Jaded

This was written for a class November 15th 2012:

"I wrote a small piece during class October 15th: 'Let me posit a theorem: None of this fucking matters.

Everyone in politics, media, public, it's all just grand gestures and petty thievery on a stage.

Real life continues on as normal; the winter comes sooner every year, the weather changes, people die and live and farm and breathe. And it doesn't matter who wins because nothing really changes. I hear people say that “in the old days...” what? The nature of people remains the same. There is always a minimum of voices for a majority of votes and very little individuality.

Say Candidate A and Candidate B are running for office. Say Candidate A wins. Guaranteed, there will be a war (well, a conflict. War isn't politically correct). There will be a scandal (potentially life-changing for someone). There will be at least three protests per term about an issue that everyone will think will change the world in some deep, ineffable nature. Change is set in stone.

Now, Candidate A won't be able to do anything, because the new rising feeling in the nation will be the politics of Candidate B's party, and even a portion of Candidate A's party will be stricken by an uneasy feeling that perhaps...just perhaps...all of their posturing and strutting about change and bettering oneself, all of the acting onstage about traditions and in morality plays is just that: Acting.

Off-stage, our candidates behave just like people. They make mistakes, they lie, and - possibly the most unforgivable sin in America - they are wrong.

And nothing will change.'

This was before the election; and I find that nothing has really changed. I came into college angry, ready to fight the evils of the world and raise up justice to its previous place on top of the world...only to find that it's an impossible task to raise up thin air. You can't fight yourself.

I've been taking too many classes designed to make me angry, designed to make me stand up and say “This isn't right and here's what I'm going to do about it”. But here's the thing. No one person changes anything. People are agents of change; that is to say, change will happen no matter what one single person does. Because the human race is, while fairly static in some respects, remarkably fluid in others. The existence of change is something that is guaranteed; something that is, in fact, never going to change. King Arthur's knights existed nowhere but in the imagination of a lonely child. Don Quixote is a better comparison for the human race – endlessly tilting at windmills.

The difficulty lies in the fact that all media, at heart, is a story, and all stories try to explain something. It doesn't have to be a story that's true. What matters now is our pleasant fiction that a story that meets all of the pieces of evidence is true. What matters now is how badly we want to believe certain things. There are no monsters under the bed. You will walk home safely (and if you don't, you're obviously doing it wrong). No one really dies (And it's almost certainly someone's fault if they do). All of our parents are understanding and innately born with the gift to lead (and if they aren't, they're doing it wrong). At some point in your life, you too will transform into this rare creature, this adult, and you too will have the authority to solve the world's problems. And if you don't, well. You're obviously doing it wrong. With this much privilege, (we are the golden children of the world, after all), this much wealth and opportunity – if you don't take advantage of it, there is obviously something wrong with you. You're a deviant, a radical, worse, you are lazy.

The media gives us certain images, certain archetypes of people: the hero, the warrior, the bright protector, against the sneaky, the conniving, the small and the dark. We aren't expected to choose favorites, like in a football game; why should we have to, when it's already done for us?Yes, I am cynical. I am jaded, I am angry, and I am perversely proud of it. And I'll cheer for anyone who I know isn't trying to manipulate me. Which isn't a long list at all anymore."

Chik fil a: My sentiments

Alright.

My sentiments on the Chik-fil-A debacle:

-Everyone. Calm the HELL down.

-Personally, I wish that everyone liked each other, and respected each other's views. While I'm at it, I'd also like a pony and Venezuela.

-That said, that would be really boring. You get the most interesting things from the edge of conflict. The desire of something that's impossible can make possible the improbable.

-The main problem with both sides of this issue is that we don't want to be tolerant anymore; we want to be *right*. And we want the other side to admit it. And maybe grovel for a few years. It's the human condition to be an overbearing jerk.

