I stood in the back corner of the Harvard book store, moving my eyes quite languidly over the multi-colored spines and lettering. There is nothing in particular I am looking for, simply, enjoying the view. In my right arm, two books loosely sit. Given that I find another more intriguing, either one could be replaced, but I have to set myself to minimum, and also a maximum, of two books. Too many and I limit my chances of coming back to this beautiful book store sooner rather than later, but just one is not enough. I can practically feel the french roast from next door electrifying my weak veins, as my eyes keep focus on a pale blue moderately sized paperback. I reach up, pull down on the top of the spine and shimmy it out of it's cozy little home on the book shelf. Judging a book by it's cover, they say it's bad, but I continue day in and day out. Something on this cover doesn't jump out at me. Is it the font? the overused computer generated portrait of an allegedly calming landscape? Perhaps just the title, or something lacking in the story line. Where is the emotional turmoil and interpersonal connection with the characters? I laugh silently to myself and repeat under my breath "too picky", and return it to the aged oak shelf. I have begun to feel content with my two choices, but still meander through the other aisles, contemplating the other genre choices and reminding myself that it's time to start studying once again. I move out of the way for other shoppers, while simultaneously positioning myself in the route of another. I apologize profusely and slide my feet over once more, closer to the empty cash register adorned with overpriced candies and bookmarks. Smile, nod, say thank you. Good-bye.
It is hot today and I am in a long sleeved shirt. White, 3/4 length sleeves and jeans with the same flip flops I wear everyday. I tuck the new, crisp beautiful books into my tote and continue back toward my car, parked down past the Harvest. I pass by the door way to the MoTu office that my sister once worked in, and remember the oversized Apple computers they used to design the software. I had fantasized about being in that chair one day, but I guess somewhere along the way, it began to look uncomfortable. Harvard looks especially bright today, and I contemplated a stroll through the campus, but it seemed to be bustling with new arrivals, and unfortunately I had to get going to my second job for the remainder of the day. I felt good. I imagined that someone I knew would happen to be walking around Harvard Square at that same moment, see me and think 'My, she looks happy'. When I returned to my car, the smile seemed to melt right down my left arm as I picked the daunting parking ticket from my sleek black windshield wiper. But almost immediately after I felt nothing could ruin this moment for me. These are moments we don't see often, 'relish' I thought, in an almost cinematically gentle whisper. I pull away from the curb and head back where I came from.
I am working hard to quit smoking, and today does not help much. I have nothing in the car, and contemplate stopping by the local convenience store, but I think better of it. Stepping back down the ladder would be an almost perfect way to destroy my overwhelming elation. Cas Haley in the speakers, sunglasses and speed. I imagine myself on the beach with my new books and pair of headphones, that is where I should be driving to, but I am not. I pull into the parking lot, circle and squeeze my Scion into a nearby spot and continue on my way to another few hours of work.
There are somedays that I am thankful for my co-workers. They keep me sane, remind me what laughing right from the pit of my stomach feels like, they take me away from my computer and in front of human beings, both good and bad. But somedays, I wonder what would happen if I left. I would have free time, time to read all those books at a spritely pace. Time to spend with my sisters and friends or perhaps the brown eyed mystery man from the Cambridge church. But I remind myself of how bored I felt when I left. I get consumed in my own thoughts. I write pages and pages and think it could be a book, laugh, and then put it away to never look upon again. Drink the wine, smoke the cigarette and lay back in bed just stare out the window at the street lights behind the wilting tree branches.
How many letters have a written? I imagine how many of the same sullen morbid lines I have jotted again and again. Reminds me of the Spanish vocab drills my 8th grade teacher would ask of us, rewriting the same lines 10 times over, emblazoning them in your mind for days until they'd leak out during sleeping hours the night before the exam. But I digress. Letters, how many? and how many never mailed. Letters to my family, my friends, dead presidents, inanimate objects and customers I've dealt with through the years. Letters that proclaim so much, or absolutely nothing at all. But never read. Never even sealed in an envelope and stamped. Never even torn from the cheap Family Dollar spiral bound notebooks, piling up on the floor in the corner just beneath my bed. For now, the letters stay hidden. I plug in my shiny new fan, peel back the first pages of this new book. Before long, I am sleeping restlessly to the quiet voice of Kris Delmhorst.
