Broken Pattern

    I take it back. Valentine’s Day isn’t about all the bullshit about being in love and giving gifts, be them sexual or chocolate, though both are delicious. No, Valentine’s Day is about the idea of love. Giving roses back and forth doesn’t mean “I’m gonna plow you hard tonight”, it means “I love you”, be it a friend, a lover, or even someone you just met. The Beatles had it right with all you need. The day is to let those around you know how you care and appreciate them.
    Today I had the greatest Valentine’s thus far, despite the fact that I sought out to destroy the holiday. I may have lost my lunch date to her actual boyfriend and failed to enter the museum for a needed school report, but by 5:20pm I was bright eyed and cheery. People, some of whom I least expected, showered me with gifts or praise and forced a smile upon my face. Today’s not about sex, it’s about friends. Of course, if you’re really lucky, the two are one in the same.

Valentine’s Day isn’t a holiday; holidays are celebrated by all and everyone gets to have a great time. No, Valentine’s Day is a big “haha, fuck you you loser” to everyone who’s single. Not only do we have to watch couples walk around together throughout our normal daily lives, but we have to go through a whole day constantly being reminded how alone we are. While lovers hand each other gifts of flowers, chocolates, and sex, the rest of us go home, saddened, and jerk off while we cry.

    Right now we’re living in one of the most interesting times of our current history: the downfall of our current state of civilization. Just like the Romans and the Greeks, our “civilized” empire is coming to it’s final stage: collapse. Though many would find this to be a frightening idea, or reality, the truth of the matter is that it had to happen sooner or later and we’re fortunate enough to be around for the driving elements that are causing it.
    Nowadays the reasons are all around us; mass marketing, appealing to the lowest common denominator, and a hyperactive sense of consumerism. While we could go on and list all of these tragic catalysts, for now it’d be more interesting to look for the original perpetrators of this movement. For this we must travel back to the age before flavoured water and Reese’s Wafer Sticks to a somewhat simpler time: the late 1990’s.
    Here we can find what I figure to be one of the earliest causes to the change we see in today’s society, a simple film that desensitized myself, including numerous children my age at the time. The movie I’m referring to is Austin Power’s: International Man of Mystery. Looking back on it today, the movie still stands to be a pivotal film in my childhood as I can remember how eager my friends and I were to see it at Harley Applebaum’s 7th birthday party. The twenty-something group of 7 year olds left the theatre changed from the way we entered, though it took me 11 years to realize this.
    The movie was chockfull of sexual innuendoes, bathroom humour, and all the other greats that were lost in the 60’s. However, in doing so, it brought all those ideas back to my generation: the children of the baby boomers. Perhaps this was a subconscious fuel for the pseudo hippie movement that fell over my peers last year.
    Back to the point, this film was one of the earliest violators of my childhood innocence, not to mention the animated Spawn series as well as South Park. And so it’s on stimulators like these that I attribute our civilization’s collapse on as oppose to drugs, sex, and rock and roll, all though I’m not too sure that the Rap movement helped much either. Am I sad? No. Am I upset? No. I’m excited and eager to see what follows, and only hope that I can live well into my children’s years so I can not only experience, but see what awaits us simple little things called humans.

New Years is a fake holiday, and resolutions are wannabe gifts. All these civilizations over the years choose a new method of counting the year and none of them can ever stick to a simple principle. Over the time we’ve developed lunar calendars, solar calendars, and even fiscal calendars. The Sumerians, mayans, chinese, jews and christians all have their own calendars too. So who are we to celebrate a certain day as the beginning of a year?
Now, time to shit on resolutions. You shouldn’t have to wait for a certain day to decided you’re going to change your life. You should be changing your life around all the time, and you shouldn’t have to wait for a certain day to put it into effect. As soon as you realize how to better yourself and your life, do it, immediately, or at least as soon as you can. Why wait? A whole year may go by if you do.

It takes getting away to realize what you’ve left behind. We tend to hear this a lot when we talk about people passing away; how we never got to know them or how you wished you told them something or had that one conversation you never got around to. But this is the light version.
When you go on vacation, you realize what you miss the most, which in turn let’s you know what’s most important to you. The time away from certain friends and people made me realize that I love them, even though I wasn’t with them or in communication with them. In fact, that’s how I realized.
There was something missing; my life was incomplete. When I thought about them, I was happier. When I talked with other people the way I talk with them, something came back. When I listened to what they had given me, it was almost like they were there, next to me, speaking to me through different means.
Only during these past two weeks have I realized how hard it’s going to be to get away from it all. Usually it’s no big problem, because I know that everything will be waiting for me when I get back. But soon, it won’t be just me leaving, a lot of people are gonna start to disperse, and not all of us are going to come back, especially at the same time. It’s nice to know that what we’ve had and shared can never be taken away, and that as long as there’s a will, there’ll be a way for us to stay together.

I was waiting by the bus stop the other day when i realized why I never really made it a point to learn the lyrics to the songs I like. There’s no point in doing it nowadays; with lyric websites and digitized audio you can listen to and read the same song over and over again until you’ve successfully memorized the words and the tune. There’s no grand achievement in it anymore. When it used to count you had to painstakingly listen to the music while it played on vinyl, remembering what you could each time and discussing with friends and colleagues to find out the lyrics that escaped you. It was backbreaking work. And why was it done? So you could sing the song to yourself whenever and wherever you liked because you sure as hell didn’t have an iPod to do it for you.

