OLDPEOPLELAND

When me and my cousins were kids there was always those moments where we were hit with the reality that we’re kids and we didn’t have a say on anything. The adults said we had to do something and there wasn’t a debate. At that point we just huddle up and complain and wish for the day we’d become adults and make our own decisions. We’d wish for the admission ticket to OLDPEOPLELAND. I always thought the generation before mine lived in some alternate universe. Still do today and that’s what I call it. OLDPEOPLELAND.  

I never thought about adulthood much as a child. I just envied that I didn’t have money to buy books and snacks and I couldn’t drive to Northwest Plaza. As a kid Twenty dollars was rich to me. Having a car was everything. I just wanted to be an adult so I can spend money and drive where I want which is why I’m terrible with money as an adult today. That’s the only reason I wanted a ticket to OLDPEOPLELAND. 

I always saw being adult as how V.I.P is viewed today in nightclubs. Kids are on the dance floor and the adults and plush couches were behind velvet ropes or secret rooms. It looks special. Remember when you was little and your people would have house parties and make you stay in the bedroom with your siblings and cousins and you couldn’t come out? You’d sneak out just to peek and see what the adults were doing. You’d just see them dancing, loud, playing spades, dominoes, drinking, smoking, and you wanted to be apart of it so bad. You had no idea what they were doing and no clue why you couldn’t be apart of what they were doing because it looks harmless like any normal bbq day at the park except it’s at midnight in a house. I was so curious that I tasted beer for the first time when I was 5 years old. I drank one of my Uncle’s beer while they weren’t looking and it tasted awful and I couldn’t understand why they drank it. I just thought it would taste better one day, once I get into OLDPEOPLELAND. 

I barely graduated high school. I never had higher than a 2.0 GPA when I was in high school. My last report card in high school was basically all D’s. I didn’t want to go to my graduation. I didn’t like my school. I didn’t like the people I had to interact with by force everyday. I grew up differently than the environment I was thrown in. I didn’t feel I accomplished anything by completing high school. Something in me just knew that it was all bullshit. 

I started actually paying attention to the country. I realized that everything I was told as a kid was either a lie or it was told to me out of fear. I saw the economy go to shit when I was 17. I saw people lose jobs. People I knew who had money were now broke. The whole time I was like … 

“Don’t y’all have college degrees? Why aren’t y’all taken care of? Why are you struggling? Why is everything you promised not happening? Will this be me?” 

This was the moment that I realized that OLDPEOPLELAND is nothing special. 

OLDPEOPLELAND is a place old people can’t let go of. It’s a place where the American dream is still held onto. Everyone walks the same path in this place. It’s a place of conformity. Toxic behavior. You must fit in. Anything that isn’t conventional or doesn’t abide by the old rules of society is incorrect. It’s a paradise for people who thrive on following instructions. You’re not allowed to challenge authority. You’re unable to adapt. It’s a place where you just shut up, live a life that’s not for you and exist. 

The older I got, the more layers I peeled away from OLDPEOPLELAND and realized I was lied to. I was tricked and my exact feelings about college after I graduated high school were correct. I was made to feel like I was a loser and unreasonable. We’ll get to that later. 

It has nothing to do with age. There’s 60 and 70 year olds that are against what OLDPEOPLELAND stands for. There’s young people who love OLDPEOPLELAND. 

Remember that episode of The Jamie Foxx show that featured Ron Isley and Mary J. Blige? Ron was a famous preacher and Mary was his daughter who sang gospel but Mary wanted to sing R&B and he shamed her, belittled her, threatened her, said she would go to hell for pursuing her interests and living her own life. That’s exactly what people in OLDPEOPLELAND do. 

I’m here to write about the myths of OLDPEOPLELAND and how flawed their beliefs can be. 

RESPECT 

I don’t care how old you are or what role you’ve played in my life in the past, present, and future. Watch how you speak to me. Especially if I’m not out of line. Now if I destroy things or physically harm people then I’d understand that but if it’s because I disagree with you then you better watch how you speak to me. Disagreeing with someone isn’t disrespecting someone. You just have a difference of opinion. As long as no one is mentally or physically harmed people need to know their role and fallback. You can’t roll the dice for people. Even if you could why would you want to? Parents have this shit bad. Your kids aren’t you. They just look like you. Your kids will have different interests. Different views on life. Different tastes. As a father I may love to play sports but my future kids may not be into that. I’m not about to force them to play sports if they don’t want to. Remember when parents used to say “I’m not your friend. I’m your parent.” That’s the fucking issue right there because it’s disrespect out the gate. You can’t drill that into your kids minds then try to be their friend when they’re adults and expect it to be smooth. You can be both. I would want my child to know that they could come to me for anything because not only am I their parent but I’m their friend. I know you’re my child and I’m your protector but I’m going to respect you first. 

