must use directionals

ok so i was on facebook and this girl candace that i used to work with at trader joe's had this status update on facebook:

Candace is filled with uncontollable & inexplicable rage at the Brooklyn Public Library (shitty hours), & people who drive like jerks (not using directionals).

and it made me think of love. it made me think of all the bizarre standards i have for loving someone that i've never really thought about but know for a fact this person must have in order for me to fully trust them and fully invest myself into them for either friendship or romance or whatever. and one of them is using directionals.

i don't think i could love someone that drives like an asshole, and i know they're out there. come to think of it all my friends are pretty good drivers. i'm glad i've inadvertently surrounded myself with people that know what roads are for. roads are for getting from one place to another place. they're the journey, not the destination.

but then i think of all that postmodern bullshit i read (and in general i genuinely adore it) and i think of the way people's minds are changing to be about the journey not necessarily the destination.

because we all know the destination, the destination is death. be it individual or society, we will all die. our kids will die. our grandparents will die. the white house will be a museum or something sillier. maybe we'll still be around but things will definitely be different. we know this because we have the historical context to map the trajectory of a nation and analyze and compare the similarities between the cycles a nation goes through before it's eventual demise.

and that's as far as you can get from pop culture. pop culture can discuss any matter of topic except for those dealing with the ideas that truly engage people's intellect and asks "why are you doing what you are doing?"

i'd like to think this isn't just hippy bullshit. and by hippy, i mean a movement that was once truly inspiring and afforded many young people the chance to get in touch with a more primitive yet intellectually fulfilling experience that was somehow turned into a running joke and a chance to celebrate the ability of drugs to take you out of reality rather than get you thinking about it.

i mean, this is the shit i think about when i get high. i get a little scatterbrained but sometimes it's the only time i can bear thinking about the way things in my life are going and the way things in the world are going.

it's hard to admit when you're projecting your problems onto society and it's hard to know when you're suffering as a result of society's ails. like when i hear about the bad economy and job gloom i think "oh shit, this is what it means to be in a recession. that word i've heard about since i was a kid but never knew what it was."

i mean i know i've been kind of a scumbag my whole life. i went to college and everything, but i had one foot out the door of every class i've ever sat down in and all my favorite people felt the same way. the best thing i can say for myself is that i learned how to manage my general disillusionment and allow for myself to actually do good in school. i did this by seeing the relevance that information and intelligence have and the way people's honest-to-goodness emotions get distilled into works like shakespeare or the jungle or candide or really anything ever written. eventually what i got down to is "OH MY GOD PEOPLE REALLY THOUGHT THIS WAY"

like, people really read and enjoyed henry james' portrait of a lady and they had all the time in the world to read shit like that. i mean, am i just an idiot because i can't read something like that for more than an hour without having to do something else? god, i can't read anything for that long anymore. my attention span has somehow been shortened to the span of like... oh i dunno, just read this thing and look how short the paragraphs are, that's how short my attention span is. i'm not doing this shit on purpose like "oh man look it's a story about a kid with a short attention span look how small the ideas are before he goes to another one" this is me and this is how i write and i'm trying to get better.

i knew my mind was atrophying ever since i stopped using it, and i'm not sure when that was. it was probably around the time i stopped trying to get smarter and wanted to be friends with other people.

i know i'm not fooling anyone, and that's ok.

i've turned into a genuinely gregarious being, and that has everything you've come to know about gregarious beings with it. the good and the bad. yes i am generally friendly and goodnatured yes i think it's important to be considerate to other people and use directionals when driving.

but yes also instead of being individually brilliant or devoting myself to the intellectual pursuits that i know my mind is capable of i decided to go get whatever job would help me do the things i want to do in this world.

i'll tell you something i really think: there's nothing in this world i don't deserve to experience and i'm living the life that helps me experience as much positive and as beneficial as there is in the world and that feeling is a virtue and a sin simultaneously.

because down that road is a threat of evil. the evil of becoming what my friend craig calls a "HUNGRY GHOST". this is a demon that is never satisfied with anything and needs to scour the earth in search of fulfillment that never comes.

so, now that i know i'm not a hungry ghost but a human being capable of feelings and emotions and all that nonsense (NOT REALLY NONSENSE ACTUALLY THE MOST IMPORTANT ASPECT OF HUMANITY) how do i behave? how do i gain what i immaturely presume everyone else in the world has but me? SATISFACTION

ok listen up because me with all my ADD i'm gonna tell you how to be satisfied:

by realizing that satisfaction does not exist. it's not a feeling, it's not an emotion, it's not a state of being, it's nothing. if satisfaction is gonna come from anywhere, it's gotta come from inside.

