Stepping back, one wonders what a true “original thing” could ever look like. Plato’s forms? Realistically, we’re all the mash-ups and remixes of our experiences, parents’ experiences, genetics, and pop culture shoved down our throats. The reason you can laugh at some joke I make about Pokemon Go is because you grew up with it too, not because, in my infinite wisdom, I created this new and awesome thing I thought it pertinent for us to work into our memories.
I don’t need to labor on about this level of criticism. It’s just so...well, unoriginal. Like every lazy person who thought they would step up and “criticize” me, it’s this limp wristed slap like “oh you! I think you suck!” where the word “criticism” doesn’t really apply. I literally had someone tell me, “the existentialists already exist and phrased things more deliberately and clearly than you. People can just read them!”
I implore you, point me in the direction of people who not only read, but colloquially reflect on the existentialists, and I’ll take my drivel to their front door. Yeah, he denied me an answer as to where those cool kids rock out as well. More to the point, since when is something done being thought about simply because someone got to it first? Philosophers are full of terrible ideas. If you don’t find a way to expound or contradict them, you’re not really putting this thinking thing to task.
Lazy. People are so lazy. Once more we need a reference from Waking Life about whether fear or laziness is the most prevalent human characteristic. I think it’s a trick question and they work in tandem.
When you’re not lazy you even bother to quote a line. You ask someone a question. You offer your opposing thought. Merely degrading someone doesn’t count. Lobbying adjectives and empty nods to your opinion about what is or isn’t worthwhile to read won’t cut it either.
It’s from here that it occurred to me that I like to argue. Some of you may be screaming, “DUH, MOTHER FUCKER!” The problem is that I separate argue from fight. I like to test my brain. I like having my positions challenged. In polite adult society, that never happens. So I go and pick at people once in awhile. I’m willing to “over” analyze some interaction or conversation because the odds are in my favor we’re doing a disservice to our potential for communication.
Just think. What could we discover when, as habit and history seems to speak to, we decide I’m not the enemy? What if we accepted that I’m “just” talking or probably making a joke, so when I question something or recall an idea, it has nothing to do with you personally? Oh, what a dream! Where could we go if I heard you sound as despotic as me as I’ve described the living nightmare of minimum wage work to nowhere? What could we learn about “love” and togetherness if you sent me drafts of your thoughts regarding the words or the “time and place” they should be considered paramount?
Every day there’s a dozen conversations I don’t get to have. I don’t get to learn about what you do, what you’re struggling with or have given up on. I don’t know how you’ve changed since college. I don’t know what you’re catching yourself saying or doing more or less as you get older. Random facebook chats won’t cut it. A few phone calls about the “nothing much” either of us is doing won’t suffice either. Whatever you pick to show the world through facebook can just go on ahead and lick a pair of hairy balls.
What’s sad is that I’m not even angry about it anymore. I’m going as dead to my conception of togetherness and friendship as our inundated existences taught us we should be. But, mine’s worse because it’s feeling like a self-preservation choice and not a taken for granted “truth” of existence. I came, I saw, I shit the bed and found myself complaining with an inability to clean it up.
So what, need a tl/dr right? If you’re going to shit on me, please do, but like, actually try. I certainly don’t hate you, but don’t ask me to define “friend.” And the proverbial “people” do as they’ve always done and here I sit pretending I’m justified or surprised. What else is new?
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