Atrocity of Youth
Written by: Millie Szeto
Edited by: Zelene Wong
Today in class, the teacher had us discuss the topic of ‘morality’. I found it funny how all my classmates came to the conclusion that it had to be some sort of life-or-death situation for morality to step out of the wings. They spoke about the trolley problem and pulling the trigger as if it was something so detached from our lives, as if we would never encounter such a problem. As if that’s the only time morality becomes relevant! Morality constricts me everywhere I go - the overwhelming need to do the ‘right thing’. I’m constantly staring down the other end of a gun’s barrel - who do I shoot? Who must I kill? What should I do to minimize the suffering of those around me? God, it’s exhausting!
It’s so hard! Walking around on eggshells constantly is so stupid! I hate the concept of morality and all the hard, stupid baggage that comes with it! I want to live! I want to be free! I don’t want to watch every word I say or the hand I bring down on other people. It seems like my very existence hurts people, and I have to constantly make up for it by being good.
So this got me thinking: what must I do to distance myself from morality? In the end, I’m just a kid. I shouldn’t have to think all day about if what I’m doing is right or wrong. I should be ruthlessly hedonistic, pleasure-seeking and consequenceless. At this age, people expect me to know the rules of virtue that define our society, the moral guidelines that man constructs on. I don’t! I don’t know anything! My heart and my head are both hollow - I am utterly mindless! I’m practically a fetus, curled up and deformed in the womb. I’m not a creature of repercussions. And yet I can’t stop thinking about it every second of the day, the thoughts that plague my head day in and day out - whose graves do I tread on as I make my merry way through life? I am not simply surrounded by morality - it is inside me, intricately inscribed in cryptic lost languages upon the walls of my brain. No matter how hard I try, I’m unable to be completely free of it. I may not understand it at all, but I was born with a metronome that beats to the rhythm of right and wrong - I was taught as a child to live within the confines of this mortal cage .
Recently, I’ve come to the conclusion that what drills morality into us is our flesh. Human beings come into the world wrapped in a flesh cocoon, a cumbersome one, and as it decays we slowly lose ourselves. Outside this cocoon there’s another cocoon, a flimsy looking but iron-tough layer, and that’s how other people perceive us, which is ultimately what matters in the end (because morality depends on perception). These two cocoons make up who we are. Now I can’t get rid of the cocoon on the outside, as other people will always be around me. But if I remove the one on the inside - the fleshy, repulsive one - I could rip through the cage. If there is no flesh to tether me to the Earth’s rules, if I lack the physical ‘self’, then I can run as fast as I want. I can be free of the chains called morality.
The more I thought about it, the more I thought that it was a stupid idea. How could I possibly shed my flesh like a snake molts its skin ? I’m not a snake; I’m a human being! That’s what’s troubling me in the first place!
Hey! Maybe one day I'll grow tight into my cocoon and I'll wake up and all these rules will make perfect sense to me and the chains will no longer feel like chains. For now, I think I’m struggling against the concept of morality way too much. I admit, maybe I’m a little too rebellious. I should just lie down, surrender, be good and ‘do the right thing.’ But that's just the atrocity of youth, isn't it? Morality is stupid, and I’m stupid for thinking that I’m above it, and everyone else is stupid too.
Here I go again, thinking that I'm cleverer than I really am.