Pulp Fiction

Here’s the secret: Three years ago Facebook was bought over by the Governement for the most elaborate plan of psychological identifying and brain washing. Yeah, I went there. Today for the first time I realized that the, what is normally “Ok” on most everything, instead they use “Okay”. In an attempt for them to create the most manipulative generation of consumers, they can easily pin-point their main targets into funds to reap maximum income. In fifty years, “higher” civilization will be nothing more than a money cycling machine.

Of course, this all goes on without anyone being the wiser, save for intellectual artists and people listening to California Waiting by Kings of Leon. But think of where we are. With global communication programs we’ve endowed ourselves with, we’ve muted ourselves to single cells of imagery. Of course, it’s grown now to include some visual footage, but to see so many people and know nothing about them aside for their visual appearance and presumed “identity”?

I haven’t written anything for a long ass time and it’s starting to piss me off. Usually I go through all of these preliminary emotions before I start writing but I figure it’d be interested to get that much deeper into the mind of the writer for once. See if you can follow me along for the ride.

What follows in a, well actually, I’m not sure yet. Hopefully it will be what seems to be an obscure rambling of thoughts that tie up nice and fashionably in the end. It’s going to cover a lot of topics, many of which I’ve probably covered by now. I guess you can say I’m easing into a sort of mood. Unfortunately, this may lead to less diversity. Seeing how I change my mind up on what I plan on doing with my life about once a month, although keeping it along a certain topic/guideline, I can only hope the same will mirror in my writing. For those of you who didn’t get that: If my writing starts to get too repetitive I’ll change it because that’s the kind of guy I am.

I figure there’s a bunch of different ways to go about life. Despite this being my original idea based on everything that’s happened to me, I’ll cite the nature vs nurture argument for safety. These past few weeks I’ve been enjoying life to the fullest, despite finding out in humanities class that we’re all just vehicles for genes. Yea, life is meaningless..but that does allow oneself a lot more time to have fun. Think about it.

The idea of making one’s own destiny always seemed farfetched and magical, but it’s not. I’ve chosen to be optimistic and happy for these past few weeks because the ones before them were good too. But eventually it falls into a swell when I realize I’m only being happy for the sake of being happy. Then something magical happens, ie something good you didn’t see coming, and you’re legitimately happy again. It’s a nice cycle.

Theses little tid bits of joy can arise from almost anything. Hanging out with a six year old for hours upon hours (we’re talking 12) or being able to talk to friends and loved ones, even if it’s a non-symbiotic (there’s definitely an actual word for this term) relationship. Kicking back, relaxing and accomplishing no great feet for a day can be fun too. Sure, maybe it’s a wasted day, but it’d better than wasting a day studying for math and science, especially when you have no interest in it.

Speaking of which, there has to be something wrong if so many students are studying courses and going into fields that they have no interest in. We’re here for a short time, not a long time, so have a good time to paraphrase Trooper (that’s what I think the reworking of the lyrics should be, IMHO). Life’s a sweet game that we get to play one time. Why should we waste so much time of it banging our heads against doors we don’t even care about opening when we can easily walk through the ones that interest us? Personally, I blame the parents.

I think one of my life goals is to create the perfect Utopia. They always have flaws. Getting rid of money, and the whole idea of monetary value would be the first thing I’d do. After that it’d be religion. If you need to talk to god, get spiritual. Make your own path to ascertain divine righteousness (whoa, good words). That’s what it’ supposed to be about, no? Connecting on a personal level with your beliefs. We tend to forget the word “organized” when we talk about religion. Think about it.

That about ends it, guess I don’t accomplish my goal of creating a full cycle of thought, unless you count me going over this and the fact that I ended the “first” and “last” paragraphs with “Think about it.” But here’s the beauty. Tonight, I sought to write something, and that’s what I did. I didn’t focus on the glamour of syntax and order, nor was I determined to create magnificent words of wisdom. I wanted make a connection between my brain and the reader, and even if I didn’t do it the official way, I did it my way, I’m happy with the outcome, and that’s what counts as a writer. Think about it.

Buddha’s Belly

I always lock the door when I go to the bathroom. I have to assume that this stated back when I was much younger, probably due to the fear that someone would walk in on. Since then it’s grown into a pure habit. Even now, as I enter my bathroom and close the door, I turn to make sure the door is closed and already the latch is fastened. I’ve become some sort of door locking prodigy.

I remember talking long ago to someone about me and bathrooms and how comforting they are; just you, a sink, a toilet, a bathing mechanism, and a mirror. It’s the perfect setting for “me time”. No computers or phones, no bells or whistles. I suppose that’s another reason I keep the door locked. The bathroom is like my own private study. I can stay there for as long as I want without fear of being disrupted.

The bathroom allows time for reflection. Sure, I have breaks during the day, be it riding on the bus or walking around, but often those times are clouded with music or setting up lists or working out ideas that have to do with school and life. The bathroom allows time to think beyond that, to focus on the trivial, the mundane, even the magnificent. Bathroom dreaming is one of my favourite sports.

Maybe it has something to do with the readily accessible water. Finally, we can full control this cornerstone element. The sound of running water is ever sweet, and what more can you ask for than a personal waterfall subject to your choice of temperature. Perhaps it takes us back to a primitive state when we were more in touch with the nature around us; humans and dolphins do have a unique relationship.

Whatever the case, locking the door ensures privacy and a sense of safety and comfort. Even when I’m home alone and all the doors are locked, when I shower the bathroom door gets locked as well. I figure I can at least finish my peaceful time in my personal sanctuary before falling victim to home invasion if the case ever arises.