Young Writers Society

Greetings, my people. I assume you've had a pretty nice week since our last meeting. My apologies for not being available as of recently, I've...had a couple of issues to deal with.

"No problem, Mr. Briggs!"

"It's a'ight, man."

"Oh. Something wrong?"

Oh, Shirley. No, not much. Though, based on the content of today's meeting, I'd like to see if I can bring myself to admit how I'm feeling. I'll just bring up my submission to the group from last week. Have you ever heard of depression?

"That's like, when you're real, reeeaaalll sad, right?"

"That's when, like them drug addicts and homeless people can't deal anymore, right?"

"Yes. A few of my...friends...have been studying psychology and have been asking me to quiz them for a while now."

Okay. Good to know. Another question. What have you been taught about giving up?

"Not to, no matter what!"

"I guess the same thing, but that kinda feels off a bit."

"Normally it's "don't quit, no matter what" and other times it's "know when to give up". Really I've learned from both masters here."

So I now introduce the topic of today's discussion. I've been struggling with whether I should give up on society or not.

"Give up...on society? Huh? How-and more importantly- why would you?"

Simple. Last week I sort of hinted at how the people of today are too similar for my tastes. You know, with the little girls combing their hair and the boys all talking about basketball and such. It may be a trifle thing to you, for lack of better adjective, but to me, it represents something... bigger.

"Like what?"

Well, let's do this. Lilith, do you know about evolutionary theory or climate change?

"No, what are those? They sound science-y."

That's because they are, Lilith. They both involve tracking the development of a subject over a long span of time. I've found myself undergoing the process of tracking children from ages 9 to 18 during school as part of my line of work. It's my job to record how they think, act, and feel from my own standpoint. What I've seen from attending a variety of elementary, middle, and high schools is just how kids develop these habits of emulating and trapping everything they see and keeping it with them as they mature, the traits they retain becoming more and more established as they grow up. Basically, the more they grow from liking hair to liking boys, the more they begin to shove away those of nigh insignificance who don't agree with them. Do you know what this means, Simon?

"People are becoming less, like, accepting of other people, maybe? I'm not sure."

No, no. You're right, Simon. People are becoming less accepting of other people. I'd like to share with you a little bit of information about my past week. I watched a video where a man collaborated with plenty of other people from various backgrounds to produce a "powerful" and "inspirational" video talking about labels and how we'd be just one as a human race and how all conflict would end if we just accepted one another. This video had a couple of errors along with it, though. Do you know what they were? One, the video presented a problem and a "solution". Next, the video asked a very nice question to which it gave its own response- not as a suggestion, but as a true fact. The question was something along the lines of "What would you be if you weren't assigned a label from birth?" This question intrigued me, so as usual, I held it off in my mind until I could hear some variety. In short, I want you three to answer this question. "What would you be if you weren't assigned a label from birth?"

"I'd be ME! Lily!"

"I'd just be myself, I guess."

"I'd be...human. And nothing but."

Good, good. You see, I thought of all three of those answers simultaneously when I watched the video. That was a fault of mine. My personal answer is another question-"What would you call me if I wasn't assigned your definition of a "label" from birth? Just another human? Nah. Seriously though. What would you call me if not human, homo sapien, or African-American?"

"I...uhhhh...Mr. Briggs!"

"I guess, just Mr. Briggs."

"You're still Mr. Briggs, the soci- wait... I just labeled you, didn't I."

Yes. Yes you did. Don't even bother trying to figure out how to word your response to not contain a label in it. It's close to impossible- and I say this because I lack the experience to say otherwise. In my honest opinion, labels are a necessity to survive day-to-day life. The issues I had weren't even really issues. Yet they kept me up at night, they made me rant and pace and slow down my progression for days on end. Even when it didn't matter, it did. I tried to convince myself to order takeout food.

"What's so hard about ordering food?"

That. That's the question I've been waiting for for seven days. "What on Earth is so hard about making a simple request for food from a place where that's what's expected?" I'll tell you what. Personality. When you step out into the world you subject yourself to the personalities of everyone around you, but worse, you subject everyone around you to your personality. All of those people judge you and point their noses up or kneel down to pick you up or high five you and move on, all without moving more than their eyes and ears. People judge, Simon. That's the hard part.

"Just ignore them! That's what mommy tells me!"

Lilith. Do you know what bluntness is?

"No. Sounds bad, though."

Okay, one, I'll get to the "that sounds bad" later. Two, bluntness is the quality of a person that makes them say things without consideration or extra thought. Are you okay with bluntness?

