I Don't Care About This Post

Sometimes I wonder if I should care about things like the Michigan/Michigan State game.  Then I wonder why I'm wondering in the first place.  I wonder if, truly, all actions are the products of society, or if an independent "self" (as the existentialists call it.  The religious folks call it a "soul," and the scientists, I think, call it a "cognitive thought process") rules our thoughts.

Maybe it's a combination of both.  That's what I've always thought.  But if it is truly a combination of both, where can we draw the line?  How do we establish where we are individual and where we are a product of social forces?  And how permanent is the "self"?  How easily malleable is a "soul"?

I guess these questions all depend on circumstances, but I hate to leave an answer so vague.

Perhaps a person is first created as a "confluence of forces," as the post-modernists have told us.  We act like our parents until we realize they're losers (but only because our peers tell us they are), so we rebel until we realize they were right all along.  But then, how do we realize that, if everyone is pressuring us in different directions?  And how to people break free of the terrible torments of a parent's abuse?

Perhaps, in times of inner turmoil, we begin to question our sense of "self," our sense of identity.  Perhaps we are most vulnerable (Is vulnerable the right word for change?  Certainly vulnerable carries a negative connotation, and surely most growth of personality is positive) to change when we feel most vulnerable about who we are.

But still, this explanation doesn't cover every circumstance.  People are indefinitely changing, even when they don't feel vulnerable.


But I guess assuming "all or nothing" would be ignorant anyway.  I am not a politician.  Perhaps a "ramp" or exponential growth curve maps the relationship of personal vulnerability and malleability.  Perhaps the change of "self" can be predicted given the right data and equations.  Perhaps life is a scientifically solvable problem (not that life is a problem).

But I don't like to think that.  I like to think something a little more substantial than mathematics maps out human existence.

But perhaps that comes in with how we start questioning our beliefs.

I Must Seem Like a Terrible Person

Sometimes I wonder how other people perceive me.  Most of the time, shortly after wondering, I think to my self, Fuck their opinions.  I don't give a shit.

But on those rare occasions I do give a shit, I ponder how other people see me, and I try to look at myself from a neutral perspective, judging as an outsider might, inferring from words I speak or write, and here's what I've concluded:

I must seem like a terrible person.

For example, if I didn't know me, I might look at a few of my past Facebook statuses to get a feel of what type of person I am.  Here they are in chronological order, going backwards:

1. "People of Facebook, stop liking things.  I really, really don't give a shit."
2.  "When I have children, I will name them Juggernaut, Alphons, and Death.  No wife of mine shall bear female offspring."
3. "Yes, being part of the Aryan* race is a requirement for dating me."
4. "Why do we love?"
5. And finally, "Fuck. This. Weekend.  FUCK!!!"

The last guy is only bad because I received a response from my aunt saying to tone down the language because her kids might read what I posted, and I only wanted to respond, "Fuck you."  I didn't, but I wanted to.

Well I'm here to tell you all today a secret.  It's a secret I've been keeping for a long time and one I never thought I'd tell while I was still alive.

I am not a bad person.  I'm mean.  I'm cruel.  I'm brutal.  But I always try to do the right thing, no matter how hard it might be.

Shouting a Nuance

I am Jack's crumpling sense of moral integrity.  I am submitting my opinions and ideas on the flaws of our society's social constructs into a 300 words or less column in a media form that only exists to appease the masses.

I disagree with my decision, but I'm following through with it anyway.

Look for my column, "Shouting a Nuance," in The Lookout, LCC's newspaper.  If you don't get The Lookout in your area, I'm going to post the columns on my blog anyway, regardless of legal troubles that may ensue.

Hopefully I'll find the motivation to start writing here more frequently too.

Heaven.

What if every change was a good one?
What if every choice changed the world?
And if every smile was full of laughter?
Would we ever let our lips uncurl?

What if every word saved a life?
And every verse, a thousand more?
What if every road led to love and peace?
Could we ever wish for more?