To My Dearest __________,
How was your day today? I found a sun spot on my left hand this morning while applying my hand cream. It reminded me of how bright you are. How you had at one time illuminated the darkest places within me. How your smile caused such burns that I merely welcomed, throwing the SPF to the side and shutting my eyes tight against the intense heat. Even in the coldest nights in the deepest of December, never did my lips quiver, my knees quake, or my spine shake. But today I am cold, and it feels quite refreshing.
I awake to a dull slow pounding. I immediately think, in my drunken state, that it is my alarm clock, but after a few more pounds, know that this can not be right. My mind is not spinning, my head feels no pain. Perhaps the TV next door. Damned city, I can hear the conversations of the married couple three houses down. The clock reads 4:27am, perhaps the landlord, it was said that she tends to wake up early. I rise from my bed to round the doorway into the bathroom, the pounding has ceased for the moment. But before I could open the door, it has begun again. I move towards the window in the kitchen, while messily pouring a tall glass of lemonade. Doesn't sound any louder out this way. I make the 25 step trip to the front door and stumble up against the view finder. Nothing. Must be a TV somewhere in the neighborhood, sound on this street can echo like a canyon. Ignore it, back to bed.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Chapter 1 (just to keep track)
I awoke to a pounding sound. My heart? Footsteps? A fist at the door? I couldn’t be sure. Heart and mind cloudy with sleep and sweat, I push myself from my overused mattress and stumble to the broken down door. My eyes refuse to open and my knee meets the wall violently, loud curses fling themselves from my lazy lips. The wood floor creaks achingly under my gentle footsteps to the door and I peer through the viewer, conveniently placed 6 inches above my short frame. Nothing. The hallway is as black as pitch and still as the wind on this painfully humid night. Must have been a dream I reassure myself and dangerously make my way back to the bedroom.
The morning is always a difficult time. My fingers meet the snooze button time and time again over a period of about an hour, until the time catches up with me and I have no time. A quick brush of the hair and teeth, two slices into the toaster, jeans, a t-shirt, a sweatshirt to cover the tattoos and flip flops. Fill the tote with all the necessary items for the day, am I working tonight? Thankfully, no. Two jobs and a rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle. I pretend to hate it. I make sure I have everything and shut my bedroom door, my knee aches with the memory of my rude midnight awakening and I spend most of my morning commute to work scrunching my eyebrows at negligent Boston drivers and trying to remember that dream, or even if I had one at all. I pull into a parking spot at work, repack all the things that I pulled out of my bag during the drive and slam the door, my sweatshirt catching in the crack. I tug at it violently hoping that it’s just slightly stuck, but instead have to dig deep in my bag to find the keys, unlock the door, pull my sweatshirt out, drop the keys, nail my head on the door, shut it with a furrowed brow and head to my desk.
The day ends in a flurry. I’ve thrown back two or three coffees, I’m not really sure, and I’m on my 2nd liter of water. I wave goodbye to my co-workers, clock out and head to my car, removing my sweatshirt, now that the sun has graced the day with its presence. I slather a generous helping of SPF 30 onto my left arm to properly protect my tattoos from the beautiful rays of the sun, pull to the end of the drive way, slide on enormously oversized sunglasses, and light a menthol cigarette. My ride home is equally as enjoyable as the ride in, clear on the highway for the most part. I gracefully tuck the tail end of my burning cigarette between my thumb and middle finger and flick it forcefully out the window, watching it violently land on the pavement in my side view mirror. I contemplate dinner plans and think if there are any errands I need to run before landing at home. I decide to rightly discipline myself, head home and finish all the projects that I had told myself I would do when I moved in over a month ago.
