This is a communiqué. A communiqué on life. A communiqué on knowledge and wisdom and gaining independence and human rights and civil liberties and injustices and grievances and learning and living and loving. This is a communiqué on life itself. I have been in and out of various learning institutions for approximately 14 of the 18 years of my life. Through the course of those years, my learning regiment has expanded from simple addition to advanced calculus, from my a-b-c's to analyzing Toni Morrison, from playing with Lincoln Logs to stop playing altogether. I have expanded my thinking capacity and my ability to break down a situation through text books and through lectures for 14 of the 18 years of my life. And, like millions of other people in this nation, in this world, like so many others, I am preparing for my pursuit for higher learning, which will take place within a year's time of this communiqué on life. And as I sit here, wondering, pondering, thinking, I see the intricacies of life and the life to come, the life in store for me, and I wonder with one word, and I attempt to answer with many. Why? Why this life? Why am I expected to go on to more institutions of learning and discipline. Why does that make me a better person. I understand that some sort of college or university has much to offer me and my mind and can challenge me to my greater limits, but why? Why does a so called "college education" make me a greater person than someone who can not afford such an education. There are people out there who are smarter than I am, better than I am, quicker than I am, both physically and mentally, there are people who would put me, this future college student, this future protégé of someone's lectures and of someone's textbooks, another reason to pat themselves on the back, this is me, I am not better than anyone, others are better than me…but because my family can somehow miraculously pull out of the sky somewhere around the neighborhood of $10,000 annually, I can get a head start, I can get a "better education" than so many others. Why? Because somehow, my family, so far from rich or even "financially comfortable" that we are considered "just getting by", we as a family can barely pull out $10,000 a year so I can sit in a room and listen to someone tell me about life and what I need to know to survive and assign me homework and tell me study and read my book. And for this reason, I am perceived as "better" than the person flipping burgers at Harry's Meat Shack at a high school education. I was told once of a man…this man barely had a penny to his name. This man's only worldly possessions were the clothes on his back, his books and notebook in his bag, and his knowledge that he picks up everywhere he goes. After a large number of years of wondering around the world, being a "vagrant", living a low rent life and keeping a low profile, this one man has gained more knowledge than anyone I know personally. Forget the simple fact that he can speak 7 languages fluently due to his travels, forget the fact that he can live a healthy and fulfilling life on less than $1000 a year, this man has been able to attain knowledge, wisdom, smarts, independence and has learned more about life than any Ph.D., professor, teacher, student, worker, civilian, military personal or anyone else that I know has. How can you, the person reading this right now, this very moment, how can you expect to learn about yourself, learn about the world around you and how it affects you and how you affect it, by listening to someone else tell you about it. No one else can tell you about you. You must go out and live your life and learn about yourself. And you won't do that by just graduating high school, taking your little rolled up sheet of paper, going to college for four years, do everything they tell you to do perfectly, get another piece of rolled up paper and begin hustling your way off to your new "9 to 5" job doing the same thing everyday, stressing yourself out just to make more money just to spend that money on some more crap that you probably either don't need, won't use, or will be gone immediately after purchasing, this is not how to learn, this is not how you can learn about you, this is not how you can learn about life. The 19th-century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard has been quoted as saying "I must find a truth that is true for me . . . the idea for which I can live or die." No one else can find this truth for you…you must find it for yourself. Traditional existentialism…very basic roots. Do you think I learned about this at my own fine institution of learning? No, sorry to disappoint you, but there is no such room for classic philology, philosophy, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Jaspers, Marxism, the Bolsheviks, or communism in a mere high school. Which leads me to another point about gaining your own ideas and independence separate from what is being offered to you. Ask practically any person what they think of communism and communistic countries, they will respond, sometimes in anger, about how such horrible communist regimes in Cuba and China should be brought down and how communists such as Lenin, Trotsky, and Marx were evil men who should all share a bathhouse in Hell with Hitler, Mussolini, and the Devil himself. Then ask them why they believe that…I'll be very surprised if one out of every ten comes up with an educated and factually related backing of their strong, moral beliefs against communism. That is a direct result of where nearly every red, white and blue blooded American gets their information from. Do you really think the newspaper and the news media gives you the proper information? Watch the news tonight and tell me, did you see anything about the many revolutions throughout the world, the many struggles for human rights, and real reasons for any type of US involvement in any military action between the reports on the car accidents, the local murders, the weather, the sports, and the frog who dance for quarters? Are you even aware of the US/Clinton backed Mexican government attacks on the farm workers in Chiapas, South Mexico, where a revolution is taking place to get the people of Mexico their own land back, their land that they fought for, did you know that millions of people have died since 1994 in south Mexico because of US aid? How about the real reasons for NAFTA, the Gulf War, or any other US military action/government sponsored program? The Us governments, hand in hand with the media and the press and the school systems, have painted a false picture of communism for Americans and the rest of the world to see. They show the human rights violations in China and call it communism. They show poverty in Cuba and call it communism. They fill textbooks with horror stories of inhumanity under Stalin and title the chapter communism. Fact is, communism is for the people and for the people's rights to live in a communal society, where the government doesn't own and control all of the land and any form of government is established with the sole purpose of serving the people. The Chinese has gotten it all wrong and their version of communism has been so diluted that it is now simply a malevolent dictatorship. Cuba's poverty can be as easily blamed on the US enforced embargo as it can be blamed on communism. And Stalin was never communist. He was a dictator. He was a totalitarian. Unless you go out on your own, and unless you help others who are attempting the same thing, you will never learn the real deal of life. And who knows? Maybe that's the way you like it…maybe you would rather be happy with sitting in your living room, watching the news about sports and weather and the pro-US propaganda, maybe you would rather read your Dr. Seuss, Danielle Steele, and Tom Clancy, instead of Marx, Plato, and Engels. Maybe your happy living your life like others tell you to…or maybe you want to learn more about yourself, about your country, your government, your world, your life…maybe you want to discover your communiqué on life. But you must start somewhere and sometime. What's wrong with here and now? This has been a communiqué on life.