Epilogue
<My Own Worst Enemy by Lit begins to play in the background>
Back in the library, Alvin spotted a single sheet of written paper sitting on one of the desks.
Bemusedly, the letter was written in different handwriting, from elegant cursive to blunt pen and pencil marks, each belonging to the nine twerps he had had to watch over.
The letter read as follows:
Dear Vice Principal Torrance,
We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong.
And, yes, the things we did were wrong. But, we think you’re crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are.
You see us as you want to see us.
In the simplest of terms and the most convenient of definitions: you see us as a nerd, a jock, a princess, a weird kid, a ninja, a narc, a madman, a basket case, and a criminal.
[…]
We also learned something interesting today: that those definitions, those neat little labels you and the rest of the world slap onto us, are a fresh load of crap.
Why should we tell you who we think we are when we’re still trying to figure that out, or don’t even know ourselves?
The interesting thing about labels is that we give them out like party favors and half the time we don’t even realize it.
We glean the surface and look at the superficial things that make up a person: the price tag and the style of your clothes, or what accessories or jewelery they own ,or how many piercings you have on your face, ears, or wherever.
We listen to their accent or way of speaking, we look at the way they style their hair (and the texture and length of said hair).
We look at your height, at the shape of your body, the shape of your face, eyes and lips, the slant of your nose and the curve of your ears, hips and chest or the lack thereof, the color of your skin, eyes and hair (if you’ve dyed it and how you cut or style it), and we judge and make assumptions about what kind of person they are or who they might be.
Even geniuses are guilty of making that mistake. We all think that we know what someone else’s life is like, what their background’s like and what kind of people they hang out with when we couldn’t be any further from the truth.
In reality, we’re all just people. We’re all just going through the motions and you can’t fit us all into a single category–that’s dehumanizing. We already get enough of that crap from the kids at school and even our own friends and families, people who try to tell you who you should be, what you need or have to be like – how you should and shouldn’t behave, where to go, how to dress, who to talk to, or the things you have to do or need to do.
Fuck that! People like that aren’t worth squat. They wouldn’t act that way if they did care.
At the end of the day, the people who do give a shit about you are the ones who’s opinions really matter.
What we have to do to–what we need to do in order to correct those assumptions is to try to understand and learn things from the other person’s perspective.
People are complicated. They can hurt each other and be hurt in return, and they can be hard to understand. But, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.
This may not be the point of the essay, but at least we filled it out. Write it off as bullshit all you want, it won’t change a thing. After all, just because you deny or try to write something off as cringey, cliché, or bad doesn’t make it not true.
‘Cause what we found out today, is that inside each of us is a jock, a princess, a weird kid, a ninja, a narc, a madman, a basket case, and a criminal.
Does that answer your question?
– Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club
{*The End*}