Friday, January 9, 2009

PSA PSA

All my life people have been telling me to be myself. Teachers, camp councilors, Mr. T, Audioslave, Latawnya*, the list goes on and on.

The logic behind this message is that, by asserting myself as an individual, I won't be tempted into "drinking and smoking drugs" and other such dangers. I guess that's all well and good, but now that I'm well past the age when those things were a concern, I find myself with some serious issues toward the whole "be yourself" philosophy.

Namely, what if "who you really are" is a super-crappy person?

The underlying thesis of those PSA's seems to be that everyone is good on the inside, and they only do bad things because of outside influences. 

So how does that figure in with all the terrible things that people have done? Were all those invasionary wars started because it's what all the cool kids were doing? Were history's ruthless dictators commiting atrocities because they were tricked by some older kids?

No . . . here I think GI Joe would have to concede the point.

"Kids, if being who you are is hurting other people, yourself, or generally bringing negative things into the world, how about you just go be someone else instead? Eh?Sometimes it's ok to care what other people think, if they're good, moral people."

The More You Know

*Cue Star Logo*

*Can I tell you how tempted I am to click the "I'd like to read this book on Kindle" link? 

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