What’s with all this deference?
Come on!
Can anyone speak their mind at all?
Why, of course, we can.

But, you see,
We have become a quiet folk.
Nay! Not quite!
Yet, subordinate.

See, society silences.
Society scares, society scorns
even the slightest shake of the head
or wag of the finger.

Society is much too cordial, too agreeable
Too polite.
But you must disagree, raise your voice!
Make yourself be heard!

I know, I know.
You’re thinking that being “disagreeable”
would instantly make you a pain
right in the you-know-where.

But hear me out,
that is the most glorious,

most healthy pain in existence.
For it is the pain of Progress.

Hugo once said,
“By wishing to sit down,
we may stop the progress
even of the human race.”*

…


Of course he was sneering,
mocking, patronizing, the bourgeois.
Commenting on the affairs
of the three estates.

But did he not have a point?

For our generation, the most able,
to sit down in indifference,
and not in protest;
to me that’s the highest atrocity.

Each of us should dare.
Not dream, but act.
Provoke in the most marvelous way


And defy the status-quo.

Not for the petty reason of deviation.
And please please please,
not for your ego,
which was probably inflamed to being with.

Neither do it for your country.
No matter which flag you fly.

...You know what they say
"Nationalism is so World War II."

Yet do it for your brother and sisters,
fellow inhabitants of this fantastically complex sphere.
So we may prosper together
in the brotherhood of man.

Do it for truly universal equality,
So that each living being may live life fully,
in dignity, without shame,
and most importantly, being loved.

Do it for liberty.
So that we may act and do as we please.
So that we may grasp our beliefs wholeheartedly
and march them down the avenues and streets.

Now, my friends,
let’s put an end to complying,
let’s raise the barricades
of our collective consciousness!


Vive les garçons et les filles.
Vive la terre.
Vive l'égalité, la fraternité et la liberté.
Vive la révolution.



* - (Hugo, 355)