Why is it that the world is teeming with so many co-dependents? So many wannabes (oops, was that a strictly 90s term?)? So many brainwashed people?

The 1950s movie Invasion of the Pod People seems merely to be a vapid sci-fi “thriller” with mediocre visual effects; the storyline is a banal one, featuring the eventual transformation of a populace into a zombie-ish race of “pod people” after an alien invasion.

But the movie goes deeper, actually conveying a very real fear of too much uniformity and conformity in 1950s America.

Now, granted, the 50s were specifically a decade marked by this fear and we have progressed since then; nonetheless, some parallels can be made today. I feel like sometimes when I walk through the school halls I’m surrounded by a monolithic mass of non-thinkers.

Things I hear seem to be regurgitated, all things I’ve heard before, but all recycled over and over again, only further insulted by the fact that they are delivered as though fresh and new in excited voices.

Why are so many of us servants of the public will and approval? Countless times I’ve turned towards some smiling person, going on and on about something, but nothing they say seems to top the simpering look on their face.

The look constantly seeking some sort of approval, a chuckle, or at least a nod that says: “Right, well, you do exist.”

And worse yet this sort of mass tends to lose a love for the original. So the ordinary and unimpressive become lauded for being the best of the ordinary and unimpressive. Brilliant. There you go, feel absolutely free to hide behind the rather large public seal of approval. Be sure you remain as safe and ordinary as possible; affirm that everyone is equal and we’re good.

Of course the majority of the school population loves this mentality because it strengthens the value of tradition and acceptance so entrenched in our society.

And with that warm attitude swathing us like a blanket, we feel like any of us really can do anything and that we all really have an equal chance of success in society. By putting the average man on a pedestal we feel closer to the top.