And his youth association

That saved the neighborhood

This story expresses well my concept of creativity. Although it is an endeavor to capture beauty and try to share it with the reader, I don’t want either to depart from my responsibility as a moral agent. Thus, my works (above all, the fictitious ones) are the backdrop for struggle between good and evil. Nevertheless, I strive to ensure the triumph of the former over the latter.

I believe I have found a good excuse: evil is so well organized that it doesn’t need one more advocate.

As far as the main character in the story is concerned, namely Derrick, he transcends reality just by being an adolescent and by realizing his responsibility as such.

He discovers early that he is a true person, with imagination, memories and a will to decide. He understands his situation as a teenager under parental guidance. It’s a setting established by nature, by God and society.

Indeed, his parents, two “civilized giants” have protected him, instead of squashing him during his early childhood. Later on, they ask him just to go to school, get good grades and do his best to become, one day, a self-reliant adult.

As providers, they discharge their parental duties by putting food on the table, ensuring roof on the head and other basic necessities.

Derrick believes that he would be foolish not to take advantage of such situation.

He also thinks that these giants deserve to be loved, respected and emulated. Similarly, he extends his deference and affection to honest neighborhood elders as well to his teachers who are generous enough to pass down their knowledge to him.

In addition, he transcends reality just by not being trendy. He eschews a lot of activities taken for granted by his peers.

Of course, some of these activities have nothing wrong with them; they are part of the growing up process. Yet, he is mostly interested in learning, thinking and speaking to older persons who fascinate him with their sagacity.

Quite frankly, he thinks that these youth activities, although apparently innocent, harmless, natural for adolescents and young adults, lead, by the same token, to uncontrollable, instinctive actions; otherwise, the state of affairs wouldn’t be so rotten in his neighborhood plagued by violence, illegal drugs, prostitution, loud music, teenage pregnancy and all the disastrous consequences they entail

Unhesitatingly, he believes, for example, that taking drug and turning stupid describe the remotest kind of conduct that could attract him.

As for him, going against these fashionable but deleterious suggestions, being conscious of reality and acting as a dynamic element in its unfolding, all this may get him to a wonderful way of life and a recipe for self-discipline.