-The idea of free speech is being dramatically overplayed here. While I have the freedom to say one thing, everyone else has that same freedom to disagree with me publically. The line is drawn where we start actually becoming a menace to society: like if I yelled "Fire!" in a theater. Because that creates more conflict. Don't bitch about free speech and then turn around and tell me that I can't say what *I* think, because that isn't how the world works. It's at such a point of conflict right now that it's essentially a non-issue, because it feels like everyone this thing has the same opinion on it. And I'm pretty sure that opinion is "I do what I want."

-I believe in gay marriage. I believe in free speech. I believe in a lot of things. I also believe that my moral stance has NOTHING to do with what I use my wallet for. I am a college student. I work so that I can afford school. If the food that I eat happens to come from somewhere that is run by a person whose opinion doesn't align with mine, I. Don't. Care. If that makes me a hypocrite, then so be it, but I am not at the point in my life where I can afford to care where my 5 dollars are going.

-That said, I've actually never heard of chik fil a before this past two weeks. Every time you protest something, you run the risk of giving it the "underdog image". And people love the idea of championing the underdog.

-But really, my main point is:

Everyone. Calm the Hell Down.

-I welcome responsible comments and discussion.

My definition of responsible is subject to the cruel whims of whichever book I happen to be reading at the time, but feel free to play the lottery and tell me why I'm wrong. Or right.

Discrimination

I feel that I shouldn't have to tell people that I'm pretty much a liberal. mostly. At any rate, I definitely lean left.
Just saying.
If that somehow offends you, then I worry for the future, I really do.

Anyway, I was on facebook, and there's a group on there called "some people are alive only because it's illegal to kill them" that I like because they post very cool quotes and sayings that are fun. So today - or yesterday - I forget, they had a link to another group called "Shut down FB accounts of homophobes and racists," which I don't really agree with, because you've got to let opponents get their ideas out there, because of...
1.) Free speech and
2.) If you shut them down, you're guilty of discrimination, and then more people will go to the opponent's side, because they're the underdogs and
3.) If they get their ideas out there, then hopefully more people will realize what total jerks they actually are.
But yeah.

So the comments on that - most of which I DID agree with and like - included this choice morsel...with which, obviously, I didn't:
-well God created Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve...and try as I may not to be...I know I can be a racist....a true racist I can agree they are a waste of skin....-

Do you understand my frustration?
I actually did a really huge paper on this for class once. Don't remember what grade I got on it, but it was a good paper. I thought so, anyway. But I have a great pastor at my church (United Methodist, by the way) who gave me one or two of the following points.

My argument:
Oh my god. That's one of the most irritating arguments out there. 1.) Only works on christians. 2.) There are at least two cases of same-sex relationships in the Bible. and no one gets smited. (Naomi and Ruth? Jonathan and David?) 3.) Also...IF god created adam and eve, he also doesn't like divorce. If we keep marriage "sacred" then divorce should be illegal. try getting THAT through congress. 4.) Do the words "love your neighbor" ring a bell? 5.) All of the bits in the Bible that are versus same-sex relationships...or that people USE against same-sex marriages are in the same section where we stone adulterers. And burn witches. I imagine the Wicca groups in the country would love that.

...

But really. Did you know that what Ruth tells Naomi is used in weddings today?
"Ruth says, "Entreat me not to leave you, or to turn back from following you; For wherever you go, I will go; And wherever you lodge, I will lodge; Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried. The LORD do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me." (Ruth 1:16-17 NKJV)" --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Ruth

Also - Further pointage...
There are TWO separate chapters of Genesis' beginnings story. One is where God creates Adam and Eve to procreate and multiply and etc. (Which is a definite problem right now, what with overpopulation. And The Catholic Church just sent India hurtling back into the dark ages by forbidding the teaching of birth control, which means that India's strained resources are even more strained. Thanks much, Bible)
The second is where God creates them to be "companions for each other". (This really gets to me in the series The Last Herald-Mage of Valdemar, by Mercedes Lackey (http://www.mercedeslackey.com/) You should read them.)

Also, I have always been a strong believer in the idea that you should leave people's lives ALONE.
More on this next post.
(EDITED: I never actually wrote about this. I have no idea why not. I think I was going to say something flammatory about abortion...but I can't remember.)

So yeah.
Officially sick of discrimination.