don't scour the earth looking for a more perfect relationship to it, start where you are. where you've been planted.

but that's not always easy.

one of the reasons i wanna stay on long island is because i want to do it right. there's nothing about long island that i don't deserve to experience no matter how much money i make, right? well, that's not entirely true.

long island is a fucking expensive place to live. it just is. property tax is high, gas is expensive, mass transit is shitty, etc. what this means is that 6 million people who want the convenience of the city alongside the bucolic aspect of the country are willing to pay through the nose for it.

is it really that surprising to you?

it's like the first thing people do when they get serious amounts of money is get a house on a big piece of property on the north shore of long island.

oh but hey guess what asshole, you're gonna have to get gas one day or go to the supermarket and interact with the townies that have lived here all their lives.

you know what i hate? i hate when people who live in western long island think the people from eastern long island are hicks. i mean, don't get me wrong, it's kinda true, and if you threw a rock in the smithhaven mall food court it would strike an idiot dead facedown in his panda express, but let's get one thing straight: just because long island is an island doesn't mean it's the resort paradise you thought it would be when you moved here from queens or wherever the fuck you came from.

the scary thing is, i really think it's possible that long island will one day be a big fairfield apartments and the throgs neck bridge will be for residents who are allowed in residential sections and the whitestone bridge will be for industrial applications like import\exports and letting working class families get to their homes.

ok, let me expound on that.

let's talk about this monopoly tattoo on my arm. what it means is that i think one day there will be hotels on the graves of the pieces and the moral of the story is the people who win monopoly aren't the people who play the game but the people who control the rules of the game.

let's think about this game about money. this is a game that uses the names of real places. monopoly is a game of chance and a game of skill. the endgame of monopoly is one player having all the pieces and everyone else either giving up, playing until they've literally given every dollar to the one player who has won. how much chance goes into winning? how much skill?

i want you to think about every game of monopoly you've ever played. i want you to think about how monopoly is like the real world. you're born into it with a certain amount of resources and it is up to you how to spend those resources when you're given a chance to spend them.

oh look, i've landed on baltic. should i buy? hmm... if i buy now maybe i won't have enough money to spend on a more valuable piece of property like marvin gardens or (should i dare to dream) BROADWAY and PARK PLACE!

good god, i could think of shit like that all day.

ok, i'm gonna start writing something about the game of monopoly. i'm gonna do a little research maybe, learn when it came around, but i want to know the game of monopoly.

board games are important. all games are important. chess, monopoly, video games. they all have something in common and they've represented the same things for years: community, competition, recreation, leisure time, etc.

ok, i want to write a book about games. not sports, but games.

what i was gonna say was that in order for me to love someone they have to us their directionals, like they don't let themselves succumb to the temptation of being a shitty driver and possibly frustrating or harming another driver. i think that's a lovely sentiment. even if they say they're only doing it so they won't get pulled over. i know what they're really saying is 'i am not going to risk my life, your life, or anyone's life just to get somewhere a little bit faster.'

oh, and i agree with the NYS law making cell phone usage on the road a crime in the same way i agree people shouldn't be allowed to drive drunk. but i'd be lying if i haven't seen my friends act that irresponsible for reasons less than noble and i forgive them because i know even if they're drunk or texting they would never intentionally act in a way that would endanger anyone. so i forgive them.

but if they get busted, i don't let them complain. they should have known they were doing something wrong regardless of the merit of their intentions. sometimes i like how ruthless the legal system can be. i have a friend who was forced to take a breathalyzer at a checkpoint three times before it was over the limit. can you believe that shit?

"blow it again, we can't arrest you yet"

are we really fucking serious? can the law not discern between someone drunk and someone sober? if a cop can't tell who is drunk and who is sober, then why is he a cop? if we can't trust that cop without relying on a little piece of technology to show some number indicating how drunk someone is, why is he a cop? why would we give an idiot like this the power to change someone's life so dramatically?

and meanwhile, am i to believe that angry mothers somewhere want to see more drunk driving arrests? what happens when MADD stirs the police into some frenzy where they need to show big numbers and a tough-on-crime attitude to drunk drivers? well, that's when they start making people who can drive perfectly well take a breathalyzer three times.

