Highschool

This world is like one giant high school. Most people leave this place within three years. Some leave even sooner—either by transferring or being expelled. If by chance someone gets expelled and ends up in a juvenile detention center, one could say that place is yet another world. A world entirely different from this one.

For a long time, I genuinely tried to communicate with them. I truly did. However, the gap was as vast as an already graduated college student or a working professional trying to communicate with high schoolers. They were simply subjects I could not mingle with. I have thought long and hard about why He sent me to this place. For a very, very long time. Students don't doubt much that they belong in school, but if someone who isn't a student has to remain there, the feeling must be bizarre. Wondering, Why did I come back here again?

I leave these records behind, but in truth, I have no expectations. Since these are not writings meant for communication, there is no need to be kind either. The only reader who needs to read this is 'the future me'—just one person. It was enough to speak in symbols and metaphors that only I understand. Once I did that, everything became comfortable. Driven by authority, people assign value to things that are utterly worthless. If a text written solely for myself becomes valuable because I rise to a position of authority, would it suddenly hold worth? Will people start talking about the meaning hidden in these words? How foolish. While others are free to interpret it from a non-authorial perspective, if they were truly curious about the meaning, they could have just asked. Asked the author himself. Especially since I have always been that way. If they were curious, they could have asked at any of the countless gatherings I hosted in all shapes and forms. For those who couldn't ask due to physical distance, I even broadcasted online. Yet, they did not ask.

This proves the nature of this generation. Even when they can ask, they don't even think to do so; instead, they interpret it through their own isolated imaginations. Even when the person involved strongly urges them to ask, they don't. And then they misunderstand and talk nonsense. Therefore, I became even more convinced that communication with them is inherently impossible, and I arrived at the conclusion that it is perfectly fine to close every single channel of communication I had left open. Did I engage in these activities because I needed their attention? To gain something from them? If it were to make money, I should have consistently sold a single product with a single message like a merchant. So they could use me as a tool. I shouldn't have made people uncomfortable by saying various kinds of things either. I should never have spoken about politics or religion. I broke every single one of those taboos. Yet, did I communicate just to gain people's attention?

No matter how old they get, they remain stuck in their high school years. One could say that human beings are entities that cease to develop after that point. Individuals who break out of that mold and become better humans are exceedingly rare. The rude bastards who treated the weak like garbage back then remain the exact same people who only understand the logic of power even as they age. And those who dumbly endured humiliation and insults back then, being called fools, are still foolishly enduring the same humiliation and insults in society, playing the fool. Is there truly not a single human who has broken free from this inertia? Those who are stopped at exactly that level. They are all high schoolers. High schoolers who couldn't escape high school. I used to feel pity looking at them, but now even that pity is gone. It is merely a state of being; there is no room for evaluation. The fact that there is no room for evaluation makes me happy. Someone other than me will judge them. Even if I don't evaluate them, their bosses will, the world will, their families will, their friends will, their lovers will, and their spouses will. They can realize for themselves—through everyone and every situation around them—just how insignificant and wretched their lives are, without me having to give them feedback ever again. Like a stepped-on bug squirming, they desperately want to escape the world's accurate judgment, but unfortunately, they only try to change the evaluation and deny it; the thought of changing themselves is far from their minds. Yes. That is the karma given to them. There is no way to help. Even if you struggle to lift a boulder to save a man who willingly crawls under it to be crushed to death, he is the kind of fool who will crawl right back under it to suffer again.

My past is saved in a gallery. There is no way to change it. The image of who I dreamed of becoming is also saved like a scene in an album. Even if I haven't achieved all of those things, I still hold onto a dream. That dream was faint. To say the dream was faint is to say the path was invisible, much like a foggy road. The fog was so thick that I couldn't get a sense of where to head. I had to find my way by relying on a small glint of starlight, moonlight, and faint sounds. Ultimately, I had to distance myself from people. The people who asked me to walk the path with them didn't actually know their own way. It was like climbing a mountain without knowing where it leads. The life of following them around is now over. To embark on my own journey, I have turned off the sound and am waiting for the turbidity to clear. A heavy pendulum swung back and forth right before my eyes, bewildering people. "Look at this pendulum." Mesmerized by the meaningless, repetitive swinging of the pendulum, people forgot what they were supposed to do and began staring only at the weight. Destroying the countless pendulums filling my surroundings and defining my own path was incredibly difficult. Turning off the noise. Turning off people. I needed absolutely no one. High schoolers were of no use to me.