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."

Pick Up the Pieces

Osama Bin Ladin is dead.

So yay and everything. A man who probably wouldn't have been able to become so powerful without our original military/weapon help is now dead.

The war's not over. None of the wars are over. Iraq, Libya back-up, revolutions in Middle East, the War on Terrorism (Thanks, Bush, for declaring war on a concept.) Soldiers are still everywhere, still fighting so we can live in our suburban houses with our two door garage and our 2.7 children and don't have to get touched by anything that isn't "clean," isn't "right" for our kids. I bet their families are celebrating. They can come home, right? Nope.

We still have a national debt that our *children* won't be able to pay off - and it's rising.

And did you know New Orleans is *still* rebuilding? Yeah, six years later. Thanks, FEMA.

Plus, you know, the 857 tornadoes last month kind of screwed our "great nation" over in a big way. Whole towns have been destroyed. Wiped off the map. People were killed, are dead. Yeah, I bet their families are celebrating. While they're trying to salvage what they can from the wreckage of their lives. Because, hey, rains are coming...which will destroy whatever they have left out.

That's just the US. Just a small part of what's wrong.

And the thing that's right is that we're celebrating a man's death?

Because he became what we probably made him to be?

National Holiday? What will we call it? Yay It's Over Day? Yes He's Dead Day? How about War Win? Except the war isn't over, is it? And we haven't won it yet, I don't care what the press releases say.

So yay. He's dead. See me waving my tiny little American flag in the parade as they march with a funeral procession.

See me cheering.

Can we pick up the pieces *now*?