Checklist:
1) Hang curtains
2) Living room extension cords for lamps
3) Clean dresser and dispose of dead flowers
4) Collect clothing for consignment.
A never ending checklist I must keep in mind. Every time I manage to knock off one thing another three creep upon me. Perhaps I should actually treat this apartment like home, as I never have for any of my previous apartments. I park around the corner as I still do not have a sticker to park on the street I live on, and head inside for the night, which I’m almost sure will end up wasted. My key sticks in the door, but with a little shoulder grease I bash it open and proceed directly to my bedroom. A quick check in the mirror to make sure I’m not dead, dry off the hands and I stand at the center of my room, glaring at the curtains, possibly trying to will them to just simply hang themselves. The truth is it will only take 5 minutes, but it’s 5 minutes that I would much rather be doing something totally unrelated and not nearly as productive. And I begin to ponder, why curtains? Why anything? A topic that I’m sure I will have to sleepily jot about in my spiral bound journal later on in the night with a glass of red wine in one hand and bleeding ink in the other. The stereotypical writer; a drunk. I begin contemplating pouring a glass for myself at this precise moment, but think better of it as I’m trying to save that Renaissance for perhaps a special visit later this week. A special visit that I desperately wish I would stop looking forward to and rehearsing in my head as if I would be tested later. A special visit that is truthfully, not special at all. I propose to throw what seems like a mere handful of laundry from the tower building in the corner into the washing machine and snatch up a chair from the kitchen in order to properly wrestle with the curtains.
With the curtains hung, the washing machine spinning and flowers still rotting away as graciously as ever, I decide on hot dogs for dinner. I gently make slits along the dogs, listening and watching intently as they snap and pop in the fry pan. How did I get here? Why curtains, who cares? Is Boston really my home? Do I really love that dirty water? I feel like a traitor just thinking it in my own head. My disconnection with reality sometimes feels so great that I feel like my own overcooked hot dog. Burnt around the edges, just enough that my friends want to ask me what’s wrong, but still soft and juicy in the middle, laughing at the politically incorrect jokes and the consequentially misshapen faces, drinking at the bar and engaging in paper thin conversations and concerning myself with the placement of my bra strap. I’m thinking too much about it. This is too intense of a thought process for a simple Tuesday night. Slowly turning the burner to off, I roll the hot dogs over for one more quick sizzle. I empty the contents of the pan onto my brightly colored dinner plates, which I hoped would bring some life to this kitchen, but only make me sad each time I remember that I spent $8 per plate. I numb myself by the light of the History channel, my mind spinning until finally I shut it off and turn myself in for the night.
One glass of wine, which I am making up for because I didn’t drink with dinner. Another to warm my sullen bones. Perhaps a third just because I love the way it makes my letters look on the $.99 pages. I wish I could cry tonight, but perhaps the sodium in the hot dogs has dried me up. I keep writing. Write here, write now. Writing the wrongs, the cigarette burns, the humiliations and catastrophes in a mere 24 hours. Write. My pen bleeds and smudges, streaking my palms and finger tips like black blood. Or perhaps it is my blood and I just have no color left in me. I contemplate rising for another glass but my movement is muddied and thick. Twenty pound toes, and fingers with such fortitude. I continue on writing, not so sure what is with the fascination to fling myself so violently against this page, but I am here and I am not leaving. I linger for moment on the deep brown eyes of the kind face sitting opposite from me in last nights Al-Anon meeting. I didn’t catch his name, but perhaps it could be Dave, or Ben, or Mike. The options are endless, but what’s in a name truly. I ponder how perfectly the tiny tornadoes of toxic air flittered around his thick digits while waiting for the bus. Around mine, they seemed significantly less graceful, almost menacing and malicious in nature. My attention to this single detail irritates me and I try to move on, but somehow I always manage to motion back to some utterly mindless simplicity surrounding the mystery of Dave/Ben/Mike…. Whatever his name is.
