More Housekeeping.

"So, FUCK school, right?"

I lol'd long and hard. Silly...that certainly is some epiphany though...

Ah well, it's her name. She had to have had at least one.

Pippi's so cute when she's not in a bitching frenzy.

Although that doesn't seem like it's going to last long.

Hee hee. I've known far too many people who are totally into taoism/buddhism/whateverism, who recognize the basically bankrupt state of things, and yet at some point this scene ALWAYS happens to them - and all of a sudden their commitment to the oblivion of desire / the true balance of things / pure inner truth / etc. stops just short of a radical condemnation of the values they rat-race for, like everyone else.

They'll follow you as far as not dressing up like the kool kids. But suggest that a career represents the same thing and you've pissed on their third rail. Sad, really; it's not like the same people who pretended they were worth no more than their clothes aren't the ones doling out their promotions now.

School's not about making money, it's about learning intensely cool shit that changes the way you think about everything. Over and over again.

If it's not doing that for you, you're not doing it right.

@Jerry: That was NOT my experience with school AT ALL. My experience with school was having the SAME useless information rammed down my throat again and again just because some kids in the class still didn't get it. After about 3rd grade, school was useless to me because I had already learned the most important thing: HOW to learn.

Once you know how to learn, you can teach yourself anything you need/want to know when you need/want to know it.

I think the true purpose of school is to teach kids how to exist in the system. And by system I mean the all-encompassing System that every deluded paranoiac anarchist knows exists.

I'm taoist myself, and I've got a job that I genuinely enjoy. I work in a call centre for a phone survey company. The reason I like it so much is that it's not me - most people, when asked what they are, reply with their job title, right? My job means nothing to me, it just provides me with the money required for survival so that I can pursue the things that I do care about.

Uh, didn't mean to wax grandiloquent. But, y'know, my job description *is* warrior poet...

The purpose of school depends on whether you're talking about mandatory education or higher education. Mandatory primary and secondary education is largely about learning to exist in the system, as Sushi Jones says, but higher education is about learning intensely cool shit and changing the way you think, as Jerry says.

Good secondary schools, and even some primary schools, can recognize people who are talented enough at learning to exist in the system and should have their efforts redirected at higher learning goals. But even if you have bad schools, college opens an enormous range of opportunities. It is the opportunity you get to open your world.

Once you're out of secondary school, your life is your responsibility and nobody else's. You can make college and career become meaningless trash, but if you let it be that, you can only blame yourself for your cynicism and inability to control your life. Your education and your career should work together with your life goals like clockwork, and it's your responsibility to make that happen.

I've never heard anyone who has truly grown from school write it off as a cultural myth or some kind of tool of the social machine. Instead, they tend to be the kinds of people who will say that no education is ever wasted. It's not about money, or the degree, or the career prospects, it's about the transformation you experience as you grow as a person.

If you stop learning before you have a chance to control your own education, you've missed the best part. I can understand the frustration with mandatory education -- personally, I walked out of high school and got a GED, and took years to study for myself outside the system. But I went back for college.

Yeah, sorry, my first bit was just about the mandatory stuff. As I got into college I was shocked by how awesome it was to control my own education. I'm not going to say mandatory education is a total waste, either - all education improves your understanding of the world.

It is weird to be in a debate that doesn't erupt into fisticuffs, by the way.

I agree with you more or less completely on school. I think I should have clarified that 'fuck school, right?' is kind of the juvenile version of what gets expressed in Office Space. I don't agree with it, but it's basically a product of the right kind of sentiment: irritation at being forced to live and behave as someone else dictates. Never worked out for me, but then again college is NOTHING like that, so hey.

Hmm, I'll just mention again -

The shirts look dandy! Hmm, though, have you considered using a T-Shirt supplier that avoids sweatshop labor? Fruit of the Loom is pretty well documented as being ex-ploit-a-tive-issimo.

No Sweat, for instance, or American Apparel (great fitting shirts but iffy if you want union-made)?

Thanks.