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Hey y'all, long time no see. Of course I know that's my fault. Thanks to those of you who posted on the bulletin board in my abscence, I'll be responding in the very near future. Maybe even later tonight, though that is looking somewhat doubtful considering that its already 12:30, which means i need to go to bed within four hours and I have quite a bit to do. Don't you love summer? Stay up to watch the sunrise, sleep in untill 2, spend an hour just sitting around before showering, doing some sunbathing, reading, catching up on cinematic masterpieces and generally wasting time... Doncha love that? I don't. I mean its good to a point, for a little while. But then I start to hate it, and can't stop doing it because there's always a whole summer in front of me, I've got plenty of time to do meaningful things and think meaningful thoughts later. But then you keep doing it on and on, purposeless, and then you start to disgust yourself and be thoroughly repulsed by what you're becoming and still you can't stop untill you lead yourself into crisis, (all like Ben Braddock in the Graduate, one of the 5 best movies ever btw)... It strikes me right now that this is to a large extent a microcosm of life. We keep thinking that there's time to live according to principle later, to change ourselves and our world later, that we're too busy with stuff right now, stuff that in the grander scheme is about as important as that summer sunbathing, purposeless momentary self indulgence. And thus we waste the best years of our lives, the one and only time when we're young and and able to naturally challenge the senseless centerless authority that directs us to live unfulfilling lives. We're too busy in school to question the purpose of school, or assume that school is necessary so that we can go to college without questioning the purpose of college or of having a good paying job and a family or any of it... We just refuse to try to get our mind around it all, to ask the tough questions of what REALLY produces fulfillment and own up to the fact that its a lot harder to attain than any degree in school or position in the workforce. Go to school to go to college to go to graduate school to get a job to work to get retirement benefits to retire and then you're old and too feeble and sold out to enjoy any of it. Wake up, save yourself while you still can. Question all assumptions, live fucking life. Choose life people. Please. I'm writing this mostly to impel myself to action, and I know that its not the most pleasant read. It sounds like an attack on you, the reader, who is actually taking the time to sift through all this, but its not. Its a diatribe about the world that encourages you and I to accept the status quo and not work to change anything, to go with what is comfortable and be satisfied that humanity is progressing by looking at our glorious new technological achievements and our "victories" in the fucking war on terror. LOL, war on terror. Does that seem like a contradiction in terms to anyone else? Sort of like Central Intelligence Agency. So violent acts against us have us terrified. What are we going to do? While obviously we're not going to stand for this. We're going to show the world we won't back down. We'll declare war on this terror. We're going to flex our mighty muscles, use embargoes to starve the guilty and the innocent alike, bomb their cities and call civilian deaths "acceptable losses", and kill their fathers and brothers in combat. We're going to make them quiver in fear, and when they are afraid we won't have to be any more, and we'll have "won". Better them than us, right? And then we'll act hella suprised a few years down the road when they declare their own wars on terror: the terror of a seperate type of ideas represented by a different religious group, the terror of a neighboring country building up nuclear armaments, the terror of a rich western state with the arrogance to heavy handedly and brutally control their affairs when the controller itself is a nation with only the semblances of a working government, a nation that does not even care to provide the basic necessities of life to its citizens, a nation that sets itself apart as a paragon of democratic virtue and yet places in its chief office a buffoon who bought his way into power with tainted oil money, who wasn't even the choice of the majority of the country even after all the "hanging chads" were sentenced to unceremonial execution. People, September 11 wasn't the start of anything. It was a terrible malicious act that is tragic in every sense of the word, and those who committed it are in no sense heroes, but it was also the efforts of victims of a cycle of violence to wake us up to the realities of what we all, american and 3rd world alike, perpetuate through our acceptance of life as it is. We neeed to stop and listen to that desperation that is representing itself in the form of violence and terrorism. NOT agree with it, not reciprocate, but listen and look inwards for answers. Because