And the ants go marching down...

Sometimes…I just don’t get it. What have we as a society become? We love to bitch and moan while sitting back and sniping out ideas, movements, and any idea that does not agree with ours. The world has become so consumed with hatred and has become so polarized that we have left no room for any type of unity or self understanding. Instead of standing up and making moves in order to better our society, one in which we all have staked our lives on, we’d rather sit on the bench, eat junk food out of a super sized bag while transfixing ourselves on reality television. As our asses become bigger and more acclimated to the seat cushions of our patent leather couches our minds continue to get smaller and smaller. The intellectual capacity of society has drastically diminished to the point where we have neither the patience nor the capability to view multiple points of view. Instead we choose the path of least involvement. If I something is presented to us that conflicts with the views that we have engrained in ourselves, we immediately dismiss it. There is no time for us to study and make one’s self familiar with said subject. Instead we either shoot it down immediately or we attack it with such fervor that beads of sweat begin to roll down our chunky foreheads and into our half closed eyes placing us in the darkest recesses of inconsideration. There is no room for debate. There is only room for argumentative stances. There is no room for acceptance. There is only room for defiance and anti-whatever the fuck it is this week. We have not become sheep. We have become lemmings; marching one by one off of the steepest cliff and into the deepest abyss of apathy. Our lives have become closed and our most trusted companion is a tube that feeds us unending programs of bullshit. With the amount of information that has become available at the tips of our fingers, we choose to let our ability to form intelligent and cohesive opinions diminish. The folks who came before us understood that to change our ways, we had to move as a unit. We had to march as one to a unified goal. Along the journey it was fine if we disagreed, as long as we understood that the discussions that evolved from such disagreements were serving the purpose of only strengthening our resolve, a resolve that insisted in the betterment of our society. We don’t have that anymore. Instead we have warring factions, positioned on either side of the fence, waiting in eager anticipation for a fuck up on the other side so that they can unlace their boots and hurl them over. The disharmony that has festered for years is beginning to boil over. The aptitude to comprehend that which we do not understand is dying a quick death leaving a future that was once filled with hope, mired in obscurity.

Reality Check

Sometimes you just sit and wonder: When is shit going to get better? You try and do your best to live up to the standard that has been behooved upon us. It has been preached that we can accomplish whatever it is we set our mind to. Maybe that is true, or maybe it's just true for those select few whose paths have already been laid out. However, why is it that some of the smartest people I know are some of the most disadvantaged people I know? There's a guy I know who can quote almost every piece of William Butler Yeats that you can possibly imagine. His speech is eloquent and his comprehension of literature is vast. His knowledge is not the off the wall trivia bullshit Ala Jeopardy, instead his learnedness has a breadth and width that is vast enough to take even the most inane conversation to the brink of an epiphany. With this deep background and ability to dissect even the most obscure passage, you would think that he was a college professor or even a man of letters. Nope. The man worked for the water company of Alameda, taking test samples of still water, putting them in vials, wrapping the vials in plastic, placing them in a small cardboard box and then placing them in an even larger cardboard box. This is what he did from 8am to 4:30pm every single day for 8 years until they laid him off. Now, when you pose the question: How the hell did you end up there? His reply, "Well, I never really went to school".

Our definition of knowledge is a farce. When you walk into a job interview, the first thing they look to is your experience and then where it is you got your degree from. My question is how fucking valid is that degree? I knew a kid who got his degree by cheating on every test and copying the homework of every good looking honey he could find. Now, he has a degree from The University of Santa Clara and a prestigious job as a hedge fund manager in the city of San Francisco. The degree he attained is amazing in the eyes of the everyday public, but in terms of being a learned individual it means fuck all. What he holds is a piece of paper signed by a former movie star governor. Ask him to dissect a passage by Eudora Welty and watch the ums fly. Plop him down in front of a desk and place a myriad of geometry and calculus problems in front of him and good fucking luck. Yet in society's eyes the cheater with the piece of paper is considered a far more valuable piece of man power then the self taught, hard working, water packer. Now, I am pretty sure I am not the only who wishes to say this, but to put is as succinctly as possible: What the fuck is up with that? When did we as a society put such value on state approved curriculum and expensive pieces of paper with stamps on them? Maybe Darwin was incorrect after all. Maybe the strong aren't the only ones to survive. Maybe the cheating, paper yielding douchebags are the ones to rule the earth. I don't know about you, but I'm hoping for a pretty big asteroid at this juncture. What say you?

Staring at the world through my rearview...