"I guess."

Okay, them. To be blunt, your mother lied to you when she suggested that ignoring the judgments of people is the way to go about life. 

"She... that's not true! Mommy doesn't lie, Mr. Briggs!"

"I mean, dang, man. That's harsh. You're just gonna flat-out call her momma a liar like that?"

"Hey, Mr. Briggs. Kinda uncalled for there, don'tcha think? She's 10, for goodness sake!"

Exactly. She's just. 10. Isn't that right?

"Yeah, but why'd you say it like that?"

Because you bring up my next topic. Do you know what you two just did?

"What'd we do?"

You just did the opposite of what you got all psyched to do earlier. You prevented difference.

"We huh?"

You just defended a little girl from hearing a blunt and potentially true statement. I bet if I brought up the topic of sexual reproduction and the process of filling a cavity in full detail you'd do the same thing. 

"How would you know?"

One, it's natural. We all fall victim to that temporary heart rate increase. Two, because that's basically what my entire league of coworkers did when I attempted to teach her 3rd graders exponential multiplication on the day I had to take over her class and mine. My class were middle-schoolers, whereas her class were elementary students. See something "wrong" with that? I know you will, it's quite obvious.

"Yeah, man! You're teaching 3rd graders exponents. I didn't learn those until eighth grade! Why would you think to-"

-Teach third graders exponents? Funny that you ask that, as I have a reference I'm sure Simon, in all of his "coolness" and aloof behavior can easily explain. Simon, assuming I have a Marshtomp on my team about a level from evolution and I need to surf, why would I sooner catch a Zigzagoon just to cross that solitary body of water before reaching another PC and Gym? 

"Huh? What? What is that, Pokemon? Are you serio-"

"Because depending on the level and typing of the next gym and the size of your squad and general leveling, it'd be more advantageous to not HM lock your water starter and basically Nerf their overall offensive capability due to one in-game obstacle that's not that important yet in a game where water HMs can pretty much render your water starter entirely useless provided you don't have good TMs to make up for their temporarily trash movepool that you'll have to fix with Move Deleter and Fly MUCH later on in the game."

But I have to have that Zigzagoon on my team in order for it to surf, right? Considering the large amount of nigh unavoidable Swimmers out there, Wouldn't I happen to battle at least one? That and Zigzagoon isn't a special-attack-based water type with STAB and a level high enough for evolution to possibly stand a chance at that point in the game. Wouldn't that Surf HM be more useful entirely on my starter?

"Uh, no, as like I said before you'd wind up cramming it chock full of HMs you can't get off until later, and it's just one giant inconvenience!"

"Okay, nerd squad, what's this got to do with the conversation?! I mean...um...I'm sorry."

No, no! That's a valid question! What does that have to do with the conversation? Two things, one, just because it has a low chance of future reinforcement doesn't mean you can't teach it early, just so they'll have it later on. Second, we just made a huge difference. Did you catch it, Red-Cheeks?

"Hey! I'm not blushing from embarrassment! It's just...I haven't played that game in a minute. And no, I didn't catch the difference in anything but the conversation topic. What'd I miss?"

We just got Simon to sit up in his chair and actually get excited to talk about a passion of his, we introduced the idea of exponents to Lilith and put the question of what exponents are and why 3rd graders can't learn them in her head, as well as making you temporarily change your dialect and mannerisms yourself, Miss "I-have-to-be-the-logical-and-sensical-out-of-everyone-else".

"Oh, you, um...You noticed that. Good eye, matey."

There's the Shirley I've been waiting for! Do you know what you three have just done for me?

"What'd we do, Mr. Briggs?

You've given me a potential solution to my issues. Several, actually. One, teach small children advanced subjects. Two, ask future clients about personal interests more adamantly. Three, point out typical defensive character traits. Those are just small steps in helping us make a difference in here.

"Mr. Briggs! Your watch is beeping!"

I see it is. Well, that about sums up our little appointment today. As thanks to you three for helping me make a difference today, I'll let all three of you have a drink from the machine outside while I tell your parents what a marvelous job you three have done today! 

"We get to have pop?! Ooh, I hope they have grape!"

"Nah, bro, it's all about the lemon-lime twists, baby!

"I haven't had an orange soda in a while, and I thought to stop and pick one up on the way in. Thanks, Mr. Briggs."

You're quite welcome, Ms. Shirley. After you?

"Thank you!"

You're welcome, Shirley. It's the...most I can do.