EDITORS NOTE: THIS IS THE PAPER I WROTE FOR ONE OF MY CLASSES IN SCHOOL. THIS IS EXACTLY HOW I TURNED IT IN WITH THE EXEPTION OF SOME CHANGES MADE FOR WEB PRESENTATION.

(Editor's Note: Ozrael actually turned this in to a professor at school so I decided to actually grade it =)

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stress kills

"the new kid"

when tragedy strikes, real tragedy, people are always looking for someone to blame. is it ultra-violent television? gory video games? dungeons and dragons? that damn devil-music? is it the edgy literature? societies ineffable lack of morals? the perpetual decline of basic traditional family values? hmm… not really. it’s stress. stress with a capital "s-t-r-e-s-s" (oh my God, this is the conclusion you came to? I need a shot of whiskey before I read the rest of this). that is what it all comes down to. so when did people start pawning their problems onto other people? the dawn of time, that’s right, the dawn of time (yes I guess by default that is when everything started). even in the bible adam says "eve why did you make me bite the apple? you really screwed up this time! (Is that a quote? Coudn't you have at least looked this one part up?)". well guess what, adam bit the apple! eve did not cut off a piece of the apple and force-feed it to him while he slept. another example, cain, oh yes cain, first born son of man. his brother able wouldn’t leave him alone, tagging along. if cain had a sharp gray rock able had to have a sharp gray rock (what is this about gray rocks? What the Hell is he talking about?). well, one day able really pissed cain off and cain splattered his brains on the biblical soil. now cain can really say "well, he pissed me off!" but guess what? cain still mashed his little brother over the head with a rock. the idea flowing here is that people can not see that stress is the silent killer… that and cholesterol.

the problem with people is that they are subject to stress. stress can kill a person or drive a person over the edge eighty-seven times as fast as any hardcore drug (that’s a scientific fact… honest). so what’s going on here? are people that stressed? well, you would be too if it happened to you. let’s look at columbine for a second. this is a topic that is hard to talk about, not because of the scope and terror, but because of cnn induced media flashbacks. in columbine two students for no apparent reason at all came to school and started to kill people. the media blamed marilyn manson… the media blamed rammstein… the media blamed quentin terrentino… the media blamed the tele tubbies (Ok, I have now officially given up hope that OZ actually did any research for this). so what’s the point (good question)? the point is that as long as there is a scape-goat, people don’t need to blame themselves, and that’s what people want to hear. people want to hear that this is the result of some radical counterculture movement that they can nip in the bud right now, before all their children become gun toting nra poster boys. so where does the blame lie?

stress kills. stress is the one to blame, our fast paced american society is tearing itself apart at the seams (well at least it's something fixable like stress and not some cop out that is impossible to do anything about (sarcasm). it’s like captain kirk ordered us all to go to warp eleven (every trekkie knows kirk’s ship couldn’t handle that kind of speed) and we "ain’t got the power" and "she’s breakin’ apart cap’n". with all the luxuries available to the modern day person, with all the creature comforts, with all of the casual clothes, when are we going to appreciate the luxury? when are we going to allow ourselves to be comfortable? when are we going to be more casual? why are we moving so fast? where did the rat race mentality come from (Good Question)? the best answer would probably be the cold war (The Cold War? WHAT THE HELL? He must of been watching Red Dawn when he wrote this or something), where people felt faster and stronger meant better. guess what folks… the cold war is over. for your russians out there it’s "kaputski (that not even a real Russian word)". stick a fork in it… it’s done. so why are we in such a hurry? are we actually getting somewhere? i doubt it. when a person feels like they are in a race, they feel like they need to win. they need to succeed. this fear of failure creates stress. fear of losing out to someone else creates stress. for a guy, getting caught wearing panties at school creates stress (Where the Hell did that come from?). stress is all around us already. to simplify stress… stress is what occurs when someone doesn’t get something, or fears that they can’t get something they feel they need. if a person feels they need love, and they don’t receive love this creates stress. this all sounds very vague and confusing doesn’t it (It sounds like you wrote this in home room before class actually)? further simplification… lighten up, you don’t need to take this.

