February 27

The quote “we imagined ourselves as being kept in some kind of holding pen, waiting to be released into our lives” (page 10) reminds me of the of the Kafka lecture. People are always waiting and preparing for whatever happens next , because we think that freedom is on the oner side of that fence. Our sense of freedom is completely distorted because we give up some of our rights in order to be apart of society as a whole. For example, most people will give up their right to kill others in order to be accepted by others. In the end the kids realize that the ‘release into their lives’  is really just a “larger holding pen”. Turning 18 doesn't really give you freedom, it gives you more responsibilities and a greater punishment. It’s all for the society to maintain control of the individual lives. 

Adults often say that “they too had once been young, so they could speak with authority” (page 11). This reminded me of The Stranger lecture because even though adults have been through more stages of life and have more experience than  adolescents, they have the most saturated filter. The filter distorts their sense of reality, and adults are the ones that are consumed with the importance of their kids college ranking, SAT scores, all because they want their kids to have an easier life when they reach that stage. We find that our society starts putting extreme importance on things that matter in that material society world, but don’t really matter in people’s enjoyment of life. Sometimes we should step back and think, because really we are doing things we don’t like, in order to do more “important” things we don’t like later on in life. For example, most kids don’t necessarily like waking up every day to go to school, but we do it so we can go to a good college, but we may not enjoy studying for another 4+ years, but we do it so we can get a job, then live our life in a  monotonous  routine. I’m not saying people don't have happiness or fun, but the things we consume ourselves with may not really be worth  it in the end once we reach that last stage of life.  

That idea kind of leaks into the group of friends looking for some sort of excitement or alteration in their regular daily life, and why the kids want their lives to be like a novel, when really its not.