SPIRITUALITY 

You see the lack of respect for younger people spirituality. There’s no respect for younger people’s beliefs. It’s only respected if they practice their elders beliefs. If I respect your beliefs and don’t criticize them then I want the same in return. For example I’m not into church. Never have been. It wasn’t presented to me in a realm of curiosity or in a way for me to find something I like about it. It was presented in a way that this is what I have to believe in and I have no choice. I was forced to be in choir. Hated it. I hated performing when I was actively doing music so imagine how I felt being put in front of people to sing. So when I became an adult and met so many people in so many places of different backgrounds I came to the conclusion of 

“Why would you box yourself in like that?” 

I started to question religion. I’m not against it. Believe whatever your heart desires. Just be a good person. I just made a decision in my 20’s to not have a religion anymore. I believe in the most high, I just don’t have a category or study old texts from centuries ago or go to a building every Sunday. I remember the last time I went to church I was met with so much judgement and passive aggressive remarks that I said to myself “I’m done.” Saying “Long time no see” to me isn’t funny. I’d cuss you out outside of these walls. It’s a cowardly way of trying to guilt me to coming to this building every week and imply that I’m not living right. Asking me why I don’t go to church is none of your business. I promise my soul is intact and flourishing without it. Don’t force shit on me.  

People relationship with the lord is their business. The path they walk with the most high is theirs and theirs only. The way they interpret religion is theirs. Imagine telling somebody what they should believe in. It’s weird. I pray, move with gratitude, and try to be the best human I can be. 

SCHOOL 

I grew up in a household where college was everything. If you didn’t go to college you’ve failed at life. The teachers I had said the same shit. Nobody was a boss. No one. Meaning no one had a company they could pass down to their children. Everyone was just a cog in a machine. Nobody was a free thinker and everyone operated on fear. I left my high school graduation party thinking “I don’t wanna go to college” not because I was afraid. School wasn’t for me. I don’t like taking notes. I have bad comprehension. I can’t pay attention for more than 3 minutes unless I’m interested in it and no class has interested me except art and creative writing classes. I was fully self aware that me and school just didn’t mix but people in OLDPEOPLELAND don’t care about self awareness they care about living their life through you and being able to brag about you to their peers. Once I saw that grades don’t amount to shit in the real world that’s when I had the biggest regret of my life which was college. I’m seeing people with GED’s get cool ass jobs just by just gaining the experience and just working their way up. I learned that it’s about who you know and if you’re willing to live in the dirt to get where you want. The GPA was a hoax. It was a scam. 

I was made to feel inferior if I didn’t get a 3.0. I felt stupid. School didn’t teach me how to be independent or how to connect with people. It taught me how to disconnect and just show up to follow instructions. You sit in classrooms and you have to retain information for tests and the only thing you gaining is how to get a better memory. Once you pass the test that information is quickly forgotten. You have no use for it and it doesn’t mean anything to you. School is the place where the death of creativity begins. The job you dislike is the end but school is where it started. School is a control system. It was a place where we were being groomed to be followers and dependent. Taking risks were frowned upon. None of my hobbies were embraced because they didn’t align with school. 

I’ll never forget in the 6th grade I got 4 F’s on a report card. Hid the shit. My mom had another copy re-sent and I got grounded and forced to do my work. My next report card before the summer I got all A’s and one B. I opened my report card excited cause I worked my ass off and showed my mom and all she said to me was “Why’d you open mail that didn’t belong to you?” No congrats. No praise. No smile. The shit I got in trouble for I got no love for when I turned it around. That was the exact moment I said “Fuck school.” I never had a report card with good grades ever again and I could fucking care less. 

College didn’t make sense for a person like me. Now if you want to be an engineer, teacher, lawyer, doctor, something really specific then college is for you. If you’re unsure about what do stay the fuck away from college and just live your life and see what’s for you. It makes no sense to rack up debt and sit through classes you don’t want to be in. Only thing college was for me is a place to learn how to binge drink, make more friends and eat poorly. That’s the only fun things from it. Everything else was a waste of time. It’s not for everybody but in OLDPEOPLELAND if you not in college you don’t matter. 

CREATIVITY 

Creativity is frowned upon in OLDPEOPLELAND mainly because it’s not a quick flip nor stable. It doesn’t make fast guaranteed money so therefore it’s pointless to them. I know this is cliche but never chase money. Every time I focused on just the money the shit I pursued never worked out. Once I started writing and didn’t care about money I actually gained support. I’m not saying don’t be about your business. I’m saying it’s more than just the money. The people who ask how do I make money from writing and act like money is everything are the people who reside in OLDPEOPLELAND. Those are the people who don’t really understand creativity. They either fear it or they didn’t know how to embrace their own creativity. 

True story. I had to go to a Parent Teacher Conference in elementary and my teacher snitched on me for drawing in class and coloring this animaniacs picture and showed it to my parents. I straight got in trouble for that shit. Not for bad grades. Not for fighting in class or talking back to my teacher. I got grounded for drawing. No one thought to think “Maybe we should make him take art classes or look at art programs in the summer and see how it goes.” No curiosity about my interests at all and it’s because Drawing was seen as poor man’s work. Now if I was coloring in the periodic table of elements it would’ve been a different story and I wouldn’t have been grounded. I’d be off at some science camp or advanced classes. Drawing is seen as starving artist shit. So of course it wasn’t embraced. When I wanted to play the Saxophone that was embraced because I can get a scholarship for being in band. I can’t get a huge scholarship for drawing comics. 

