from May 2006
what is life really about anyway?
we are born. we learn to speak. we learn to feel and live and say our abcs, but why? who decided that letters, like the ones i'm typing right now, can form together to make words?
because one day someone woke up and decided to put everything together, to give it a meaning, to teach it to society, to spread it as far as they could, and that is what is the norm, what is acceptable, what is the best way to live.
kind of like how one day someone printed the face of an elderly man onto a small strip of paper and called it money. in turn that piece of paper acquired value and importance and became a necessity to live, to survive. kind of like that piece of paper became another piece of paper, slightly less flimsy; more simply designed and easier to use, a check. you arent actually dispensing multiple strips of value but one, one that represents the value as a whole.
eventually the value morphed into plastic. drop it, rip it, it will not budge, and yet slides so easily into a machine that reads and calculates the value, reducing it accordingly because the bread you needed to feed your family is worth so much. eventually that value became non existent, a credit, there for those who, if asked, could not produce those multiple strips of paper that were given so much meaning long ago. but these people want to be accepted, they want to be distinguished and possess material items to achieve what they are fooled to believe is the meaning of happiness. or perhaps hold no other choice to get by.
the world has become such a selfish and depressing hole that people will continue to bury themselves in it until they cant get out.
DEBT.
more paper, more plastic, and you will find your way out. says who?
question everything.
but why can we as a society simply not just exist? just feel? love, hate, experience, and appreciate everything in this world that existed before materialism and social class consumed us? and by us I do refer to the majority of the society, there are indeed a few of those left who really and truly live.
it is sometime after four a.m. you've been drinking and can't sleep. you hop in the car at random to drive for hours and you do this because well, you just can. racing the sun in a ninety-three saturn with five cases of beer coursing through your veins... and somehow making it to the oceanfront alive. you watch the sharp rays of the rising sun reflect from the ocean, shining onto a reverse three dimensional symbol of peace carved into the sand.
the tide will come, and this will disappear, but it was experienced. just a velvet strip of sand for miles, a glittering body of water so large and powerful but so serene at this instant, enjoying its last hours of freedom before society engulfs it. A free spirit cast here and there, FEELING and just BEING as they were meant to.
god blessed us with five senses vital to existence: sight, touch, hearing, taste, and smell. At this moment, you need nothing else, and you realize this, and you try to put it into words because that is what you have been taught to do, but you are speechless.
nineteen years old with a cold beer and a cigarette in hand, sand clinging to your damp skin as you continue to let the water wash up on your bare legs.
true happiness.
you are two years short of society not condemning you for the beverage and an eternity short of them not looking down on you for inhaling a little smoke into your lungs because its one of those calming little pleasures in life. but you are above society, you know that you are alive, you know that you will die, and you rise above.
above what?
if you need to ask then you are not there yet.
the world is calm, still, quiet except for the waves gently contacting the shore, delicately as though they do not want to disturb anything that is happening in this moment. its so beautiful and yet only a literal few are there to embrace it.
now disappear.
reappear at this same scene mere hours later and the sand is gone, replaced with bodies, umbrellas, towels, and sunscreen to shield us from the beautiful fire which lights the earth and makes our very existence possible. the water glistens but not as passionately, it breaks onto the shore no more heavily than before, but children run from it.
it isnt as beautiful now.
not because it doesnt appear beautiful, feel beautiful, sound beautiful, taste beautiful, smell beautiful, but because this is the only moment during which society really appreciates it because now it has value. living temporarily or permanently in this location requires money, it requires time. It requires rebuilding your beach house year after year to surpass the height of the one next to it. it requires buckets and shovels and tanning oil and bikinis and necessities like a t shirt stating that yes, you were at the beach for your one week of vacation in the summer of 2006.
who says that you only get an allotted time period of freedom throughout your life now?
perhaps you will purchase a bottle of sand, a keychain, a bumper sticker, a ten dollar margarita with an umbrella on top, and a hermit crab to really top off the trip. perhaps your children, if you have them, will cry if they do not receive these things, because while the experience itself was amazing, you must have the material possessions to prove so.
but this is not any fault of their own. we are all raised in this state of mind, and we are all given the chance later on in life to repel it and break free.
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