My eyes lids begin to droop with a soupy movement. I drink down the last sip of wine, feeling one last wave of warmth move over my thick body. Click off the light, and rest my bones.
The morning is always a difficult time. My fingers meet the snooze button time and time again over a period of about an hour, until the time catches up with me and I have no time. A quick brush of the hair and teeth, two slices into the toaster, jeans, a t-shirt, a sweatshirt to cover the tattoos and flip flops. Fill the tote with all the necessary items for the day, am I working tonight? Thankfully, no. Two jobs and a rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle. I pretend to hate it. I make sure I have everything and shut my bedroom door, my knee aches with the memory of my rude midnight awakening and I spend most of my morning commute to work scrunching my eyebrows at negligent Boston drivers and trying to remember that dream, or even if I had one at all. I pull into a parking spot at work, repack all the things that I pulled out of my bag during the drive and slam the door, my sweatshirt catching in the crack. I tug at it violently hoping that it’s just slightly stuck, but instead have to dig deep in my bag to find the keys, unlock the door, pull my sweatshirt out, drop the keys, nail my head on the door, shut it with a furrowed brow and head to my desk.
The day ends in a flurry. I’ve thrown back two or three coffees, I’m not really sure, and I’m on my 2nd liter of water. I wave goodbye to my co-workers, clock out and head to my car, removing my sweatshirt, now that the sun has graced the day with its presence. I slather a generous helping of SPF 30 onto my left arm to properly protect my tattoos from the beautiful rays of the sun, pull to the end of the drive way, slide on enormously oversized sunglasses, and light a menthol cigarette. My ride home is equally as enjoyable as the ride in, clear on the highway for the most part. I gracefully tuck the tail end of my burning cigarette between my thumb and middle finger and flick it forcefully out the window, watching it violently land on the pavement in my side view mirror. I contemplate dinner plans and think if there are any errands I need to run before landing at home. I decide to rightly discipline myself, head home and finish all the projects that I had told myself I would do when I moved in over a month ago.
Checklist:
1) Hang curtains
2) Living room extension cords for lamps
3) Clean dresser and dispose of dead flowers
4) Collect clothing for consignment.
A never ending checklist I must keep in mind. Every time I manage to knock off one thing another three creep upon me. Perhaps I should actually treat this apartment like home, as I never have for any of my previous apartments. I park around the corner as I still do not have a sticker to park on the street I live on, and head inside for the night, which I’m almost sure will end up wasted. My key sticks in the door, but with a little shoulder grease I bash it open and proceed directly to my bedroom. A quick check in the mirror to make sure I’m not dead, dry off the hands and I stand at the center of my room, glaring at the curtains, possibly trying to will them to just simply hang themselves. The truth is it will only take 5 minutes, but it’s 5 minutes that I would much rather be doing something totally unrelated and not nearly as productive. And I begin to ponder, why curtains? Why anything? A topic that I’m sure I will have to sleepily jot about in my spiral bound journal later on in the night with a glass of red wine in one hand and bleeding ink in the other. The stereotypical writer; a drunk. I begin contemplating pouring a glass for myself at this precise moment, but think better of it as I’m trying to save that Renaissance for perhaps a special visit later this week. A special visit that I desperately wish I would stop looking forward to and rehearsing in my head as if I would be tested later. A special visit that is truthfully, not special at all. I propose to throw what seems like a mere handful of laundry from the tower building in the corner into the washing machine and snatch up a chair from the kitchen in order to properly wrestle with the curtains.
