And found this.
I originally wrote this in 2006 in a very different time in my life. It was a very different time in all of our lives to tell the truth. But there's still something about it that resonates to me.
I hope that all of you enjoy.
But if you don't, remember this was written by an idealistic college student who didn't know the real world. It took me two more years to graduate with my bachelor's and move on to graduate school. Two more years from there before I actually entered the workforce and saw what the real world was like.
Damn, I was a different person—a kid—back then. :)
LIFE
For years, I’ve wanted to say
something profound. I’ve been wanting to
say something that would make everyone go “shit” or “wow” or something
exclamatory, and thing that that kid, that guy, hit the nail right on the
head. That day has been a long time in
coming, and to tell the truth, it probably will never arrive. It would be too much if I were to peak
now. That just isn’t life. But then again maybe it is.
Last time I checked, life was a
pretty fucked up gig. I mean I have
heard of some messed up stuff before, but life is just one of those
things. The joke between men and women
is that just when a man comes close to figuring out how the game is played, the
women go and change the game. But life
not only changes the game but the rules also.
What was once a foul, now will send you directly to go where you will
get $200. It doesn’t make any sense.
But that is the beauty of it. It never will, as long as we let it. And yes, it is up to us to make it
change.
We are a culture who is obsessed
with the latest gossip about Bradalina, or what happened last week on Impetuous
Homemakers, or the latest CD coming out.
We look for solutions amidst ads of women’s perfume and dromedary
cigarettes. Our kids debate which is
better, the big, purple dog or the red dinosaur. The media tells us what to wear, what to do,
what to think?
Where does that leave us? In years before, generations had things to
rally around. Our parents had Vietnam,
our grandparents the Nazis, our forefathers the Stamp Act; but we are a
generation in a void. What rally cry do
we have? Iraq? Sure.
Which side do you want? Global
warming? What global warming? It is
colder now than it has been before.
Animal rights? I like my meat.
We are a generation that is lost in
nothingness. We want hope in our
breakfast cereal, love in our job, and absolution in our sex. We are obsessed with being happy and not upsetting
anyone. We are offended by people profiling,
but yet we buy music that openly uses such phrases as “niggers” and “bitches
and hos”. Our lives are contradictions
upon contradictions. We look to sports
stars to teach us wrong from right, and are shocked when they use “performance
enhancers”. The family has been degraded
to such a place that if a mother has the AUDACITY to reprimand her child for
throwing a fit in a store, that she will have child services called on
her. It is suddenly Un-American to
question President Shrub when the freedom to question is one of the key points
of our country.
This is the world that our children
are growing up in. A world where common
sense is outlawed and intelligence banned.
Where we are scorned for following the rules and rewarded for
cheating.
Where has the happiness gone? When did it become fashionable to brag about
being lonely or to drink yourself into a stupor each night? Day in and day out we drug ourselves through
the pain of another day, just to have the life sucked slowly out of us.
We must cut ourselves free.
I listen to people complain that
they cannot fly. I hear people bitch
that they are constrained by rules and politics. That they are unhappy with
what they have and nothing seems to make it better. We all know them. They stand there, day after day, slowly dying
and doing nothing.
Life is an interesting thing. We hear the turn of phrase “Get a life” and
think of it meaning for us to get more into the grove of the culture. The ironic thing is that instead of freeing
us, it binds us tighter.
When things get tough, we talk
about just putting one foot in front of the other and just trying to make our
way to the next day. We put our heads
down and force our way forward, despite everything else. But the thing is, that it will slowly kill
us, just as the daily grind will.
Life begs to be lived. We need to look up. We wish to dull the pain, but the pain is
what tells us we live. What would evil
be if there was no good? What would
black be without white? How can we truly
know happiness without knowing the depths that the spirit can fall? What is height without depth?
By crushing one, we crush all.
Without a rallying cry, each person
in our generation must find their own.
Sometimes they will scream it loud and long and never be joined. But sometimes others will join in. And then we won’t be alone. We fear to be alone, but we fear rejection
more. No one understands me.
Bull.
We are never alone. Our supports are always there, we just need
to know where to look. To explore. We feel that the popular people must be
happy—look at their groupies. But a man
with too many friends has none.
We must cut the ties that
bind. We must free our minds until they
are alone and then we can bind them to friends, to family, to lovers, and even
to haters. Instead of looking for
happiness in the bottom of a box of Cracker Jill’s, we need to find it within
ourselves and what we already have.
"But it isn’t that easy," the masses say.
The thing is….. it is. We really don’t know what we have until we
lose it, or think we have. We really
don’t know what we can do until we do it.
We really don’t know anything about ourselves until we push ourselves to
the limit and beyond. What I am talking
about is not a physical thing, but rather a mental or spiritual thing. Only we can judge our self worth, and if you
have to drink yourself to sleep each night, or over the letter “M”, what does
that say?
As we go through life and hear the
commercial jingles and see the sex on TV, we must stop—completely—and
think. How much of this is real? Will it really help us through the crucible
and save us? Can we trust those pushing their ideas? Or can we trust ourselves
and those around us?
Who am I to judge for you? All I know is that there is hope for
everyone. Redemption is not just an idea
from whatever god you believe in, but nor is it something given away by them. Redemption can only come from
within. When we have a clear
conscience, we are truly free.
And then we can live.