Everytime I listen to Linkin Park, it reminds me of the US and the hell I went through throughout my high school.

Why? Let me explain to you.

America is a country of stress. People (well, high-strung, successful people) are stressed out. They are sleep-deprived, nutrition-deprived, love-deprived and time-deprived, always scuttling off to work and whatnot. Because in the US, the more you work, the more you get. So the people with money (I mean middle-class here) work their tails off, trying to be the winner. Because being the loser means that you're the ultimate failure.

While there are many pictures of "failure", there is only one picture of "success", AKA grand car, grand house, grand job, and a fat bank account. To achieve that, kids work their tails off doing extra-curricular, sacrificing their sleep, their weekends, and basically what entails as "good adolescence". They go to a reputable school, where they are filled with all sorts of nonsense that they'll never use in their lives. Drilled, grilled and instilled with a working discipline of a good Puritan and a soldier, the high school teenagers go off to college, where they work (sort of), live lives of small decadance, because... let's face it, unless one does advanced degrees, the childhood, the carefree time, is over. Here comes responsibility, paying the bills and being the adult.

Their lives, hell, our lives, aren't much fun.

And that's why Linkin Park reminds me of the "Land of the Free and the Brave". Because in reality, it might not be what Bush advertises it to be. People are afraid not to become that single picture of success... afraid to fall out of the line, to let go. Literally squished into this cookie cutter shape despite personality, people chafe against the picture of success, but are powerless to rebel.

Yeah, it sucks.

Oh, and have I also mentioned that the only guys who liked me that way always gave me Linkin Park CD? Hmm. I guess the next admirer is going to cross my path when they release a new CD. Now that's a hint, Chester, go make another CD.