Everyone is out looking for theirs
That unique part of them that all-of-a-sudden needs to be discovered
Uncovered
Finally heard and celebrated
A voice that lies buried beneath layers and layers of training and obedience
Then sealed with the reward of praise
Praise for your compliance
Praise for embracing your duty
To a system and ideal that you were born into
There’s a good boy
There’s a good girl
Sit in identical desks in rows organized in alphabetical order, laid out in
a proper grid in a square room
Turn in your work, name in the upper right, on the specified paper,
based on research done from the same books in the same library
Everything pre-approved, vetted, no threat here
Gym class line up from tallest to shortest, same shorts and same tops,
let’s go now everyone on three…
Standard tests with standard goals all approved by an elected board
of standard adults creating copies of themselves because that’s what
they understand
They’re not threatened by copies
Copies are the goal
That’s what works
That’s what America wants
That’s what America needs
Because I said so, Mister
But now, with our backs against the wall, what America desperately
needs are ideas
Unfettered original thinking that ignores the committee-approved “norm”
One’s that feed on what is irreverent and unsavory that will birth
new solutions
Solutions that are pure, and real, and beautifully simple
So, revisiting the spirit and summoning the grit that founded our great
country, here’s the real question I have to ask, Mister Board Member:
What are you afraid of…?