As confused as I normally am on a Monday, since I don’t get used to the new schedule and the inclusion of one more advisory period to plan all of our extremely important activities, I found myself following the crowd (my class) heading to Mr. Carpio’s classroom. Once there, an invisible and understood line separates boys from girls. We (guys) think we are too cool to sit on school desks and prefer to sit on wooden stools at the side of the classroom. Today was different though, someone had something to show to us. Bravely enough, one of the guys pulled up his phone and began looking for something. Once he found it, he started showing it to the rest of the group. And after some neck contortions, I was able to decipher what the “surprise” was: a video of an immense man hitting another man irrationally and instinctively.
It sounded like stapling hundreds of papers. It was like watching an animal unconsciously hunt its prey. I then remembered that I already saw that video and felt absolutely nothing positive nor relatable about it. But the video ended and it was time for the post-match comments. “14 punches!” Said one of them. “I would let him punch me right in the stomach, I would resist,” complemented, apparently, the most daring friend. “It’ll take a whole day of preparation, tho,” rapidly changed his mind. “He’s a beast!” “It was the other man’s fault, why does he have to provoke him…” Adrenaline and thirst for violence were burning their bloodstreams. And I then knew it: our precarious and archaic culture has kinda like a cult for violence. Instead of, clandestinely, getting together to read poetry which feeds creativity and enlightens the soul, my friends were getting together to watch and witness how two human beings destroy one another.
Two sides of a coin: boys who sit down to praise writers for their magnificent poems and boys who flatter primitivism. The guy who showed the video turned his screen off and with a haughty smile and gesture put his phone in his pocket.
As usual, I kept my opinion for this article. This one is short: six million years of human evolution are not enough.