(no this didn't happen to me and no i'm not telling you who it did happen and i swear on everything that means anything to me it wasn't the girl i mentioned in the beginning. not that i'm ashamed of that person or what they have done. i'm just afraid what a stranger like you would do with that sort of information.)

when i hear of groups like MADD that really exist i experience a very unique emotion that i want to convey with you. it's a mixture of "aww how cute" with "OH MY GOD WHAT ARE THESE PEOPLE THINKING?"

the gentle soul in me thinks 'aww, how cute. these angry moms think they can get their children back by pooling their misery and turning their anger into a platform to cry for justice and prevent personal tragedy from happening to themselves and others anymore'

i mean i guess they should maybe pool their tragedy and make some sort of platform, but in my world that platform is for them to stand all the mothers of dead children on. let the world see what their good intention has done to the world. it makes an angry mother, which makes a cop out for numbers, which makes an innocent person take a breathalyzer three times.

why do we treat drunk drivers like they're the end of civilization? are they ruining the planet? or are they just met with an equal and opposite reaction by a group of mothers who've turned their wailing in grief to a cry for social justice?

you wanna know the degree of a society's compassion? it's humanity? look at the way it treats it's criminals.

http://askville.amazon.com/measure-civilization-treats-weakest-members-accurate-quote/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=4718239

but before you do that, look at how it defines crime.

it ain't supernatural.

the respect bank

i know some people
who think respect is something that never goes away
that it can be horded
but it can't
it is spent like money

and i know some people who have been making sizable withdrawals
and they know it
they're abusing the credit i've extended

well this is a recession
and the bank wouldn't loan a pen to dolts like you
so let's put in some work and make some deposits
before your account gets closed
and you starve on the street

my reply

i think this is a good reflection of the way people rationalize cruelty. the greatest virtue of the modern american is his sense acceptance of cognitive dissonance. toleration of cognitive dissonance is also a buddhist virtue. just goes to show you how the right tool (CD) in the wrong hands (omnivores) leads to deformed morality.

i also respond to several comments others left


http://eatocracy.cnn.com/2010/07/12/a-day-two-pigs-would-die/

Notice the vocabulary change from the beginning to the end of the article. This is a perfect rendering of the transition an animal goes through being dissected and turned into a commodity. The popularity and curiosity urban and upper class people have with 'free range' and 'organic' meat is reflective of a desire to live a more sustainable lifestyle without compromising their diet. Essentially, reform without reform; a revolution that's pointless and inept instead of bloodless. As long as articles like this continue to be written the most ethical among us will look for ways to buy the right kind of meat rather than simply abstaining from meat, the right hybrid car instead of driving less. Does it really make it better to know that the animal you're eating had a name? Personally, I think it's more abhorrent. I'd rather eat a faceless nameless not-even-numbered hog than one swindled into sacrifice for a more ethically palatable dish.

Cruelty is cruelty, any way you slice it.

so i don't really write

and i hate to say why i don't , but i need to.

i'm just a little bit terrified. of what? of everything. and i know saying everything is the same as not saying anything, so i'm gonna try and get a little more specific.

i'm afraid everything i say will be undercut with humor. i'm a pretty funny guy, and most people like me because i'm friendly and i really do enjoy interacting with people and i'm pretty good at making people laugh or smile, and that's something i've always liked about myself. i try not to isolate anyone based on their politics or ethnicity or social group or anything else. (i try to isolate them based on their actions, but that's another story) i think i do this because i know how it feels to be isolated because of my beliefs. or even worse, beliefs that weren't really mine. that's something i should probably get around to getting over.

i've always been afraid of only being liked for my sense of humor. i guess this is what every smart pretty girl is afraid of, only being liked for her looks. well i'm afraid of only being liked for my humor. i mean i know i can be funny and likable by many people, (don't roll your eyes fuck you i'm trying to be serious) and that can be exploited by people and that can attract the wrong people. you've seen the lotus eaters that go to comedy clubs and like dane cook. they're fucking scary. people that only wanna laugh? good god they're the worst people in the world. spectators of the lowest degree.

in as much as writing is always something i've felt i've been pretty good at, i've always had this idea hanging over my head that writing is a grueling process that drives men to kill themselves. maybe we can call it kurt cobain syndrome. (you see right there? i put a maybe behind that sentence. i'm also gonna watch out for undercutting adverbs and other self-deprecating words). So if writing is this grueling process that drives the greatest minds to off themselves, why do it?

All I care about is art and politics and I only care about them because I think they affect and reflect the world we live in and if something isn't gonna benefit society it should be on the cutting room floor. i'm sorry for being so ruthless but let's face it: giving everything credence and respecting everything anyone does just degrades everything that actually worth appreciating.

You know how things are, or at least how I think things are, I think things are bad. I think they've been getting bad and we're all the frog boiling in water. I just get a little gunshy about calling things out.

There are enough people doing the calling out, the world doesn't need one more voice pointing a finger, because we all know what happens when we point fingers. For every finger I've ever pointed there's been at least one pointing back at me. We know what happens when people poke fingers at the government-- the government points back and they like pointing guns more than fingers.

