All I want is a room somewhere
far away from the cold night air
with one enourmous chair
oh wouldn't it be lovely!
Lots of chocolate for me to eat
lots of coal mighty lots of it
warm hands, warm face, warm feet
oh wouldn't it be lovely
Lovely...
a. k. a. "'Cuz you only live once"
My generation seems to have discovered something trully amazing... that we only live once. I know, it's a great breakthrough, isn't it. I tell you, I can't imagine how these guys manage stuff like this.
Ok, serious now. When was the last time you met anyone or anything that didn't live just once?. People have been living once since the begining of time!!!. We don't know if the universe will get to live more than once, but best to not go down there.
So, seeing that everyone we ever knew has lived only once, why, all of the sudden, is everyone so FULL of this statement?. And by FULL I mean, making it a way of living.
The easiest, closest answer could perhaps be found on the fact that religion, in the developed world at least (which is really all I know), has seen better times. Or, put simply, we don't believe in the afterlife anymore. And that's big stuff. Suddenly we are riped out of the comforting thought that no matter how bad things are down here, it will be all better when we pass away. But this is only a small part of the story, or it has been since the Middle Ages.
From my modest perspective, there's something else going on. It is not what completes the picture, but it's bound to be a part of it. That is the lack of ideals that abounds in today's society. No one believes in anything. The perfect way to ride the world has been firmly stablished. We are all well fed, warm, healthy, educated, and with plenty of money left to spend in other much less urgent things. Everything is peachy. Well, everything for US is. And that perfect way to ride the world that keeps us all well fed, warm, healthy, educated, and with plenty of money to spend REQUIRES that we 1) only care about having plenty of money to spend and 2) don't see beyond the self. The result is a selfish, hedonistic society, whose only interest is in making money and in enjoying life mainly from what we can get from money.
Here's something clear as the light of day. We will always have existencial anxiety. It stems from the fact that we are mortal and aware of it. It's part of our humanity. It's how we DEAL with it that can be changed. And in fact it has, all through human history.
Is there a RIGHT way to deal with it? I'm sure of it. Do I know it? Hell, no. Do I think anyone knows it?. Most definitely no. Usually, when I don't know the answer to something, I consider all the possibilities. And I think and think again. What I am most afraid is that these people who live under the "'Cuz you only live once" ideal, haven't really considered ALL the possibilities. I feel like they are merely swallowing what they've been raised on. And my biggest fear, is that they are going to get to their old age, look back and think "yeah, I've enjoyed the ride. But what's left AFTER I'm gone?"
I tried to ignore it, do something else with my time, I tried to let it be, but I can't; and besides, I haven't posted anything in a long time.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome, to the SUMMER BALL FROM HELL, where the breach between the rich and the poor makes its presence known once again, even amongst the, ehmm..., rich.
Tonight, there's something called "Summer Ball" organized in my university. Not really a "proper" ball, but hey. There are many things I can criticize about it. Most ot them, I've already expressed through the years since I became a teenager and was "forced" to participate in the "typical social gatherings for the young". Call it pub, bar or disco, on this side of the Atlantic Ocean or the other one, they all share the same unquestionable characteristics that I oh so intensily question. The vast amounts of alcohol, the darkness, the flashing lights, the noise (a. k. a. "music") at it's compulsory loudness, the cigarette smoke. Oh, wait, that last one is gone now. At least in this country, and from the 1st of July, smoking will be banned in most enclosed places. YAHOO-A!. And it only took us, what, 40 years since we discovered the link between smoking and cancer?. Way to go!. But back to the point, I won't start yet AGAIN on the reasons why I don't approve of all this. That's who I am and, just as the world is not willing to change, neither am I. It may make me miserable to live an almost non-existing social life as a result, but at least I will keep the few brain cells I was born with AND my lungs will be healthier.
