Quite Possibly My Finest Spanish Sentences..Ever!

If you can't toot your own horn on your blog, I don't know where you can. I'm in the midst of writing an essay about the poem "Biografía" by Gabriel Celaya.

My thesis is that the poem illustrates how socialization can bring alienation. In other words, if you try to do everything that the world tells you that you "have to do", you will begin to lose your own identity and feel like you don't really exist. That's because not every message the world sends us is to be obeyed. We should not all buy SUV's, all women should not weigh 120 pounds, and drinking beer rarely causes attractive women to fawn all over you. Oh, yeah, and not everything that your mother tells you to do is always the right thing to do,(except you Mom, you're the exception, and I'm not just saying that because I know you will read this).

Here are the sentences I'm so proud of with English translations:

"Las órdenes de socialización son ruedas dentadas en una máquina designada para facultar la supervivencia de la raza humana, y nada más."

Which translates...

"The commands of socialization are wheels in a machine designed to enable the survival of the human race, and nothing more."

Here's another sentence that sort of adds another perspective to the first:

"Socialización intenta a formar la sociedad con la sutileza de un escopete..."

Which translates...

"Socialization tries to form society with the finesse of a shotgun..."

Now, I know that makes no sense out of context. But in context, the idea is that the messages we hear from school, family, mass media and our peers are not always values and instructions that apply to us specifically. Society does not have a plan for each person, even though God does. The important thing is we can't allow ourselves to forget that society has a one-size-fits-all perspective. All of the voices telling you what to do, and how to act are in conflict with each other. It's impossible to follow them all, and if you do you will lose what makes you special. You will be a clone, trying to be everything to everyone and never learning what you are supposed to be, never bringing to full potential all that makes you unique and valuable to the world.

Juanito