With the curtains hung, the washing machine spinning and flowers still rotting away as graciously as ever, I decide on hot dogs for dinner. I gently make slits along the dogs, listening and watching intently as they snap and pop in the fry pan. How did I get here? Why curtains, who cares? Is Boston really my home? Do I really love that dirty water? I feel like a traitor just thinking it in my own head. My disconnection with reality sometimes feels so great that I feel like my own overcooked hot dog. Burnt around the edges, just enough that my friends want to ask me what’s wrong, but still soft and juicy in the middle, laughing at the politically incorrect jokes and the consequentially misshapen faces, drinking at the bar and engaging in paper thin conversations and concerning myself with the placement of my bra strap. I’m thinking too much about it. This is too intense of a thought process for a simple Tuesday night. Slowly turning the burner to off, I roll the hot dogs over for one more quick sizzle. I empty the contents of the pan onto my brightly colored dinner plates, which I hoped would bring some life to this kitchen, but only make me sad each time I remember that I spent $8 per plate. I numb myself by the light of the History channel, my mind spinning until finally I shut it off and turn myself in for the night.
One glass of wine, which I am making up for because I didn’t drink with dinner. Another to warm my sullen bones. Perhaps a third just because I love the way it makes my letters look on the $.99 pages. I wish I could cry tonight, but perhaps the sodium in the hot dogs has dried me up. I keep writing. Write here, write now. Writing the wrongs, the cigarette burns, the humiliations and catastrophes in a mere 24 hours. Write. My pen bleeds and smudges, streaking my palms and finger tips like black blood. Or perhaps it is my blood and I just have no color left in me. I contemplate rising for another glass but my movement is muddied and thick. Twenty pound toes, and fingers with such fortitude. I continue on writing, not so sure what is with the fascination to fling myself so violently against this page, but I am here and I am not leaving. I linger for moment on the deep brown eyes of the kind face sitting opposite from me in last nights Al-Anon meeting. I didn’t catch his name, but perhaps it could be Dave, or Ben, or Mike. The options are endless, but what’s in a name truly. I ponder how perfectly the tiny tornadoes of toxic air flittered around his thick digits while waiting for the bus. Around mine, they seemed significantly less graceful, almost menacing and malicious in nature. My attention to this single detail irritates me and I try to move on, but somehow I always manage to motion back to some utterly mindless simplicity surrounding the mystery of Dave/Ben/Mike…. Whatever his name is.
My eyes lids begin to droop with a soupy movement. I drink down the last sip of wine, feeling one last wave of warmth move over my thick body. Click off the light, and rest my bones.
Monday, August 3, 2009
Family
This weekend while at my best friends house, her husband was watching a show called "Gamer Generation". Now I don't know what channel it's on, or what time it normally plays, as they embrace the wonderful world of DVR, but I can tell you this: it was cool from several different aspects.
The basis of the show that I somewhat caught from joining half way through was that it was based in the middle east and it was focusing on First Person Shooter games that are marketed in America. The show focused on how they feel that Arabs are ususally depicted as the enemy in these games and also how researchers felt that the severely aggresive nature of the games was affecting the aggresive nature of the player. One researchers believed that there was no affect, but after conducting tests, found that there was a significant affect on the brain while someone is playing a First Person Shooter, and the aggresive tendencies can become much more intense. The other factor to incorporate is how young adults perceive theses games. Do they understand that is satirical and mocking fun? Or have they immersed themselves in the alternate reality. The matter reaches all over the world, and through all races and ages. How do video games really affect our social behavior?
