Jaded

I wonder how that word got its meaning. Jade is a pretty precious stone. It looks really cool (though I don't think Americans think that as much as the Chinese did). I have no idea how it became involved in a synonym for apathetic. But let's do what I always do and start with good ol' Webster (or his website).

"Jaded: adjective. made dull, apathetic, or cynical by experience or by surfeit"

We all are jaded in some way (at least, once we get past the age of five). We've realized that life has its downsides, and we can see some of them coming. By the time we're in high school, we can find them anywhere. We know the teacher's assigning homework just to keep us busy, not because they want us to learn anything (though AP teachers are less prone to this). We know our favorite reality shows are staged, our favorite athletes aren't the gods we make them, we know people will let us down. But sometimes we can swallow our rational, well-founded beliefs and just enjoy what's happening. American Idol can be entertaining, even if the winner is predetermined (jury's out on that one. If not, America, you have no taste in music--how did Adam Lambert NOT win?!). Tiger Woods likes having sex, Barry Bonds broke the rules, and every NBA star has at least one sex scandal to his name--does that diminish the fact that they dominate in their respective fields? Does that keep us from staying close to people?

Well, being jaded can't overcome one thing: high school anti-drug assemblies.

And for this most recent one, there's no excuse...for the presenter and the audience.

In my classmates' defense: that guy sounded idiotic. Apparently marijuana's defense mechanism is sending Mack trucks to run over Bambi, and your brains are immune to the effects of alcohol and cocaine once you hit 21 years of age.

In his defense: How said is it that people were laughing during his speech? Not necessarily those of us that found his logic hilariously bad (because it was, and I was laughing too), but that other people laughed and cheered at the prospect of legalized marijuana...and we were totally not surprised?

We surround ourselves with people ruining their lives in a million different ways. (Emily and Zac already covered two of them, so I'm focusing on this one.) And we don't care. We expect it. We look at people and lump them in the "stoner" category: glazed-over eyes, greasy hair, bad acne, short attention span...heck, I stereotype when I hear a certain kind of voice. We can spot a stoner a mile away. And we accept it. It's almost like an ethnicity--they're not bad, just different.

Only you can't die of being black or white or Asian or anything else. You can't change your ethnicity. There aren't interventions staged to change one's ethnicity (at least, I sincerely hope not). Drugs? Different story.

Okay, we can only do so much as high school students with no training in counseling. But at least we can show that we know that drugs are all around us, and we do not approve.

The words of anti-drug assemblies are falling on two different sets of deaf ears: those who are already committed to living drug-free, and those who are already addicted and won't be swayed by a few stupid Bambi references and neurological jargon.

Maybe some of the second group would be swayed if the first group gave a crap.

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Now playing: The Classic Crime - Vagabonds