The First Rule Of High School Is: Don't Talk About High School

"I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. You've been pampered, cosseted, doted upon, helmeted, bubble wrapped ... feted and fawned over and called sweetie pie. You see, if everyone is special, then no one is. If everyone gets a trophy, trophies become meaningless. ... We have of late, we Americans, to our detriment, come to love accolades more than genuine achievement. You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You're the same decaying organic matter as everything else. Even if you're one in a million, on a planet of six point eight billion that means there are nearly seven thousand people just like you."
Somewhere in the midst of Tyler Durden's wisdom are the words of a Massachusetts high school English teacher, David McCullough Jr. He was speaking to the graduating class of Wellesley High last week. Applauded in some corners for his straight talk and derided in others for bumming everyone out on their most special of days, Mister McCullough asked that the matriculating seniors go on and become special in ways that matter. "We cheapen worthy endeavors, and building a Guatemalan medical clinic becomes more about the application to Bowdoin than the well-being of the Guatemalans." And now, on to Project Mayhem.