school plans

i don' t much care for bikes, so not much to respond to in many of these posts. my mom never seemed like a big fan of ireland, i'm interested to hear what she thinks of the u.k.

i'm not very motivated to attend school at this moment. to clarify, i am eager to take classes, and to learn fascinating, character-enhancing things. however, i am not motivated to merely select a major and rush to join the often ruthless, soul-less world of commerce and capitalism. the furrowed brows and groans i imagine among those who invest in me high hopes certainly sting, and due to my occasional complete absence of self-esteem, cause me emotional anxiety. my parents, and their respective families have taken starkly different paths in life, and from both i am able to draw pros and cons to each. a philosophical issue is raised: at the core lies my dilema of whether to make haste towards educational goals, thus improving my projected life-long income of lucre and material wealth, or to accept a role as a man among billions existing solely for the purpose of performing manual labor, making the proverbial ends meet briefly, until next paycheck. when i look around at so many working class, so many with so little who CHOOSE to somehow be happy, it makes me wonder if striving for a superior position in the caste of our rhetorical "equal society" is merely a fool's goal. would i, in possession of a benz, with a wife and children be genuinely happier than i am at this moment, living in solitude, dutifully performing acts of customer service routinely each week for enough money to feed myself when i'm hungry? is it wrong for one to set the bar so low as to simply desire happiness for his or her self? it is my suspicion that happiness remains elusive to those who prosper monetarily if it has been so over other phases of their lifecycle. over the period of a few years, i have noticed that i'm personally far more sensitive about the day to day abuse dealt from people i am expected to admire and mimic, to those less "fortunate" than are most people around me. it saddens me to the brink of depression to think of the lives discarded, as if bare bones from a lioness devoured carcass, under the guise of "national security," "crude oil reserves," "a clash of culture," or "holy war." all of these assertions are completely moot, filthy rhetoric when compared to the importance of someone's family member. i struggle for literally hours at a time, pondering how people can sit in their cubicle and tune out the fact that people are being killed by gunfire and mortar blast, for the most irrelevant, self-serving reasons. has the new testament taught us NOTHING? the answer to that is emphatically no, but the abusers choose to forget the very thesis of the text they've just cited. i wonder if chris kal is still alive, or if he's given his life to support this hollow cause. likewise with adam withrow or henry hoya. their bravery, and that of many other schoolyard chums who've embraced the armed services bring tears to my eyes. what an absolute waste of humanity and opportunity purported by those born socially ahead. if the ambitions of those who hold all facets of power and influence in the world are supposed to serve as an example and inspire me to succeed and achieve higher education, why then do i feel so bitter towards their actions? why do i often feel embarrassed of our global police tactics? why is a man in charge of deploying the largest juggernaut of death and destruction on our planet unable to correctly pronounce the word nuclear? if the central reason for my continuing attending school is to aspire to become these people, then it is an immoral cause, one without merit.
i want to hold out for something that i can attack with zeal and relentless vigor, rather than point to the option on the list that appeals to me tepidly. i want people to be proud of me, but first, i need to be proud of myself. so far, i'm not.