Groups-Born or Determined?

              Murder. Death. Suicide. Abandonment. Are these things considered tragedies or can you actually find it as a reason for why you end up around a certain crowd of people. Odd that once you sit down and talk to a handful of people sitting in the same house as you, you begin to wonder...do we actually have more in common than just the people at this table? Clearly there is always a common factor in life that brings people together, whether that be music, sports, careers, status; but if we rewind time and check into a chapter of each of our lives, do we find something that we never would have expected to find. It's shocking to hear something run off another person's tongue and you find, as hard as it is to believe, that the person next to you has had the same event in their book as you do in yours, it just may have been written chapters before yours. In our society which is entangled with thousands of groups that revolve around who our friends are, one group being labeled as deviant and another as influential, how do we decipher the difference between the two and who is entitled to give those descriptions?
                A hard hit subject in today's world is the techno/raver kid scene. Drugs. Rebellion. Odd how one type of music can create an entire uproar of stereotyping. A thousand people stand in a crowded building enjoying their love and passion for a type of music and dance, and as society cuts down on it, it's based off of one thing; drugs. Is it the drugs that ruin the people? Or do the people ruin the drugs? How is it that a substance can mind-alter yourself to become friends with 10-50 people in less than hour and still be able to remember and talk about them years down the road. Is that considered something terrible or can you throw that in an odd-twisted category of "socialization skills." 
             It's a weekend night with my friends, I find myself in a house full of "rave' kids, techno blaring in the background, people laughing, smiling, talking about the weekend events. The environment is relaxed and everyone is beginning to become at ease with one another. You can sense positive vibes in the air; the ones that enable people to open up and  let each other know that one important question, what happened to you as you were growing up that pushed you to become a part of this society-hated group?
               I'm motioned over to a cluster of people sitting on the plush light-colored couch, swarming with large pillows lined on top of it. I snuggle in next to a friend of mine and let out a huge sigh of relief as if I was just passed in the hall by a group of seniors without being messed with. I begin to soak in the conversations around me and find myself stopped dead in my tracks.
               "My father hung himself in my living room when I was young," The guy sitting on the floor openly admits to me. Facial expressions around the circle change instantly, but because it seems like most people are used to hearing about tragedy in this group, many go about their conversations and write it off as a "welcome to the club" card.
              "Sometimes I'm sitting at home and find shit missing from my table. You know small stuff that most people wouldn't notice, like a picture frame, or a calendar on the wall. And I think that has to be my dad playing some funny trick on me."  A girl changes seats and moves on the other side of him. She's completely made over in a miraculous self-sewn outfit; nothing too flashy or even distasteful, just a real well-made black and white checkered tank and skirt. Amazing how someone that society places as such a drug problem, can be so talented. 
           "That's actually kind of funny. Seems as if he has a sense of humor," she replies, smiling and giggling. "You're lucky you have real parents." Real? I wonder what that would mean in an outside conversation. "I'm actually adopted and what makes it even funnier is that my adopted parents weren't the 'we couldn't have kids so let's adopt' parents. They're that couple that didn't really want children, they just did it because they found it as if they were giving something back to society by saving a child without a home. When in all actuality, they stopped actually speaking, playing, or giving me any sort of attention after I was in kindergarten."
             Is there a similarity to lack of parental involvement? How is a child or someone in their youth suppose to handle tragedy and abandonment easily? Clearly there are "counseling" which i will use lightly, for stuff like this, but to be able to explain to a child or someone that is fighting to be accepted in a already hard youth world, that it is not their fault, seems a little difficult. In any group, where people feel the need to belong, what is the actually limitations for what is going to far to be accepted? Can children or teenagers know the difference between where the line is drawn between a "good" group and a group that society pushes as a bad example?
           A  night out on the town for a group of skateboarding teenagers. The girls in the group are just beginning to show their first signs of body development and their overuse of make-up and perfume. The guys, still attempting to find their man-hood, their clothes dripping with skate brands and dirty shoes. They all meet at a friends house, which would be considered a neutral ground for a crowd that is not able to jump in the car and explore the unknown territory of their city. Skateboards line the outside of the house as they sit on the back patio and enjoy the luxury of having one of the groups parents out of town for the week. Cigarette smoke flies around the group and a bag of pot is being pulled out onto the patio table.
         "Are guys ready to get high?" One of the guys asks, turning his hat around backwards. "My father and I split a bag last night and went in on one together." Everyone laughs. Is it normal for parents to split costs of drugs with their kids?
        "You get this from your uncle again?" Another guy asks, moving  from the patio chairs to the table, to get inside the moving line and possibly get closer to getting a sooner hit.
        "Yeah, and the more I sell the better of a deal I get on the next bag, so you guys," he lights up, "better start smoking more often." he hands it to one of girls, and even though she looks uncomfortable taking a hit, she allows the smoke to hit her lungs and lets it roll out through her nose.
          In society, where are the lines drawn by parents? Are there any? During school children learn about the steps and warning signs of using drugs. Pot being always placed as the first point out of an officer's mouth. "POT is the gateway drug." Who determines what drug starts a kid into using other drugs? Can a parent's addiction be used as the actual gateway drug for teenagers? When is a hobby then considered a sport? We look at the individual bases of skateboarding, and find that in today's world it is now considered a sport where you can be praised and given metals for doing tricks on a piece of wood. Hard to believe that half of those kids started out as a possible 'menace' in their neighborhood growing up and now they are bringing home posters with their picture on it. What is the fine line between sports and drugs? Is it stereotypical to call all skaters, pot heads?
         I know what some might say, how is someone suppose to know which side of the spectrum to look at? Well let's see how extremely odd my story may make in the chain of events for how someone ends up in the electric music scene. Let's set the scene for you. An amazing, 50's moral neighborhood, where the mother's still meet once a week for a dice game, a place where father's are setting up golf games every weekend with one another. Children whether they be 4 or 8 are spending their nights playing care-free and safe in the streets until nightfall. To sum it up- I am just a girl coming from an upper-middle American class, where both parents where there growing up, sports was heavily praised and offered, education was considered the greatest opportunity out of life, friends weren't hard to come by and yet, me who society would have placed as "someone that would succeed in the world" has been able to see the 'bad' side of spectrum. Drugs. Rape. Robbery. Murder. Youth suicide. Where is the turning point for when a child or a teenager has taken enough of one side of the spectrum and determines that the other side just may look more interesting?
            Success: The achievement of something desired, planned, or attempted. A definition with three main words, can be pushed to such extremes. It's one of those words that people battle themselves with everyday. Have they been successful in their day? Their year? Their life? A common New Year's resolution thrown out is "I want to be successful this year in....." In a world where money, power, and "success" is desired by everyone, what is the actual determination of how you could considered someone successful. People and environments can change a person's outlook on just how far someone will go to be successful. 
            It's fall, the college is running wild with new students. The leaves are just beginning to change from the dark green to a collage of yellows and reds.