Well I'm sure it's an enormous topic, one that truthfully I can't speak to all that well, nor have the time and space in this blog to deeply and thoroughly investigate into. I have never been a video game player. I have dated many video game enthusiasts, but now, at my ripe old age of 24 I feel like guys that have immersed their lives in a video game (take World of Warcraft for example) just need to get a life. It cliche, but it works. I dabbled in Sonic the Hedgehog back in the day, and the closest I got to any real destruction came from the classic Wolfenstein. But given I'm a female, and I think it's pretty obvious that most female are not usually drawn to the death and destruction that a First Person Shooter game brings. We'd prefer the cutsie Little Big World, or a personal favorite, Rachet and Clank. It's clear in research all over the country that First Person Shooter games can lead to a desensitized, anti-social and more aggressive nature. http://www.independent.com/news/2009/may/17/your-brain-video-games/
It's interesting from a cultural and musical perspective because you want to look at the kids. What happens in their minds to feel like these actions are okay? I understand for many there is the fore-thought that the game is fake, but for some younger players, they can not understand the difference. There is is most certainly a power handed over to the player that they do not get in the real world, that draws them into these positions. The ability to control ones fate is an intoxicating and addicting feeling I can only assume. A similiar situation has basically surrounded the careers of serious metal musicians, ie. Marilyn Manson or Rob Zombie. Marilyn Manson more so because of his unique attire I propose. I remember many years ago the kid that were arrested for a shooting, claiming that the lyrics of a Marilyn Manson song told them to do it and I watched in the den of my parents house, shaking my head quietly. I think the kid was about the same age as me at the time.
I think that just the idea that we are positively drawn to the idea of having control of another life becomes the basis of the argument. Do we feel like because we can not control our own fates, the idea of controling someone else's is that much more seductive? Our own lives are not something that we find interesting, so thus we cling to gossip and propaganda surrounding celebrities, from their frosted tips down to the designer toe rings. It seems as thought for a lot of us, our own lives are just not sufficient. We're not living our lives to the fullest, we feel we're missing something, an opportunity or the chance of a lifetime. We feel like we're living vicariously through these stars in the magazines, trying to act and look like them as best we can to ensure we are the image of perfection. So does this same image transcend through music? Absolutely. Through video games? it would just about seem so. The concept seems to be about the same, except that the image is something twisted, angry and violent. They are trying to create for themselves a persona in which they can control their fate and the fate of others. A persona where they are powerful, invincible and free in every sense of the word. This persona can become completely mind altering to someone who carries an anti-social personality and does not feel connected, personally and emotionally, to a community in the real world. They find a home with the others with these same tendencies and the online community grows until such things as marriages happen. It seems like a total unplugging from the real world. A true Matrix.
Have we all kind of become like this, perhaps to much less of an extreme? With our blackberries and iPhones? I mean, I know that I've written about this already, but it always seems to become interconnected as you pull from all the different aspects of society. No matter if it be the video games or the palms to television. We have consumed ourselves with the idea of becoming someone else. I mean, something as simple as coloring your hair. I'm guilty, I'm a natural blonde and I colored my hair red about 6 years ago and about 4 years ago went black. I have no idea what I would even look like as a blonde. oh well, people say it suits me, perhaps it's the tattoos.
Now, letting go of all these fantasies and and whimsical notions is like admitting to alcoholism or drug addiction. It is something that we feel is okay for ourselves, until someone throws it in our face and we begin to question our nature at some point or another. Some realize something is wrong, most others simply write it off. I recall my moment, and everyday I try and remind myself about what it is that makes me who I am and more specifically, like no one else. I do not need video games, or celebrity gossip to feel apart of something, I am a human being, a part of the human race. If that community isn't small enough for you, I'm not sure what is. We have to share the earth with so many others, and even though not one of us shares the same fingerprint or laugh and smile, we're all pretty much family.
So don't hurt each other.
The basis of the show that I somewhat caught from joining half way through was that it was based in the middle east and it was focusing on First Person Shooter games that are marketed in America. The show focused on how they feel that Arabs are ususally depicted as the enemy in these games and also how researchers felt that the severely aggresive nature of the games was affecting the aggresive nature of the player. One researchers believed that there was no affect, but after conducting tests, found that there was a significant affect on the brain while someone is playing a First Person Shooter, and the aggresive tendencies can become much more intense. The other factor to incorporate is how young adults perceive theses games. Do they understand that is satirical and mocking fun? Or have they immersed themselves in the alternate reality. The matter reaches all over the world, and through all races and ages. How do video games really affect our social behavior?