This time, I'm focusing on something else. The PRICE of the entrance to this so-called Summer "Ball". In numbers, £40. That's right, 40 quit. 58-ish euros. 78-ish dollars. 228-ish Argentinian pesos. Cheese, my family can live of that for 2 weeks!. So, what do you get for this precious £40?. I have to recognise, I don't know the exact details (not interested, really). There is a "fair" of some kind, but given the obvious fact that the rides have to be unmountable AND safe, we can't really expect super dooper rollercoasters, can we?. There's also a live band, no idea who. They are the ones responsible for the "noise" I mentioned, nothing different to what you get on a typical disco on a typical night. So no New York Philharmonic, I'm afraid. What else... a big tent, tables and chairs (wooden ones, outside) and all the security you can dream of. Then there's the food and the drink. Lots of options!. And you better enjoy the options, because that's all you get. You are paying for the variety of food and drink available, not for the food and drink per se. And so, we've reached the point which I find most outrageous. NO FOOD. I don't know you, but for £40 I expect to be FED. And WELL FED, that is, not the fast food that they are getting. I said there were lots of options, I didn't mention their quality. You can't be very picky when your meal has to be cooked in a trailer, now, can you?. No silver spoon here, folks.
So, as anyone could have predicted, there is a breach between the ones who can afford the £40 and the ones who can't, as well as between the ones who are willing to spend £40 pounds on all the wonders the ball has to offer and the ones who think it's a very pricy excuse to get drunk in a posh outfit.
Now, there is something about this "ball" concept that I find puzzling. Given that the music is not really what we can call sophisticated, neither is the food, or the furniture, or the decorations, or the entertainment, why do they insist on a "black tie" dress code?. Anyone, any ideas?. It seems out of place to me. My idea of "black tie" goes along a "wedding like" ambient, where you sit at a table, you dance to an orchestra and you are surrounded by flower arrangements. I personally don't approve of the "black tie" dress code thing. Without any fear of sounding too patronizing, why, if everything is so vulgar and "tacky", do people still have to dress up to the nines?. It's beyond me.
On normal ocassions, I couldn't care less about the "Summer Ball" in question. I mean, apart from the obvious fact that the university is spending "fish" loads of money on something entirely pointless. However, this Summer Ball is different because this is my last year of University. And that's the reason why every single one of my classmates is there right now. They have the money AND the will to spend it, not one of them questioning it's amount OR it's worth.
Do I feel bad about not going? Yes and no. I would have liked to celebrate the end of my last year with a big party, but not necessarily with THIS big party. What pains me is that, because of of this stupind ball, no one seems interested in organizing another party. And so, on my last year of university, I am, once again, a social outcast. And I have, amongst others, my dear classmates to thank for this. For utterly ignoring me on the last and probably most important of the entirely pointless social gatherings for the young.
First, a word of caution. I do not idolize anyone, and that includes Einstein. I do not agree with every statement he made, but I do appreciate the ones shown below. And I don't particularly care if they were, indeed, made by Einstein or if they are mis-attributed. Things are true or they are not, regardless of the person who speaks them.
When you look at yourself from a universal standpoint, something inside always reminds or informs you that there are bigger and better things to worry about.
Albert Einstein, The World as I See It.
Great spirits have always encountered opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.
Albert Einstein, quoted in New York Times, March 13, 1940
The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.
Albert Einstein
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.
Albert Einstein
The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.
Albert Einstein
I am absolutely convinced that no wealth in the world can help humanity forward, even in the hands of the most devoted worker in this cause. The example of great and pure characters is the only thing that can produce fine ideas and noble deeds. Money only appeals to selfishness and always tempts its owners irresistibly to abuse it.
Man can find meaning in life, short and perilous as it is, only through devoting himself to society.
This is why the "media" or better put, "advertising", which is what feeds the media at the end of the day, should be better regulated. I find this literally disgusting.
Book Review from "Selling Anxiety: How the News Media Scare Women"
(...) As statistics report the rise in the number of women obtaining college and advanced degrees, the media increasingly tells them that this is a terrible mistake and that only by returning to traditional roles of wife and mother can women find true happiness.
(...) According to Rivers, these stories "sell" because they play to the fears of affluent women, one of the most desirable consumer markets.
Thank God for the BBC.
http://www.amazon.com/Selling-Anxiety-Media-Scare-Women/dp/1584656158
OK, enough of me being quiet. Let me say it blatantly clear,
IT IS NOT FUNNY
It is worrying, because it is becoming a valid form of humour. I am talking about all the offensive "comic" programs of the sort of "The Simpsons" and "South Park".