Poetry: The Passage of Time.

There are so many things I want to show you
Before my life is done;
So many words to tell you
But the days still swiftly come.

I want to give you to my heart
And everything on my mind
I want to pour out my thoughts
And watch, with you, the world go by.

But the historians are chronicling more quickly every day
And the facets of my thoughts are vanishing into the haze
I can't remember
I can hardly speak
My eyes are drying
Knees cracking weak.

I can't stop the world from spinning
I need to meet the next deadline
I need to rush, despair and panic
No, I can't spare you a dime.

But now, I feel, the world is spinning
And I can't even see your face
Because I'm too busy running about
To even stop and notice the place

I can't remember who I was.
I don't know who I've become
Because in the throes of life,
I've lost to what I once clung

But if I stopped, would you still love me?
Would you even know who I am?
If I stopped and saw the mirror
I don't think I'd like that man.

But I will try.

What was I thinking?
What did I feel?
If I can't see without you,
How can I know what's real?

If I can't see what really matters
If I can't touch or hold or feel
Then whatever doesn't bother
Is what's really real
And whatever I have worked for
That I've been "earning" all my life
Is just another object
That doesn't have life.

The world is weak
And life is bleak
For without love the point is naught.
And continued striving
And corporate climbing
Gains nothing that was saught.

So I'll take the time to tell you
I'll sit you down and speak
We'll stop and watch the world pass by
This promise, finally, I'll keep.

Lee's Blog: Organization.

I think I finally just figured out how I'm going to organize my blogs:
One blog.

Yes, that is what I'm doing now.  But!  Here's the secret to my new organization scheme:  It's all in the titles.

That's right.  My new blogs are going to be organized into categories based on their titles, so stuff that's just general Lee's Blog will be classified as "Lee's Blog:"  followed by whatever I feel like titling the entry.

But say I want to post something deep, I'll put it under the category of "Deep Thought:" or if I want to post something funny, I'll put it under "I pulled this out of the black hole in my closet:"

Or something to that effect.  What do you (the readers) think of this scheme?  Simple.  Organized.  Unified.

Or would you (the readers) prefer a more dispersed scheme?

A New Kind of Goal.

I have yet to create my second or third blogs, but it is decided that I most likely will.

However, this post would have been on this blog anyway.

I decided today as I was driving to Meijer to pick up some tennis balls for my drier that I'm adding a Kindof Goal to my list.  I am quitting social networking sites.

*Horrified Gasp*

But why Lee?  Why would you commit such a terrible, self-depriving act?  Why would you torment yourself so cruelly, so barbarously?

Because social networking sites suck.

For hours on end, I will sit in front of the computer screen attempting to find a way to entertain myself using social networking sites.  Why do I do this?  Because they exist, and they're supposed to be entertaining.  They're supposed to occupy people's time and people are supposed to enjoy that, but I never have.  I hate them.  They bore the fuck out of me.  If anyone pays attention to my social networking status updates, they'll know that I've posted at least three or four of them explaining how myspace/facebook has utterly failed in entertaining me, and does this daily.

But somehow, even with my intense hatred for them, I manage to lose my life to them, so I'm quitting all together.

See, a lot of times I'll be running through the Internet, trying to think of fun, Internet related things to do, because I know that I used to enjoy doing them, but whenever I'm on the computer, I'll have mybook or facespace open and numbly slide back to them, stare at the screen for a bit, and then shut down my brain entirely from boredom.  I cease even attempting to rid myself of boredom because of social networking sites -- I don't know why, don't ask me that, but I do, so I'm done with them.

I know the Internet can be fun.  It always used to be before I spent all of my time on myfacespacebook, and I am pledging the remainder of my life to rediscovering that fun.

I'm not tossing out twitter, though, because that can be useful, and I may comment a few status updates or something on the facemybookspace every once in a while.  This is just more of a "get rid of the terribleness of those sites from my life" goal.  Not a "destroy the good along with it" goal.