We all look back and wonder what could have been. What if I had done this better? What if I had picked up the phone and called him one last time? What if I wasn’t such a dick? The results of our current situation are the scars of the life that we’ve inflicted upon ourselves. Yet what if the scars that we've been adorned with were the best things to happen to us? I remember spending my summers in Ongole, India, on the third floor of my grandfather's house just watching the sun set on another gloriously hot day. While the pavement cooled beneath my bare feet I could hear the playful bickering and incessant taunting between my mother and her siblings. In that moment, it meant nothing. It was just another day and in all likelihood I was bored out of my mind. But, looking back now, those moments were some of the best of my life. The smells and sounds are ones I can never forget. The smell of dust and the nightly meal being prepared, coupled with the sounds of rickshaw drivers strumming their bells and the vegetable merchants calling out the specials of the day still pierce all the senses embedded within me. These moments are the ones I remember, because it is these moments that I failed to appreciate at the time. The house where my grandfather raised his family still stands, but he is no longer with us. And the pack of my mother's siblings has dwindled from a strong foundation of five to just three. The venue that housed us all and which was once filled with life, is now empty and filled only with the voices of past conversations and the unappreciated steps we once laid upon the unrefined cement. The most egregious part of it all is I never got to tell them how much it all meant. I never got to pick up the phone and tell them how much even the most inconsequential moment of one summer shaped the way I am today. As a kid, time is it at a standstill. The way we presented ourselves and lived our lives was predicated on the assumption that all those we loved and cherished would be with us for the rest of our lives. The moments ingrained in us today did not hold that same sanctity when we were actually living through them. Unfortunately, all that is good never lasts. Instead we are left with memories and an infinite amount of "what ifs". To reckon that we are the controllers of our time is but a fool's dream. So when you wake up tomorrow, whether it be brushing your teeth or driving to work, savor the moment and be one with time instead of letting it pass you right on by. Because in the end, "that's all life is really, a series of moments".


***Please forgive the corny aura of this post. After we all have our moments of bathing in corn syrup.***

A Rant:

Old Traditions. Sure they can be cherished and followed, but at what point do the rules of old impede one’s ability to grow? They say that the voice of the elders is one to be cherished and followed. Honestly, I’ve never heard a bigger piece of bullshit. Who’s to say that those that came before us had any real knowledge or insight to bestow? Honestly, look at the state of the world today. There are two warring factions the conservatives versus the liberals. The liberals deem themselves the progressives and akin to the hearts and thoughts of the free. The conservatives view themselves as the upholders of the status quo and the keepers of free hearts and effective thoughts. It may be accurate and some of what they say may hold in the long run, but in the end their positions and their stances are buoyed only to serve their own self interests. Knee deep in a war on terror where the battle lines have been drawn on two fronts, neither side is willing to join together. Instead while young soldiers die fighting for what some rich bureaucrat believes is the correct cause, the talking heads on Television continue to peddle the antics of the political elite. Bitching and moaning and drawing lines in the social landscape and dividing what is to be the United States of America. They say that the World War II generation was the greatest generation. They say that what they fought for and all that they accomplished is what catapulted the nation to the so called pinnacle of civilization. This may be true. However, what made them great is that the foe that they united against was evil in its purest form. A ring leader of mass genocide and a staunch advocate of superficial hate that evolved into deep hatred towards a particular group of people. The greatest generations’ goal was clear and the effects of what would have happened if they failed, dire. Their objective was not to divide their own people in times of crisis, but to unite them against an inhuman enemy. Now a new enemy has emerged, a faceless enemy that hides in the shadows waiting to wreak havoc on the innocent. They wait to commit atrocities that are unfathomable due to the lines and stances created by bureaucrats in power. Yet these older men with their traditions and cherished agendas do not choose to unite us. Instead they continue to place a wedge within the psyches of the public with their divisive dialogue and their “you’re either with us or against us” speeches. There is a freedom to speak, that is true, and it is the most powerful gift that can be bestowed upon any group of citizens. However, please note that there has never been a law put in place where we have to listen. The elders have lost their touch. With the spread of technology and the ability to create and sustain intelligent conversation instantaneously with anyone across the globe, the ability to amalgamate has never been easier. When the people unite and fight against plans of action that they feel are harmful to themselves and their future relations, it is their duty to hear us. They don’t hear us anymore, lost in their corruption and the unmitigated dissolution of their morals; we are placed in a position where a myriad of indecent people are leading the social agenda. In the end these people who were to look out for us and to protect us and keep us in a state of progression have failed us all. Whether liberal or conservative, their platforms are weak and their so called words of wisdom have fallen on deaf ears. The respect and cherishment of the elders is no longer a necessity and it is time to simply tell them to fuck off. The time has come to shed the old way of thinking and to bequeath our respect and admiration to those who do not serve their own self interest. As a wise man once said, “I was given this world I didn’t make it”. And by golly, look at what they have placed before us. A cereal bowl full of shit and a carton of expired milk in which to nourish ourselves. As a free thinking individual with the intellectual propensity to know right from wrong, I for one will no longer partake in the meals that they choose to serve us.

The First Post

Sniff, sniff...you smell that? Smells like my first post. It smells of monkey feces. So I guess I must first apologize for the stench. Moving on, I never understood this blogging shit. My initial reaction was: What's the point of reading something posted by a random individual who is completely inconsequential to anothers life. But, after serious contemplation, I realized that there in lies the mother fucking point. Why the fuck not? We weren't all born with the writing prowess of a J.D. Salinger or a Ralph Waldo Emerson, but to deny that our emotions and/or feelings are any less important because seniors in high school aren't being subjected to its prose on a quarterly basis...well that's just asinine. This is a new age. This is the age where the bullshitters and the underachievers unite. This is where we get together to celebrate our mediocrity. After all isn't that what life is all about? Connections? To find someone, rather anyone, who exists on the same mental plateau is not to be scoffed at. Finding someone you can shoot the shit with all day and into the night is something that is to be treasured. So my fellow bloggers, here we stand. If you've got some shit to say, say it. If you've got some shit to write, write it. And if you have a penchant for anything well, this is most definitely the spot. So until next time...Cheers.