Leaving Home...and History

         When extravagance and enjoyment prevails, many people sense an impending doom—well at least I do. The Romans, the Greeks, the Shang dynasty of ancient China—each of them relished in its own share of lavishness before being corroded by excess. The Romans ate, threw up, and ate more. The Greeks constructed artificial streams of wine. All of them spent days bathing, lying about, and entertaining themselves. It is said that history repeats itself. Today’s children immerse themselves in television and computer games, teenagers are obsessed with superficial beauty, and adults flock to pornographic websites—I see a connection between our world and those of the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Chinese. Indeed the end is near; my generation lives in the brink of collapse. I feel nostalgic for the days I have not even seen. I should have been born when education was an attractive desire, not a straining requirement; when families gathered to share their lives, not to sit and watch American Idol and other fatuous programming; when life was trying but ever so beautiful.
         During an interview, Frank McCourt admitted that he was surprised that his past, of which he was ashamed, has brought him late success. Outside on a rainy day, he had to lick the grease of a newspaper that had wrapped fish and chips. Each day, he had to empty excrement buckets of his cousin, who allowed his family to stay in his house and eventually began taking advantage of McCourt’s mother. McCourt and his little brother had to look for his father who had spent all of their money on alcohol and fled to Dublin never to return. Young Frank was old enough to understand his parents’ sufferings from the deaths of his three siblings, but too young to drink like his father or hide away like his mother. Nevertheless, the seven-year-old had to feed and take care of his brothers.
         I would trade my childhood with his. Frank is sad when sad things happen, and happy because happy things happens. At age seven, he gets his first job helping his uncle and feels like owning the universe because he feels as if he is all grown up. He cries and runs to the Church, the only place of protection and blessing, when he found out that his first love Theresa dies of consumption. Only fifteen, young Frank’s world falls apart because he thinks she died because he had made her sin by making love with her. Though some, including McCourt, may think that sad times exceed happiness, I still cannot help envying the real emotions and real experiences that induce the vicissitudes of life. In my generation, the little things that induce interest or worry are fleeting by. I was bothered about the noise my parents made when they fought, and I grinned of amusement when I had to pick one flavor from numerous ice-creams; I was anxious about the quizzes and exams I was yet to take, and I smiled when I found out that I was accepted to my early decision school—things are nothing more than a smirk of pleasantry and uneasiness. At eighteen, I have wasted my life on corrosive mediocrity and boring contentment rather than adventures, excitement, and the ups-and-downs of a tumultuous but fascinating existence. The next three quarters of my life bode no more excitement. For this tragedy, I blame the time and the place in which I was born.
         As McCourt did when he was my age, I am returning to my birthplace in America alone, with no goals in particular but a vague hope for the better and the exciting. Both of us are simply running away from our embarrassing childhoods, and towards hope and change. But what change am I searching for? Is it the poverty and the sorrow that I covet from McCourt’s childhood, or is it the innocence? Even more tragic, have I been seduced by the romantic language of his prose? I know I am fed up with the superficiality. Given the generational burden, how can I live my life to the fullest and one day have enough fodder to fill my own autobiography?
                History tends to repeat itself, but it never ends. With the end of one era, another begins. My new era begins next fall.