Z's thoughts

First of all, I have been reading James Thurber and I truly feel as if I am the 'him' of my generation. I don't have a specific focus like he lacks but just a general insight into what the hell is going on. My memoirs wouldn't be of any significance but simply a reflection of events from my life (like his). I like how his comic depictions include pictures of drunken social events because I personally romanticize previous decades to the point where none of that happened. Yet thanks to Thurber I can see that we as a society are not far off from our past. Eerie to think of this. I believe that each generation likes to think of itself as the hardest, best, most prominent of whatever it is they are doing. In this instance I refer to drinking/partying. Well according to James we aren't trend setting squat! I like this guy. He enjoys sounding smart, is humble in his position yet knows he has a purpose (although I don't know if he ever figured it out). I
identify with this guy on so many levels. I have a fucking masters and am petrified that I have no direction still. I have people who believe in me, such as Biggsy, but I don't still. I have noticed that every teacher I have encountered believed wholeheartedly that they were first and foremost teachers, I don't. This is what I lack. I believe that I am a writer. An artist, I have a dozen wasted good ideas a day. Just today I thought about a killer idea for a series of bumper stickers that will never come to fruition. I'm a tortured idea-guy who just needs one of his things to stick. But how? That's the prob, I have literally had over ten good mediocre-selling ideas which never panned out. But I just want to do them for the money. I am not driven to go and recruit some engineer to create my QVC/infomercial ideas. I just wanna sell the ideas to someone who can so that I can live comfortably with the love of my life because that is what I truly
believe the meaning of life to be about. I wanna live comfortably so that I have the freedom to do as I please. However I wanna change the world at the same time. Yet my memoirs are still simply drunken/interesting stories as James Thurbers are. Am I truly a tortured soul who sees things as others do not? Or am I as perceptive as the drunken assholes who bumped into me obliviously at the bar tonight? Am I special or not? Does everyone think like this? So many questions. Do I really want the answers? I don't think so. I have the gift and the curse of having something that the world needs but not knowing exactly what it is. Am I fine with random ramblings as my contribution to this world? Did Thurber care? When did he learn that he was special?

FRIENDS:
I was reminded today about how loose the term friends relates to us. A conversation with a 23 year old reminded me of the friends I had when I was that age. Roughly 25% of them remain. The significance is that at the time I couldn't have imagined ever not being friends with them. Now they are simply memories which aren't even mourned after (in fact quite opposite). This also leads me to question the friends I have now. I truly believe that they will be here in my life forever but I would be naive to think so based on past experiences. Yet here I am cherishing each and every one of them. I was hurt today by my closest friend. Barring the possibility that he got seriously injured, he in effect stood me up. Our time is limited because of familial and geographical circumstances and so time together is quite cherished by both (so much so that we inevitably ruin plans with others because we have such fun together and do not want it to end). This
evening however I was the one who got pushed aside for fun. Friends aren't supposed to let you down but they do. And you are still their friends because you know that you yourself have let them down before as well. Sometimes there is one who is less reliable than yourself but because of the established bond it is all simply understood. But understood doesn't mean that being let down doesn't hurt any less. Instead of writing this blog I should have been in a drunken haze of laughter and brotherhood. Yet here I am sucking on the salty-ness of tobacco pouches and beer, alone. I don't mean to invoke sympathy for the author (myself) but more so a kinship among friends who have been hurt before. You are not alone.

MONEY:
I down play the significance of money as much as I uphold it. I admitted that what I wanted to do was for monetary gain in all truthfulness. I do not like money yet see its role in reality. Perhaps this is why I go about gaining it so lackadaisically. I don't want it to be foremost in my decisions but want it to come as a by product of them. But I run into the problem of wondering what in the hell is so special about myself that makes people want to spend money on my ideas or writings. Writing well is, I suppose, a curse like any other talent that one can possess. If you have always had a certain talent then you are unaware that others lack the talent for which you have. If you've always been good at gardening then you may be blissfully unaware that others cannot garden themselves. Growing a plant is easy and what makes you so special that others would want to pay you for your services?