thats the only way to TRULY change the world, by changing ourselves. Everything else merely perpetrates a cycle. Might NEVER makes right, and the ends do not justify the means, in the all too real world. I ask you now, not society, not anyone else, but YOU, my friend, to stop for a minute. Stop and ask yourself what you're doing with your life. I'm so proud of most of you, you are accomplishing your dreams and doing so with remarkable determination. But just for one second, stop and ask yourself why you believe the most basic things you believe. Why do you even believe in the relative rightness of your beliefs? And how can you accept this world as it is knowing that it could be different and that you could change it??? How can you live this lifeand pretend that you'll be satisfied, when all you'll really be is complacent and content and disillusioned? How can you not want a revolution??? This is probably where you totally tune out and dismiss me as a ranting lunatic, an "angry young man" stereotype. I don't blame you a bit if you don't want to ask those questions of yourself, and I am envious of your ability to filter out those things that will most likely drive you insane. I don't have that ability, call it a genetic abnormality or call it what you will..For me, there's 3 possibilities. True, all encompassing personal enlightenment/nirvana; fundamentally changing the world; and insanity. And what are the odds of either of the first two of those things happening? But you, my friends, if you can find happiness in any form, I want you to grab it; I want for you what I can't have even if I do want it. Ok, I just took 15 minutes after writing all that and read what I wrote and am surprised at it myself. Not surprised at the content so much as the tone, I don't allow myself to get angry very often. And looking at it now it really looks like a fire and brimstone style sermon. I guess I'll post it anyways, I promise that my next post will attempt to be more Gandhian and less Malcolm X, less virulent and more serene. Sigh. All this anger, and its all from love for this world, and tragic frustration at seeing it fuck itself up... Love hurts, every time, guaranteed or yoru money back. Theres one life lesson for ya, and I have only a limited number of such dogmatic assertions that I utter with any form of real vindiction. Maybe the monastic life is what I need, a way to get away from all the distractions and dedicate myself full time to living the life I feel that I need to live in order to be satisfied, to get my thoughts in order untill I determine solid principles and then truly live in accordance with my principles... I've been reading Thoreau lately, Walden specifically. The whole section on Economy, aside from making me feel even more guilty about my hypocrisies, showed that it really is pragmatically possible, that you can survive and live a contemplative life without selling out to be rich first to attain the means. Here again, if the means are tainted, teh end can never reach fulfillment... how can you expect to clear your conscience while living in a house whose very walls are the embodiment of materialism? But it can happen. "Before you're free to do anything you have to lose everything" (Fight Club). I'm getting there, teh point when I can just throw all of it away, out the window, gone with no regrets. But everything means everything, not just material possessions. Its the Buddhist ideal of disassocating the self entirely with the past, and effectually forging a new self for the world. But right now, "Tonight as I stand inside the rain/ and no one feels any pain" (Bob Dylan) even that seems like a ridiculous cop out. Because its running from the reality, and true salvation doesn't come from ignoring affliction... that seems more like the road to living an unfulfilling life just like th blind one almost everyone in America lives today by ignoring teh suffering around the world or down the street. And a reminder, even as a fundamental tenant, that "all life is suffering", that just isn't enough. True penance for our sins and inadequacies and hypocrisies, as pointed out by Harvey Keitel in Mean Streets (see it), isn't achieved in church or confession or a monastary, its achieved on the streets, in the very heart of indulgence and excess and yes, even sin. Sigh. So many questions, no answers. If you're still reading this you deserve a medal of honor. Remember: Love Always Hurts. Peace and Love to you all.
"choose life. choose a job. choose a career. choose a family. choose a fucking big television. choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. choose a starter home. choose your friends. choose leisurewear and matching fabrics. choose diy and wondering who the fuck you are on a sunday morning. choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit crushing game shows, stuffing junk food into your mouth. choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats you spawned to replace yourself. choose a future. choose life... but why would i want to do a thing like that? "
"I chose life." |