As you might notice, life after Arizona (timely! sort of) has been less than thrilling/mood-enhancing and I take this fact as well as the typified spoiled only child does (no offense intended to the only children here. you are not typical. and also i don't think anyone reading this is an only child). This has led to much internal negotiating and reflections based on the words of cynical narrators/writers (the pomo ones, at least). Thus, in this maelstrom which involves an increasingly inward spiral of conversations and a brief stint in delusional, technological schemes via hermitage as well as infrequent intellectual, actually significant external conversations and a respiration system that croaks out self-induced ennui and worldly pessimism, the following vices and "real" inquiries of thought have loosely converged:
(not in order of importance, please note)
vice 1) baseless political divisiveness (which i am a definite, self-proclaimed advocate OF and a thing that i'm very incrementally trying to change as I see it to be an infuriating reason as to why the government/general national population suck/s so much, militarily, politically, economically, racially, religiously, educationally, environmentally, socially, and intellectually. (not technologically---idea-crush here). But on second thought, if it weren't reps v. dems. t-ps as the easy public scapegoat, it'd probably more realistically be something else...)
"r"iot 2) the next step? this is where I almost always fail. despite the american studies degree which rather than leading to many potential solutions and in turn hope has led much more to a burdened conscience, cold aloofness, partially hardened apathy, and totally impotent fantasies. so my question is WHAT NEXT? the speculative fiction writers say the world will spiral into violence (plus four), ruled by corporations (plus 5), crumble into environmental disrepair (also plus 5), and/or burst with technological advances (plus two). the news reports seem to favor this with all their doomsday freakouts. and of course others say nuffin's rong, y'all, keep pollutin/keep shootin'/keep doing ya thaaaang
"r"iot 3) Are we eventually going to become people content in our jobs, taking joy in the small pleasures like baked bread and chicks hatching and ipads with 483957293475901gb and infinitely fast wireless and chatting with our good ol' friends and remembering nostalgically and looking out our windows at something green and maybe a sky austerely blue and think that this is it? And feel detached and chuckle and shake our heads at the sad, overdone, emotionally-touching aka manipulating things the news discloses and think then too, what is it that we can do and at that moment feel okay that the answer is nothing?
vice 4) I'm worried that I'm setting a life path that makes #3 possible.
I think that i'm just severely overwhelmed by the factious American voices that are all essentially clobbering one another and of course astounded by the middle and upper classes who are doing essentially nothing but half-living, mostly ignoring and wholeheartedly blaming (which I also can probably claim a part in this conspiratorial selfishness) and then also sorta pissed at the lower classes for un-pc reasons.
***sorry for the overwrought sentences. dfw does them so much better. and without reaching SAT/GRE words/synonyms.
Here are some things that make me feel [a little] better about the state of things...
ReplyDelete1. Sweden
2. Rachel Maddow
3. The Colbert Report
4. Culver's Frozen Custard, particularly the cookie dough concoction.
5. Fantasy novels, tv shows, movies to distract from reality. Hmmm... :/
In all seriousness, we're all just going to have to try to keep working at not just being U.S. citizens, but also citizens of the world. To try to keep bitterness at bay, and to continue to care about others. To try to put our individual talents to work in a positive way. Finally, to make sure to teach our children and our children's children the importance of striving to serve humanity in some capacity and to stand for equality.
I believe Carolyn related a particularly apt story relating to this subject when we visited her and I will always think of it when things seem too overwhelming to make a difference. It was something like, "although I may only change the lives of people in a few blocks of NY, I am satisfied that I made a difference in my tiny corner of the world and each life that is improved, matters." I think, Ryeon, that you may long for a scale of change that can only happen after several small changes have occurred and small changes are often no less important than the big ones. At some point, you have to trust other people - trust that their are other people who share you beliefs and that all of these people do their small part, perhaps something big will happen. I think your friend are proof enough that you're not alone in wanting to make a difference and we all have our owns ways of making change.
ReplyDeleteoh p.s. i just listened to this american life's "scenes from a mall" and feel better in the charitable, humanist sense of the word toward these shopping complexes. and thanks for your posts! reminders are always useful...and i sort of wanted to try taking out some annoyance with some amateur dfw syntax.
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