stress has many sources, but by far the most influential and the most expansive is that of the aforementioned hustle of society (I thought a paragraph ago it was the "Rooskies" and the Cold War). society instills into its victims the "need" to "succeed", the "need" to conform. when one of these needs is not met then the victim feels stressed. if the person tries very hard to "succeed" in the eyes of society and to try and conform to their life, but just can’t muster the gusto to do it, they are chastised which causes stress, which sparks frustration, which triggers anger, which turns to hate, which manifests itself in violence, and that young skywalker… leads to the dark side (ok well lets all give up, live in caves and bonk each other on the heads with clubs then). for those that don’t feel a need to conform they are treated badly by those who do meet the ideal and even worse by those who want to meet it. that leads to the dark side too.

some people say they thrive on stress, that’s bs. nobody thrives on stress, some people just manage it better than others. students say all the time "my work is always best if i do it the night before (or in your case in home room right before class)" but would they do the work at all if it wasn’t due the next day? so is it really their best work if they don’t really care about it? obviously not (obviously =P). why can’t people just be content to work part time, go home and lounge in the shade, then call it a day? because people are stupid. people need to "succeed" (people need to eat, and drive cars, and live in places with rooves. Instead we should all live like deep jungle tribes on the Discovery channel and wander around naked thwakking each other with poison darts and shriking each others heads. That would make life much better right Oz?).

let’s talk about "success" that can be broken into two syllables (i better stop… before i get myself in more trouble) what is success? is it money? is it power? what if, call me crazy, success was being… dun dun dun… content (content to turn in crap like this?) ! how about that? would that make any *edited* sense? would it? any!?! we go to schools, where we are told to succeed, where we are told to learn, to expand our knowledge, to grow as individuals. whoa! grow as individuals? how the heck is that supposed to happen when we are all being taught the same useless crap? when we all have the same notions of success? not everyone can succeed; in fact very few people succeed at all (yes this paper is a good example of people failing to succeed).

back to columbine . the boys apparently were picked on, ostracized and all that jazz. so that drove them further into anti-social behaviors in order to tell themselves that they weren’t the ones who were wrong. the boys blamed the students at their schools for making them feel bad. these feelings of isolation and lack of social interaction led to other feelings (please defer to yoda-ish statement on the other page)… led to the dark side, which in this case manifested itself in expensive trench-coats and shotguns (Thank you for that detailed psychological profile Doctor Freud). the idea of people coming to school and committing wholesale slauhgter makes most people wet their pants. the idea of the media having the power to point the finger is worse. no one wants to blame the victims (maybe that's because they ARE VICTIMS. BY THE VERY DEFINITION OF THE WORD..oh nevermind), no one wants to say they had it coming. well guess what? they didn’t, but why should we be surprised that someone thought they did?

stress kills, the mind. stress kills the body. and stress triggers violence. so let’s stop and think seriously about slowing down things and taking them at pace from now one (well if you say so). stress is a serious issue in our century, with all of the technological advancements being made and the effects of the cold war (Back to the cold war? What does this have to do with anything? GAH!) still at our backs. we can’t turn a blind eye and blame it on counter-culture movments, video games, television or music. if you want to know what stress is like try asking me how i feel while writing this paper (Bah! They should ask me what it's like reading this paper. I have to deal with the stress of wondering if you just wrote this at the last minute or were actually high on something instead when you wrote it.). so in conclusion i’d like everyone to just get a life, get some rest, get some over the counter downers and if necessary get some therapy… or just get some. (some what? some cheese whiz? Some goat pr0n? This is how you end it? Why doesn't that surprise me?

Grade F- (Dear Oz, I have decided to forego grading any of your stuff for the rest of year. Since this paper graded out as a score of -270, you can't possibly pass. Please give up and spend the rest of my class writing more material for John Hawkins's page.)