Vanity and Vexation of Spirit

Vanity and Vexation of Spirit

Ecclesiastes (1.14)

I

I have seen the finest minds of my adolescence,
Destroyed by that madness that is the college admissions process,
Made hysterical by the unforgiving system.
What lies they spew, what lies!
“Apply, apply”, they shout as they wave their banners,
Send their propagandized fliers,
And convinces you that you are the right candidate for x institution.

At this point, I do not know who I am to trust.
I am like prey, trying to find a safe route.
I have been sucked into the trap of committing myself to
A particular place and I still have not quit that drug.
I am enslaved to that cruel master.
Having attempted rehabilitation a multitude of times,
I am no closer to sanity than I have been before.

Walking the halls to an abyss,
Where the elect are prenatally chosen to a life of
Prominence and we poor common souls are
Faced to dwell in the depths of the underworld
Conjuring up stories of the celebrated existence of the chosen.

And the electorate is not innocent in this matter’
Nay, they are the true culprits of this existence.
How we are not mortals to them,
We are merely a jumble of numbers,
Making it easier for them to make rash decisions,
And with a faulty criterion.

Such a wasteland my generation is becoming,
With the few blessed exempt from this existence.
From New York to Boston to Chicago to Pennsylvania,
We are all of the same mold! We all lead the same life,
And we all, more or less, in the same pickle.

BUT WE ARE NOT ALL THE SAME!!!
We share the same customs, same country, and are of similar ability,
But we are unique souls, a fact that these face-blind gods overlook.

This fact those cloud-dwellers don’t seem to understand,
And we, the youth, suffer.
So where do we turn?
Our fate is not in our hands anymore,
And the corrupted souls of my graduating class fall into the bottomless
Put that is hedonistic behavior.
How lamentable this is, and how devoid of sense these actions are!

What must we escape from?
How do these misguided individuals find solace in such disgraceful activities?
I do not understand it, nor do I condone it, yet I feel compelled to investigate the former.

These putrid souls, misguided by this Western culture are content to spend their weekend nights in a state of inebriation, sheltered from the unforgiving realities of life.
Sometime I wish that I too could succumb to this escapism,
But I have this gift/curse to be above that nonsense.


II

What has driven these beautiful minds of my adolescence to this madness?
Is it the universities?
Is it the parents?
Is it the teachers?
Is it the television?
Is it the musicians?
Is it the magazines?
Is it the newspapers?

It is them all, and ordered as such by influence!

What a waste of such talents;
That is the real crime!!!!

We are intoxicated with this anxiety, another drug I am enslaved to,
And we did not choose what society we are born into,
We only decide what society we die in,
And the lot of us is not at this latter stage.

Such talent, spent on mindless adventures,
And cast off by the wayside by those who look at these people as
Numbers, and care only about their own ranking?

Is life a competition for who is better?????????
Social Darwinism isn’t dead, it’s as alive at is has ever been!

And I spend my nights,
Howling at the moon and the sun and the planets and the stars,
In a state, intoxicated by my drugs of choice,
With the best minds of my adolescence,
With the acceptance rates of our futures staring down from
That celestial realm, judging us, watching our every action.

I’ll be with you in Princeton, where god hands out
Numbers and we see which line we will stand in, thus determining our eternal fate.

So this waste land of a generation,
Overtaken by madness derived from the societal structures
That determines our fate whence we reach the age of no return.