe. So then I ask myself: so why do I live the way I do? Sometimes I want to say it’s because I can find no other way. Or maybe it’s that I’m too damn afraid to deviate from what I’ve been brought up to believe, or I am too afraid to be a ‘nonconformist’ in that way. So I guess that makes me a coward. I am too afraid that I will end up on the streets. I don’t want to put myself in that situation. At the same time, it makes me extremely angry that I realize all of this and yet I do nothing about it. So what are we supposed to do?

You know, it’s interesting just how much we think we have control over our lives. Or, how much I want to believe I have control over my life. Yes, I live for myself and for no other higher power. Yes, I don’t believe that there’s some set fate for me or that I am destined to do something. I think life comes the way it just happens to happen, and that shit happens just because they do. But at the same time, as much as I want to believe that I have full control of my life, I guess I don’t. Society controls my life more than any other mechanism or “God” will ever do. The expectations, the machines, and all that comes with it makes me just as horrible as those who blindly believe that they are destined to do something certain in their lives or that they have to live for some god in order to be “saved.” And so my justification or brownie points, I guess you can say, for the fact that I am so anti-religious is that the one thing I have done is escaped from another machine that is so powerful and so capable of controlling us. That is the one thing I will give myself points for. The one thing I am not afraid to state.