mjmi1

[mjmi1]

Hello everyone, can I get your attention for one moment?

A few days ago, I watched for the first time Dead Poets Society. I was enamoured, struck by lightning. I really loved it. But that's not the thing I wanted to talk about in this post.

See, I'm no blogger, I simply enjoy my time here, liking posts, laughing, crying for things I enjoy, so I wanted to say this from the start, since no one basically knows me.

What I wanted to talk about was how Richard Cameron is treated. I'm no judge, but if you give me a few lines, I can explain what is my point: even if I watched this movie for the first time a few days ago, I've already seen it three times since that day and, at first, I was hurt at Richard Cameron behaviour in the last part of it. Why would he do that? They're his friends, they've known each other for years, why would he do that, someone just died.

I've seen a lot of people here and there throw insults at him, hating him. They're right, aren't they? Well, the second and third time I saw it, my mind begin to wander. I had an uncomfortable feeling while looking at him, like I knew something more about how he treated others, how he let himself be viewed by the others, especially at the end. My mind began to wander around and I realised why I was feeling that way, why I didn't really know what to say about him, despite his actions. It was because I did the same, I was the same as him, Richard Cameron.

People will now come at me, hating me for something I did, hating me in general. But I was just fifteen. He was just seventeen. I told on one of my dearest friends and got them expelled. I lost all my friends after that day, I got away with it with teachers, they praised me for my noble action. Why did I do that? You know why? Because I was afraid. I was fifteen and the things I feared the most weren't spiders or the dark or break up with someone, no, I was afraid of failure, of disappointment. Because, when all your family treats you like that, like you're never and will never be enough, when they tell you that everyone will betray you despite everything you could ever do in your life to make someone stay, well that's when it begins: the need to succeed, to be praised, even if it hurts everyone else. The need to be enough is stronger than any other thing. And I think that's exactly the reason why Richard Cameron did what he did. He wanted to save everyone, but everyone got the better of him, and Charlie's expulsion was just the consequence of it all. And I'm not saying Charlie did wrong by punching him.

I'm not saying Richard did something good, hell I'm not even saying that I did. But he was just seventeen. Nobody is a saint, no one is. Everyone hating and hating, but have you really, really never done anything wrong in your life? I don't believe that. I'm no judge, but I don't think that someone is capable of not doing anything wrong. Ever.

Yes, I'm a Richard Cameron apologist. So what? He was just a child.

And, if you want to hate me, don't worry about it, I hate myself just fine. With this, I end my speech.

Thank you for your attention.