#Ska’s Letter

WC 416

Dear Mr. World,

You brought me here, and for that I’m grateful. I learned from the best how to speak and how to act. You taught me that life could be so easy if I just follow the rules.

But, you know, fuck your rules.

I was told by you to get an education, a job, a life. But it wasn’t what I wanted, it was just some carbon copy of what everyone else was doing. I let myself get dragged along through the drudgery of mundane things.

The other day, I left work at seven o’clock at night. The streetlights were on and I stood under one of them, letting the rain hit me like the ever-present annoyances that make up my whole life. Then some guy walked by and took a trumpet out of its case and started playing, just like that, in the rain.

The sounds that came out of that horn, and the energy he had for life; it was the first time I saw real freedom. The expression of a life lived for oneself and not the patterns and programs dictated to them.

There, in that island under the streetlight, I realized that I’m all I’ve got. No one is gonna make changes in my life but me. I took my hat off and just soaked in the rain. I even shouted at it, and the guy just played along as if I had been singing lyrics to the song he was playing.

I liked it.

I liked challenging the authority of the status quo.

The systems in place, designed to take on the human condition and force it into a mold, they’re symptoms of your greed and desire for control.

Well, if you want to take on me, World, you know where to find me. I’ll be sitting on my desk, learning how to play the bass. Come by and check on me. I’ve decided to choose a path that never hurt anyone else, so I’m ditching the corporate ladder and jumping with my own parachute.

You probably don’t care. You’re probably indifferent to the whole thing. But I know for a fact that if you lose me, you lose a good thing. You lose the ability to look in a mirror and see your ugliness. You lose the edge and the drive that forces you to reflect on your pitiful constraints and the broken system you’ve built. Look at me, and see yourself.

Sincerely,

Ska Richards

Former Account Executive.