Well I'm sure it's an enormous topic, one that truthfully I can't speak to all that well, nor have the time and space in this blog to deeply and thoroughly investigate into. I have never been a video game player. I have dated many video game enthusiasts, but now, at my ripe old age of 24 I feel like guys that have immersed their lives in a video game (take World of Warcraft for example) just need to get a life. It cliche, but it works. I dabbled in Sonic the Hedgehog back in the day, and the closest I got to any real destruction came from the classic Wolfenstein. But given I'm a female, and I think it's pretty obvious that most female are not usually drawn to the death and destruction that a First Person Shooter game brings. We'd prefer the cutsie Little Big World, or a personal favorite, Rachet and Clank. It's clear in research all over the country that First Person Shooter games can lead to a desensitized, anti-social and more aggressive nature. http://www.independent.com/news/2009/may/17/your-brain-video-games/
It's interesting from a cultural and musical perspective because you want to look at the kids. What happens in their minds to feel like these actions are okay? I understand for many there is the fore-thought that the game is fake, but for some younger players, they can not understand the difference. There is is most certainly a power handed over to the player that they do not get in the real world, that draws them into these positions. The ability to control ones fate is an intoxicating and addicting feeling I can only assume. A similiar situation has basically surrounded the careers of serious metal musicians, ie. Marilyn Manson or Rob Zombie. Marilyn Manson more so because of his unique attire I propose. I remember many years ago the kid that were arrested for a shooting, claiming that the lyrics of a Marilyn Manson song told them to do it and I watched in the den of my parents house, shaking my head quietly. I think the kid was about the same age as me at the time.
I think that just the idea that we are positively drawn to the idea of having control of another life becomes the basis of the argument. Do we feel like because we can not control our own fates, the idea of controling someone else's is that much more seductive? Our own lives are not something that we find interesting, so thus we cling to gossip and propaganda surrounding celebrities, from their frosted tips down to the designer toe rings. It seems as thought for a lot of us, our own lives are just not sufficient. We're not living our lives to the fullest, we feel we're missing something, an opportunity or the chance of a lifetime. We feel like we're living vicariously through these stars in the magazines, trying to act and look like them as best we can to ensure we are the image of perfection. So does this same image transcend through music? Absolutely. Through video games? it would just about seem so. The concept seems to be about the same, except that the image is something twisted, angry and violent. They are trying to create for themselves a persona in which they can control their fate and the fate of others. A persona where they are powerful, invincible and free in every sense of the word. This persona can become completely mind altering to someone who carries an anti-social personality and does not feel connected, personally and emotionally, to a community in the real world. They find a home with the others with these same tendencies and the online community grows until such things as marriages happen. It seems like a total unplugging from the real world. A true Matrix.
Have we all kind of become like this, perhaps to much less of an extreme? With our blackberries and iPhones? I mean, I know that I've written about this already, but it always seems to become interconnected as you pull from all the different aspects of society. No matter if it be the video games or the palms to television. We have consumed ourselves with the idea of becoming someone else. I mean, something as simple as coloring your hair. I'm guilty, I'm a natural blonde and I colored my hair red about 6 years ago and about 4 years ago went black. I have no idea what I would even look like as a blonde. oh well, people say it suits me, perhaps it's the tattoos.
Now, letting go of all these fantasies and and whimsical notions is like admitting to alcoholism or drug addiction. It is something that we feel is okay for ourselves, until someone throws it in our face and we begin to question our nature at some point or another. Some realize something is wrong, most others simply write it off. I recall my moment, and everyday I try and remind myself about what it is that makes me who I am and more specifically, like no one else. I do not need video games, or celebrity gossip to feel apart of something, I am a human being, a part of the human race. If that community isn't small enough for you, I'm not sure what is. We have to share the earth with so many others, and even though not one of us shares the same fingerprint or laugh and smile, we're all pretty much family.
So don't hurt each other.
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