My idea of WHY it is there in the first place, is because my generation and the newer ones are utterly NUMB to all forms of human suffering. Mind you, they are NUMB to most things anyway, but few have such a BIG impact in society. The very thing that stops us beating each other up, the feeling of EMPATHY with other human beings, something so important and basic that we see it in animal groups, it's, well, not so important, really. And so we find human suffering funny. Blood, rape, murder, wrap it up and bring it in, so we can laugh, feel something, for a change. Never before have we been exposed to so much violence, and never before in such an utterly POINTLESS context. I will never approve of violence for ANY cause, but I have to admit that having people believing that violence is the inevitable price of a greater cause is definitely better than violence for the sake of it. Well, not really the sake of it. It's for "FUN". Or ART. Or both.
All these thinking was triggered by the OBSCENE amount of violence I see in a web page supposedly dedicated to the ART comunity, DEVIANTART. It's a web page where people upload their art. I was never expecting anything "meaningful" from it, as I think art should be. But one thing is to have meaningless drawings, and quite another is to have meaningles VIOLENCE. It appears that you can't produce a real work of art unless there's blood everywhere on it. "Meaningless" blood. No one is supporting anything behind it. There's NOTHING to justify the blood, appart from the need to call the viewer's attention. Oh yes, blood is bound to make an impression. And sex, plenty of it. And violence. Let's make a big thing out of nothing and get lots of attention. Popularity!. That's GOT to be ART!.
At the end of the day, these people come from our culture, so there is no surprise they have very little or no sensitivity at all. What makes it even sadder, is that they consider themselves artists. Maybe I got it terribly wrong, but I thought that artists where amongst the most sentitive of people.
To put it in few words: it's not FUNNY, there's people SUFFERING. And it's not ART, is just pointless "ATTENTION SEEKING".
Thank you
The "ART" community
I found this funny test on DeviantArt. You are supposed to open your music player, select "shuffle" and answer each of the following questions with each song in the order they come. In my case, I selected the 3 albums closest to my heart, The Sound of Music, The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast the Broadway Musical.
This is the result:
1. How does the world see you?
Home
(I doubt the world's image of myself is THAT close to the truth)
2. Will I have a happy life?
Kill The Beast
(Better not think too much about this one)
3. What do my friends think of me?
Fathoms Below
(Yep, this one seems quite exact)
4. Do people secretly lust after me?
The Sound of Music
(Meaning, NO)
5. How can I make myself happy?
DO-RE-MI
(YES!!! Absolutely true)
6. What should I do with my life?
Destruction of the Grotto
(I don't think so)
7. Will I ever have children?
Floatsom and Jetsom
(Jesus, I hope if I do, they don't come out as those 2!)
8. What is some good advice for me?
Climb Every Mountain
(YES!!! So RIGHT!!!)
9. How will I be remembered?
How Long Must This Go On?
(In other words, depressed, miserable, and hoping to DIE)
10. What's my signature dancing song?
Prologue
(Nope, totally wrong)
11. What's my current theme song?
Human Again
(whatever that means)
12. What do others think is my current themesong?
Processional and Maria
(nop, whatever)
13. What shall they play at my funeral?
If I Can’t Love Her (Reprise)
(Quite right, in some levels)
14. What type of men/women do I like?
Home (Reprise)
(That is quite true, actually)
15. How's my love life?
Kiss The Girl
(Not at the PRESENT, is NOT!!!)
16.My dreams are?
Be Our Guest
(HUH???)
17.-My death will be?
Belle (Reprise)
("Wanting more than this provincial life?")
18.-This year will be?
I Have Confidence
(God, I can only hope so)
19.- My mind is?
Eric To The Rescue
(TOTALLY TRUE! I couldn't have put it better myself)
20.- What is my destiny?
Tour of the Kingdom
(???)
This was a hell lot of fun! Maybe I should do it again, selecting previously the songs that are most important to me.
It does seem like a modern equivalent to reading your cards, doesn't it? Nothing means anything in particular, but depending on how you choose to interpret it, it might mean a LOT.
GAAAAHHH, I feel like HELL! Thank GOD no one ever reads this!
What is wrong with me? I don't want to do ANYTHING! I have lots of things to do for my course, but I can't!. It's horrible!. And it's not like I want to do something "else". Apart from leaving this planet, there's nothing I would really like to do now.
I think the word for this is "NUMB". I AM NUMB. To every stimuli. Wish I could just wake up with lots of energy to do work!
What do I want? WHAT DO I WANT TO DO WITH MY LIFE?
Not in vain suicide seems the most reasonable option SO often.