But lets not get too political, even though I do care about politics.

Let's start with things people do. Things I do, maybe you do, maybe a girl you work with does it, whatever.

ok, let's actually start with an anecdote about work. we all have jobs, and we've all felt this way before.

I've been working at my job for 7 years. I know how to do pretty much everything. I've seen the store run poorly and i've seen the store run well. Forgive me if you actually work with me and see me slacking off sometimes, but when it comes down to it I know my shit.

When things are running bad, the store has poor morale, people get snippy, there's infighting, discontent, etc. It's the proverbial downward spiral. Shitty store affects morale, morale makes the store shitty, etc.

One of the things I see people do in order to avoid the discomfort of actually having to put in real work is work on a little pet project of theirs. I do it too. If I don't feel like putting out bananas or filling up bagged salad, I'll write more order. The secret to not getting told what to do is to be doing something when they try to get you to do something. This is my favorite rule of slacking because ultimately it's not slacking. I mean it's not like I'm painting my nails or balancing my checkbook on the clock, right? But let's get one thing straight: there's a time to slack and a time to work. I don't avoid the bigger projects when they fall to me, but if I'm assigned to one I demand the resources I need to accomplish them. Things like time, occasionally assistance, whatever equipment and space, etc. I keep my needs simple and grounded.

Where was I... pet projects.

I work at a grocery store, and the most important thing at a grocery store is getting the corn on the shelf. God when you say it like that it sounds like the easiest job on the world. Like the job a sundial has of telling time. It doesn't know what it's doing, it's a piece of rock with another piece of rock on it for fuck's sake. Well this particular grocery store has more in common with swiss watches than sundials. You might meet or work with a few morons who insist that it's the other way around, but that's the problem with some things, people who don't do it always underestimate how easy it is. (like a bad sports fans and backseat drivers sortof)

People do pet projects like making their own personal section look as nice as it can be. Maybe they go off and start some other task that, while not objectively unworthy, might not be the best course of action as far as actually accomplishing the things that need to be accomplished.

And that's why I don't write. Did you see that coming? Do I need to explain that?

I don't want to be another asshole working on some pet project while the world goes to shit. Can I say something you might not expect to hear? I've been feeling pretty patriotic lately. I love the freedoms america was founded on and i hate when they're taken away.

I'm smart. I know I'm smart. Not only am I smart, but I'm motivated to change things. Not just certain things, but everything. Things about myself, my room, my house, my street, my town, my county, my state, my country, my continent, my planet.

It's the job of good-natured average individuals to show up to work on time and do what is expected of them. It is the job of intelligent benevolent human beings to make sure what people are doing is not bad.

But that's too ambitious for me. It's too ambitious for everyone. I don't want to lead some children's crusade against the american government. I don't want to lead any kind of children's crusade. (it's amazing to me how many things I think about the world weasels it's way into my work ethic, but i guess it's not that amazing because that's a symptom of integrity and pardon my boldness but i can exhibit a large degree of integrity)

I don't want to be writing the script for the next Judd Apatow movie or making some slack-jawed yokel laugh at black people or making grad students laugh at a president they can't do anything to stop.

I want to contribute. I want to make good things happen for good people. I want my motives to be trusted.

But to do it, I need to lead a children's crusade. I need to point some fingers, I need to make a blog in a world that's been blogged to death. I need to be the still small voice in a cacophony of still small voices. (bible references still sneak in)

Writing can be my children's crusade. it can be my pet project. why? because things are bad in a way that it is beyond me to fix. but maybe if i just contribute positively to whatever I am involved in somehow things will butterfly effect into something good for someone. someone said once that it's better to do evil than to do nothing. well, that's debatable.

a phrase I like better is "it's better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission". I like that one, at least how I employ it. I wouldn't tell that to a kid with a hard on on prom night but I think I can use it to help me write.

I can forgive myself for making people laugh and making life a little more bearable, even if those people don't respect me or they harbor beliefs I don't agree with. I don't need my ego stroked.

i'm straying...

anyways...

i'f i'm ever gonna write anything it's gonna be at a time in my life when my resources allow it. and i don't mean just money, i mean inspiration as a resource, time as a resource. y'know, the little things i demand at work to do what they expect of me.

anyways... we're not at work anymore. there's more on the line here. work ends when i punch out and if i'm terrible at my job my job is all i have to lose. life never quits though, and if i'm terrible at life i'll lose my fucking mind.

stay tuned for some finger pointing. i can't say what's good, but i can say what's not good. (don't ever try and discuss what's universally good.)

goodnight internet.
i start work tomorrow.