SOCIETAL PROGRESSION:
Are we truly a people who keep swinging on the pendulum of extremes? Will we ever settle into a nice mid range? Where are we now on the pendulum? Is there only one pendulum that swings? Can we ever have true progress? To these I answer... We are indeed on pendulums (plural) which we seem to be going to further and further extremes with some while settling to a nice middle ground with others. The notion of sex and extreme feelings are two issues which we are on the far extremities of. We are not a society who gets sad or involved with anything. We have to be amazingly pissed off or incredibly obsessed with any and everything. We are so over saturated with everything that the only way to get our attention is by evoking an extreme reaction. This has, I believe, dire consequences for our generation and other generations to come. This is why divorce rates are so high (not solely but a major contributor). This type of thinking creates specialists
who are only highly capable in a minute field of interests. A people who are consumed by such things overwhelmingly is much like a high-school-like culture. We cannot be destined for this as a fate. Yet here we are, buzzing from one television series to the next. Yet in order to move on we have to bad-mouth the previous 'big thing' in order to justify moving to the next. The last thing wasn't just something we enjoyed any more, it is now the thing which we despise and hate. Perhaps culture has been like this forever but I can only comment on what I see now. It is the a constant struggle to be in the 'in' crowd. And it is the fucking fickle, disturbed, emotionally overcharged, petty, and ignorant masses who are making the decisions of what is societally important and cool. Peoples led like this are doomed for nothingness. A blip on the pendulum or a force so powerful that it keeps the pendulum swinging to yet another extreme (which means that
it will take yet another series of generations to slow the progress). By saying this you could assume that I strive for a society that is at the middle of all history's pendulums. I am. The middle does not constitute a settling of values but an understanding of everyones' values and therefore a fair mix of all things in moderation. What then does a society do that is theoretically in the middle? Do they even exist? Do they exist as a mark of the human progression? How fun would that be? Who would I be in such a society? Would I then be a pendulum-swinger? One who starts something? One who I am arguing against in my very own speech? Does any of this banter even matter?

RELATIONSHIPS:
Until you are in a good one you have no idea. If the average lifespan is 60 years of age (I believe it to be higher) then I am only half capable of sticking to the belief. I am only 29 yet believe myself to have incredible, extraordinary perception into the human psyche. But how would I be confronted by myself in fifteen years? For now I will forgo this inevitability and move on with what I think I know. Age does not simply denote knowledge however it is a trustworthy gauge of it. We are a society that is living longer yet we still hold onto some norms such as getting married in your twenties. When the average lifespan was 35 to 60 years this wasn't an issue (perhaps it was but fear of being alone after such an age forced couples to stay wed). We still adopt the mantra of finding 'the one' in our twenties while we are undoubtedly too affected by the fickle societal issues from last paragraph. Keeping religion out of it, marriage is a plague on
the American culture because we societally feel in such extremes (especially in our early/mid twenties) that we feel as if things will never change, could never be any better, etc... A person in their 30's feels inadequate if they are alone yet in reality they are much more capable of making a sound decision as to the type of person they truly are and therefore they type of person they should be with. Your twenties are a magical time when mistakes should be made and learned from. But this is not emphasized as a culture. What is emphasized is strong feelings of societal belonging, a move towards an adult lifestyle, and desire for a place on the pendulum. Essentially a puppet. I say that we should fight these notions and embrace our blatant hypocrisy! Much of our society is dependent upon entertainment for direction instead of themselves. Entertainment used to simply be for the sake of entertainment. Now, many young people are immersing themselves
in the entertainment business and it is essentially telling the rest of the world what and how to think. Once again extreme actions gain ratings and ratings equals viewers, thus leading us further into a society which is ran like the social fabric of a high school. No one thinks for themselves until they had at least one or more divorces... (which would normally put them past the age of mid twenties and therefore more capable of knowing themselves). I do concur with the critic who says that we can only learn from our mistakes. My rebuttal would be that I am chastizing our reliance on being an culture of extreme feelings and acceptance/anti-acceptance so that we may welcome feelings of uncertainess and hypocrisy where we can learn without the social stigma of having to whole-heartedly commit to this or that.

CONCLUSION:
What the fuck is wrong with us? Are we progressing as we should? Or regressing? Is regressing necessarily bad because if we did ultimately reach a true middle of the 'pendulum' would we want some regression? Is the notion of a pendulum even correct? My conclusion has no answers. Those can and should only be had by the reader because it is they who I am stressing should make up their own mind. Even if their mind is that of a young twenty-something year old at least they'd be making it up on their own!