Riding Up The Education Shaft

[becky_da_wolf]

I'm not very keen on this poem and I'm not entirely sure why I wrote it but I feel I should post it, just so that it's out in the ether. Oh, I remember now; I'd just handed in my last piece of coursework

Comments

[ahlai]

Well I like it! Some lovely imagery and it rings very true *contemplates* I really, really like it :)

[becky_da_wolf]

It's not best I've written technically but you're right, the imagery's quite good.

[bronchitikat]

Y'konw, I've been thinking along these lines on & off.

You go to school, you move up through the system, tested all the while - testing what?

Then you emerge at the top, Qualified. What Opportunities! What Potential!

& a few years along in a Proper Job, around aged 30 something, you look around & wonder what's happened to all the Opportunities & Potentials.

Or maybe that's just the maunderings of someone in their fifties!

[becky_da_wolf]

No. We're encouraged to grow up far too quickly, to be sensible, to be mature. But you can't recover that lost innocence and immaturity.

[bronchitikat]

Oh I agree there. About the 'growing up' bit.

Dunno so much about being encouraged to be sensible & mature though.

I mean, it's possible to be sensible, 'mature' etc & still be 'innocent'.

Think much of the problem these days is that the 'grown up' examples people are encouraged to emulate are consumerist, rich, shallow as rain puddle, & sexually active.

Cos there is far more to 'maturity' than being sexually mature - but I guess you know that.

Real 'maturity' means being prepared to accept the consequences of your choices & actions, preferably having thought things through before making said choices. & there are precious few examples of that kind of maturity 'out there', or celebrated. More's the pity.

BTW - it's possible to be responsible & still retain one's innocence to a degree. Or I think so anyhow.

[becky_da_wolf]

Maybe innocence was the wrong word to use. I do, however, think that it's hard to be adult without some cynicism creeping in.