10/04/2006

10/04/2006

Midland train station is one hell of a place. Every day it is the same thing.

- Boys with ape-like posture and smug faces followed by skanky private school girls
(Note to self: Microsoft Word does not accept ‘skanky’ as apart of its dictionary)
- 30 something derelicts in flannelette bumming smokes off 14 year olds
- Trashy public school girls acting impertinent
- Young mothers wearing Dada and slapping their kids
- Oh and the two identical Mormons who walk past vigorously

I suppose I give off a pretentious attitude towards others (which I wont deny I possess at times) but people frustrate me so easily. Anyway, enough about Midland, it is a suburb I would rather forget the existence of. University was its usual calm and nonchalant. It is very multicultural; at times I feel like the minority, my lack of friends does not aid this. Friends are something I lack at the moment, and trust. Has anyone composed a thesis about teenage social order and hierarchy? I find it quite fascinating; after all, many of the simple principles programmed into teens attending high school apply to adulthood social situations. Power is the tool. As Foucault put it, we all have and use power. There are no powerless people. Consider the social hierarchy in many high schools, you have the popular and the unpopular, that is just fact. I hate to stereotype, but lets face it, we stereotype because often than not, our stereotyping is correct. The beautiful, the rich, the outgoing, many of the popular possess these aspects and more rolled into one artificial ball. (Please keep the stereotyping in mind; I am aware of exceptions to the rules). They can do what they want, and no one speaks out. I have often thought about why the popular acted the way they did, why they strove to gain attention. I found an answer within Foucault. We constantly think about what impression we are giving people, so much that we depend on others to instruct us on how we are to appear. These people know themselves by other people knowing them. This drives the need to be different, the need for attention. The more these people are seen the more they will exist. Oh the popular, how they drove me crazy in high school. Foucault really gives me something to chew on, most philosophers do. How can you not find it interesting? Three girls were talking in my tutorial today about how they find philosophy boring because they don’t think deep anyway.

This frustrates me.

At the Midland train station, I am the philosopher, the one thinking deeply. I am the one observing social patterns in people. While I complain about my ‘subjects’ without them, I am not much. Regarding this, I can appreciate the hierarchy I belong to (as we all belong to at least one) and value my somewhat, deeper thoughts.

-Hilde