I had originally considered posting a small little “Yay, I’m finally graduating!” thread when I read this thread which got me thinking a lot. I have no desire to pit a person in particular, just a mindset. I wanted to post something in the Pit but them’s murky waters and my Pit-fu is pretty weak so I thought I’d try to roll my two posts into one. Here goes!
For those not wishing to click on the link, the original post is about a 16-year old male who decided to lay down in the road and get run over on purpose. It seems to be on purpose, as he angrily punched a car that actually refused to go over him. Many people are calling him idiotic for his actions, which I can understand. I will not say whether or not I agree with that. Either way, it just pisses me off when people devolve into the “Hurr hurr shallow end of the gene pool! Good riddance! That’s just mother nature’s way of weeding out the stupid. Oh no, they reproduced! Nature failed!!one!”, as if stupid is hereditary. It seems like those people who have that “shallow-gene pool” mindset have set up an artificial caste system; those at the shallow end and their offspring will always be at the shallow end and that’s that, good riddance to those that die and don’t reproduce, it must be chlorinated once in a while, etc. etc. whatever.
I was definitely born from the shallow end of the gene pool. Dad was a pothead car-lover whose main concerns were teenage hijinks and fast riding. He barely managed to scrape by high school and got in trouble with the law here and there. Mom was self-centered, extremely naïve, and a serial cheater (and she actually devolved over time). Both were chain smokers, alcoholics, and dabbled in cocaine. Neither had much direction in their future; they held down basic jobs and were just interested in partying with friends of similar behavior. I was definitely not a planned child. By many of those screaming “cleanse the gene pool!”, my parents would have been cleaned out. I would not be here. My friends- offspring of alcoholics, cheaters, abusers, you name it- would also not exist and, judging by the parent-related threads I’ve read here, many of the great people on this board wouldn’t be here, neither.
These pro-cleaning people can’t see what they would miss. They don’t see my father turning his life around and working his ass off to make sure his children got the best he could provide for them. They don’t see how a boy whose biggest concern was being prosecuted for hitting a guy with his car (the guy stole his pot!) into a man who is going through the most laborious time in his life yet also gives things to his less-fortunate employees. They don’t see the great, productive people that are birthed by the ones at the shallow end. One best friend who was given up to her aunt by her slacker father and nearly non-existent mother worked her ass off in all levels of school to get a full academic scholarship to Yale. My other best friend, the result of an affair between a 40-year old nothing and an extremely alcoholic 18-year old, blossomed into an all around great person not only academically (another full scholarship receiver) but also as a productive person to society, providing her family caring for family when her alcoholic mother got cancer and caring for her physically handicapped (as a result of the mother’s extreme alcoholism) brother when he too developed cancer. These two girls are doing more things in their lifetime now than some people from a normal family wouldn’t do in ten.
Again, the lot of us wouldn’t even be here if it was up to those with the stupid gene-pool mentality.
I’m the first to graduate in my family, but you’ve got to start somewhere. I’ve worked my ass off for four years here, even more in high school just to get here. I went lived on the other side of the earth for a year. I became the head student and advisor of underclassmen in my department. Like a lot of my friends, I took a crappy situation and made it better. We’re going to keep making it better. We could have stayed at the shallow end but believe it or not, people can rise above the situation. Although we were born from not-so-great people, we ourselves are not the scum of the earth (or in this case, pool). Like some of my family members and so many people on this board we became productive, contributing members to society.
Walking to the quad (or in case of the severe storms we’ve been having lately, the gym), I’ll be looking for my dad, sister, aunt and uncle- remnants of a dysfunctional family that I love so much. Sitting in my chair at the ceremony today, I’m going to remember that thread and struggle to keep from laughing aloud. Now, if you’ll excuse me, this droplet from the shallow end of the gene pool is going to go try on her cap and gown and get ready to graduate from college.
So I’m really looking forward to seeing all of the Michidopers before having to leave.