Everything is about money and how things are perceived to people who look down on creative arts. 

Now the tide has changed. You’re seeing so many young people go towards their creative gifts instead of working jobs they hate. You’re seeing kids make money from playing video games. You’re seeing kids being photographers for high end fashion magazines and celebrities. All you need is a laptop or tablet and some equipment and you have a business. No middleman. You can share your art with millions of people directly with a click of button. No need for a resume, your past report card with F’s don’t matter. People want your creative work and are willing to support. 

You’re seeing the youth say “Fuck this. I just wanna be happy.” People in OLDPEOPLELAND don’t understand why a young person can be happy with 2 roommates sleeping on a futon, traveling broke, painting, smoking weed and not married. It’s because they’re chasing what energizes them. They don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks. If they’re not happy they’re not fucking with it. The days of keeping your head down, sticking it out for the sake of sticking it out, showing up just to get paid and be unfulfilled is over. They rather die or live poor. They realize there’s more to life than working for companies you dislike until you’re old and they push you out the door. The 24 year old that’s making 22,000 a year to play video games is happier than the 27 year old manager at Enterprise rental car making 60-70,000 a year but truly wants to start a youtube channel about baseball and talk baseball all day but can’t because of work and their mortgage payment. Happiness is what you should invest in. Not the money.  

HEALTH

When someone decides to eat clean they’re criticized for it. The older generation bombards the youth with questions that are counterproductive and toxic. No congrats or admiration. Just dumb fucking questions like “What will you do for protein?” Like damn I don’t wanna eat animals. Why are you so pressed? When young people are going through so much trauma and the older generation cure is “It’s because you don’t go to church” or “You need to get some money.” Real older human beings are saying dumb shit like this everyday. 

When you’re depressed and your mental health is poor just praying on it isn’t helping. No one prays their way through depression, bi-polar disorder or any other mental illness. People wonder why the suicide rates are so high and people are hurting others at alarming rates. People need actual medical help. Having a belief system helps but what if your belief is that you feel like you’re not worth shit regardless if you’re rich or poor? Everyday you’re alive but you’re dead inside? Everyday feels like hell trying to find peace? When you have so much support but you still feel alone? These things need to be treated. A seminar not fixing it. A concert not fixing it. Going out with friends isn’t fixing it. Church isn’t fixing it. You need medical attention. If you break an arm and never go to the hospital, praying on it is not going to make it heal. The same thing applies to mental health. I’ve seen good people, people who pray daily, exercise their faith proudly daily, do all the right things according to their elders succumb to mental illness. It’s not the devil. It’s life. Let go of your ego and your bullshit and actually help. 

MARRIAGE 

Stop forcing children on these children. Stop forcing marriage on these children. It’s so fucking tacky, disrespectful and corny. Seeing parents ask their kids when are they gonna give them grandchildren is the most cringing and selfish shit I’ve ever seen. Are yall going to help financially with these kids? I get it that some parents dream of being grandparents and they want their legacy to live on but for some people it’s just not in their plans nor do they have the desire for marriage or kids. These young people are treated as outcast and as if something is wrong with them for not starting a family by 25. 

It all goes back to the millennial talk and how they view the world. Marriage cost money. Kids cost money. They like fuck that I’m trying to be all about me. Just cause you’re 36 doesn’t mean you should get married and have a kid just cause of your age. You’re doing so many people a disservice because that’s not what you really want and you won’t be the only one affected by that decision. If you don’t want marriage or kids I promise you that you’re not weird. You’re normal as fuck. If you want marriage and kids you’re normal as fuck too. Just live your life. 

Our whole life we wished to be adults just to see that the adults before us were just as messy, immature, reckless, and they didn’t know what the fuck they were doing either. Yet we shoulder all this blame for how the world is today. We all wanted that ticket to OLDPEOPLELAND, got it and realized we weren’t missing out on shit. We were at our best creatively when we were kids. Our intuition was on point. We were actually free. We just didn’t realize it because we were kids impatiently waiting on the rides in OLDPEOPLELAND. We thought OLDPEOPLELAND meant something. We thought the views of the people in that theme park mattered. We thought we had to walk their path. We’re all just trying to figure it out and the punchline of the joke is that it takes a lifetime to figure it out. The game has always been long term and always will be. The people in OLDPEOPLELAND think you can shorten it. 

There’s only 2 emotions in life and that’s fear and love and everything else is just a by product of those 2 emotions. Fear turns people into road blocks. Love sees everyone as one, despite different perspectives. 

Fear is judgment. Love is understanding. 

The OLDPEOPLELAND theme park is open and ran on fear disguised as love but the park never expands. No more adventures are added. No more room for growth. Just more people willing to conform. But what if love was added to the theme park? The park would grow and no one would wanna leave. Why? Because people understand each other and nobody dreams would need a bulletproof vest from strangers and people they’ve known their whole lives. 

Peace 

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