Viva La Capitalism!

[judecorp]

I am disheartened. There's no icon for that, I'm sure, but I am. I'll tell you why.

I took a lovely walk this morning to Lincoln Tower to drop off my contract (YAY!). Apparently, there's a big Gap/Limited clearance sale going on at the Drake Union (which is across the street from Lincoln Tower). Underclass wimmin were streaming out of there in twos and threes with big Gap bags full of recently acquired purchases.

I just stood there, watching them wander away with their arms laden with purchases. Is /this/ what's important? Here I am, spending nights wondering how I would be with/talk to the ones I love if it came to that, wondering how I would get to my Yang, etc. I wonder about violence, and when we will break the cycle of anger and suffering and hurt. I wonder about racial profiling, and hate crimes. I spent half of yesterday afternoon at a meeting with a girl from Hillel so we can co-sponsor an anti-hate-crime rally thinger in memory of Kristallnacht. The Gap was the furthest thing from my mind.

I just felt so deflated. OSU is such an apathetic community as it is (rallies get 30-40 people in a university of 50,000 students)... but this? Le heaving sigh. I am Jack's Fanatic Global Empathy.

So on the long walk back to the Union, past the Biological Sciences building, past Mirror Lake, past the Amphitheatre (you are so totally taking this walk with me, Princess, it's lovely and when it's grey and blustery it is so very you), and toward work, I stopped at each and every worm I saw. Each little worm stretching across wet pavement, seeking moisture, seeking a new place to dig... I picked them up and gently rested them on the grass. So the hoardes couldn't stomp them. With their bicycles and their apathy and their double-wide shopping bags.

When I was seven, I was too sensitive. When I was twelve, I was an overreacter. When I was seventeen, I was in tune. When I was eighteen, I was empathic. When I was twenty, I was aware. I'm nearly twenty-six. Am I all of these things? Any of these things? They call me naive, and foolish, and cowardly. They tell me I don't understand. They tell me I won't survive in "the real world." All I know is this: That I was put on this planet for the little worms and the little humans, for the rivers and the animals and the trees, for the disenfranchised and the alienated, for the isolated, for the poor, for the hungry, for the mocked. I love you, Earth, and I love you, Humanity. Where are the other gentle souls?

Comments

[noog.livejournal.com]

And there is nothing wrong with living one's day to day life. It can be good for you; at times, it can even be beautiful.

I just wish people would look beyond that every so often. And that they wouldn't view people who do look beyond the day-to-day negatively, who view them as overly idealistic and naive for doing so. That's all.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

I think it's easy for people to use words like "naive." So many people are caught in ruts, and these ruts deepen as they get older. They get up. They go to work. They grumble. They come home. They grumble. They go to bed. I think a lot of these people think wistfully to their youth as something out of a fantasy book, something that is idealistic and not meant to last.

So many times I hear people tell me or people I care about, "Well, you're young. Wait until you get older, that changes..." I want to do the things that I love for the rest of my life? Naive! Don't I know that soon I will be slaving away at something I hate?

What it comes down to, I think, is wistful jealousy (as opposed to malicious). Everyone had ideals at one time or another, and somehow, they lost theirs. It makes them feel better to think that /everyone/ loses theirs, that it's a part of growing up. I dunno. Bleh.

[noog.livejournal.com]

I agree-- I think it's hard for people to face the fact that they've abandoned their ideals. They accept that loss as a matter of course, because it is easier than admitting to themselves that they gave up. This is especially true for the baby boomers, who are the ones that tell this to me the most-- they grew up as a generation of idealists, and as a generation they gave that idealism up. I don't mean to sound petty, but I think that baby boomers often begrudge the younger generation their ideals because they weren't able to hold onto theirs.

Youth isn't, as many older people believe, a series of scenes from a fantasy book. Granted, I'm still in mine, but I had a hell of a time when I was younger. I've risen up out of some of the problems I had in the past, and I'm going to keep rising, regardless of what other people tell me I can do. And if that's "naive", well, so be it.

Youth and Problems

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

We remember things better than they actually were. I would bet that if you asked most of these baby boomers and others about their adolescences while they were adolescents, they would remember how chaotic and difficult they were. But several decades down the road, you remember:

a) that you had only a part time job
b) that you didn't have to pay rent
c) that you had less responsibilities.

Therefore, they think everything was sunshine and roses. :) Adolescence is prime for ideals, social action, and activism. You are in your prime. But you CAN keep it into your 20s and beyond. Please do. :)

[noog.livejournal.com]

It's sad, isn't it? People spend most of their childhood wishing they were adults for the freedom adulthood grants them, and then spend most of their adult lives wishing they had the carefree life of someone younger. If people would just focus on the joy of being what they are here and now... but that sounds like a chapter from a self-help book and it's probably not going to happen. Sigh.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

If people would just focus on the joy of being what they are here and now... but that sounds like a chapter from a self-help book and it's probably not going to happen.

TV and movies. They give us a skewed sense of reality - that somewhere, someday, we will find that one perfect thing that we were meant to find all along, that we will know instantly, that it will require no work and will always be sunny and wonderful.

"I don't want to fall in love. I want to fall in love in the movies."