In a Commencement Speech, by Tom Robbins:
Growing up is a trap.
...
we are consistently reminded of our own..."responsibility." Responsibility means obey orders, without question, don't rock the boat, and for God's sake, get a job. (Get a job. Sha na na na)
Thats the scary the one. Get a job. It is said as if it were a holy and ancient and inviolable law of nature. But the fact is although cultural man has been on Earth some 2 million years, the very concept of jobs is only about 500 years old. A drop in the bucket, to coin a phrase. And with the advent of electronic cybernetic automated technology, jobs are on the way out again. Jobs were just a flash in the pan, a passing fancy. There is no realistic relationship between jobs and work-work being defined as simply one of the more serious aspects of play- any more than there is a realistic relationship between jobs and eating. It is curious how many people believe if it weren't for jobs they couldn't eat. As if it weren't for Boeing, their jaws wouldn't chew, if it weren't for the Navy their bowels wouldn't move and if it weren't for the Weyerhauser that great destroyer of plants- plants wouldn't grow. Technocratic assumptions about the identity of man, society, and nature have warped our experience at its source and obscured the basic natural sense of things. Rabbits don't have jobs. When was the last time you heard of a rabbit starving to death?
Ah, but we must be responsible, and if we are, we are rewarded with the White man's logical equivalent of looting: a steady job, secure income, easy credit, free access to all the local emporiums and a home of your own to pile the merchandise in! And so what if there is no magic in your life, no wonder, no amazement, no playfulness, no peace of mind, no sense of unity with the Universe, no giggling joy, no burning passion, no deep understanding, no overwhelming love? At least your ego has the satisfaction of knowing you are a responsible citizen.
Responsibility is a trap.
...
The only advice I have for you tonight is not to actively resist or fight the System, because active protest and resistence merely entangle you in the System.
Instead, ignore it, walk away from it, turn your backs on it, laugh at it. Don't be outraged, be outrageous! Never be stupid enough to respect authority unless that authority first proves itself respectable. And, unfortunately, there is no officially sanctioned authority today, from the President of the United States down to the cop on the beat, that has earned the right to your respect.
So, be your own authority, lead yourselves. Remember the ways and means of the Ancient Yogi masters, Pied Pipers, cloud walkers and medicine men. Get in harmony with nature. Listent to the loony rhythms of your blood. Look for beauty and poetry in everything in life. Let there be no moon that does not know you, no spring that does not lick you with its tounges. Refuse to play it safe, for it is from the wavering edge of ridk that the sweetest honey of freedom drips. Live dangerously, live lovingly. Believe in magic. Nourish your imagination. Use your head, even if it means going out of your mind. Learn, like the lemon and the tomato learned, the laws of the sun. Become aware, like the jungle became aware, of your own perfume.
Remember that life is much too serious to take seriously- to never forget how to play.
In times of doubt and chaos, it has been the duty of superior persons- artists, poets, scientists, clowns, and philosophers (certainly not statesmen or military heros) to create order in the psychic vibrations of their fellow man. Due in times such as ours, times that are too carefully ordered, too strictly organized, too expertly managed, thoroughly programmed and craftily planned, times in which too few control too many, it is the duty of all feeling, thinking, humanitarian people to toss their favorite monkey wrenches into the machinery. On second thought, you do have some responsibility to your fellow man. To relieve the repression of the human spirit, it is your sacred duty ot screw things up royally.
